I wonder, would it be possible to make salt-water soaked and altered Cotton shields? These salt-water soaked/altered shields were as hard as Iron, and used by the Maya to combat the Spanish.
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Willow probably knows the answer to that.
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The advantage of iron is that it is very common (the 2nd most common metal in the universe after aluminum), while copper is a fairly rare metal. Bronze is comparable in strength to soft primitive iron.
It is possible to make bronze using arsenic, it does not require tin, dull copper ores already contain arsenic (for example, tennantite), but such production has a negative impact on health (arsenic is very toxic). Therefore, it is quite possible to implement this in the form of the possibility of producing bronze without tin in exchange for lowering the health of citizens.
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Which at the low level of development at that stage of civ probably wouldnβt lead to immediate reaction from the public.
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However, this will still have negative effects in the form of a decrease in the birth rate, an increase in the death rate, etc., even if the public completely ignores it.
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And also other illnesses I suppose. I presume then thereβd be more of a precedent to move towards iron, correct?
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" Copper ore is often naturally contaminated with arsenic; hence, the term βarsenical bronzeβ when used in archaeology is typically only applied to alloys with an arsenic content higher than 1% by weight, in order to distinguish it from potentially accidental additions of arsenic." source
also iβm pretty sure (partially substantiated by the same wikipedia article) that if you have much less that 1% arsenic your metal isnβt strong at all. You would need to find arsenic and add it, the arsenic in copper wonβt do it.
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I think this will be more correct from the point of view of game design, because making separate arsenic ores only for bronze age is pointless.
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I assume weβd have some ways of fast long-range communication, like the mountain-fires used by the byzantines for fastly passing info of an invasion?
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speed wise:
visual data > auditory data > olfactory data > tactile data
duration-wise:
tactile data > olfactory data > audio data β visual data
in other words audio is useless, however itβs also the most reliable I think, as visual communications can be blocked by smoke, physical barriers, sun glare, or nighttime.
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Gunpowder is a medieval invention, so I presume one could also replace the fires with large explosions?
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makes sense to me! thanks for letting me know.
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I suppose it could still be more common than one could think that a player would get too confident with their empire and eventually get it collapsed like how Rome fell.
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Has there ever been a discussion about if other species could evolve intelligence alongside the player?
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If you mean other species beside the Player-made species entering the Society Stage, there have been discussions about that. If I remember correctly, the devs have stated that only the Playerβs species will be in the Tribal and Society Stages.
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Ok. just wanted to know.
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Would the social groups of some smarter species like corvids, elephants or apes not be considered tribes?
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Are they considered tribes on Earth? Thatβs the answer.
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I recall some great apes form distinct βculturesβ and even βclansβ, which might be scratching aware-awakening transistionary territory.
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a variety of great apes, and orcas, are known to exhibit cultural practices and even tool use localized to specific groups and those they have lots of contact with. Corvids are known to spread information at an insane pace, including somewhat symbolic information which is non-literal and describes the future in some degree of theoreticalness (idk if thatβs a sane way to describe that), though i havenβt heard of any information they spread being considered to be cultural practices, or any tool use spreading purely through communication, so mammals might be winning.
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