Civilization size, job specialization, and smithing

mensrea · 2019-07-14 05:26:32

I wanted to share something I enjoy about this game, and something which happens so infrequently that I think it's easily missed.

Smithing to me is a special part of the game, not too much unlike baking. My start in this game was as a baker and transitioned to a love of smithing. Baking is somewhat a more forgiving activity than smithing. You must have certain tools but you only need to eat food. This allows a new player to be useful as a new baker and quickly try more advanced pies and foods. As a baker you still get the high actions per minute while in the bakery combining ingredients. A high actions per minute is something I enjoy. For a baker, you can do a large volume of mutton pies requiring little thinking but instead many repetitive actions. You can also make variety pies. In most towns, you probably gather your own variety ingredients, which generally gives a break in the high activity while you run off to the farm. You may get distracted with a carrot harvest or whatever. I also like to 'steal' pie crusts and light the oven, returning with raw carrot or berry pies to cook. Sometimes I slip in a carrot before the baker can sharp stone a plain rabbit bowl.

Smithing is a similar activity to baking, the majority of your job is localized to the forges. Smithing to me is a more advanced activity because of the optimizations you can make while playing. You generally want to get as much done in the time that the forge is firing. You don't want to occupy all of your flat rocks with cooling metal with nothing else useful to do, so you can fire some crucibles, or maybe save a flat rock for making wrought iron that immediately cools and can be removed from the flat rock.

Smithing is interesting because as you add players you can get more done. The most common assistance is the stone holder who smashes iron blooms and removes the wrought iron. You can add another assistant who simultaneously fires the crucibles. If you have multiple forges, you can get charcoal cooking in the extras to reduce downtime of the forge. If you have another person turning clay into pottery, then you can have that activity going at the same time as firing the forge.

Something fun to do is to run the forges for the smith. This is like the firebrand manager. He does his best to keep charcoal in the working forge for the smith, and the firebrand on fire continuously. This works best with a minimum of three forges. Always keep a forge on fire without covering with adobe to relight the firebrand is one rule that works. Otherwise, say with two forges, you sort of keep in mind how long the firebrand has been going, and delay covering the forge with adobe if the firebrand is going to go out. When the firebrand goes out, relight on the forge. Often I will have a helper who will repeatedly place the adobe just before I can relight the firebrand. And most of them have no clue what they've done. I don't appreciate the run to the town fire to relight my firebrand. It's time wasted. I've probably killed over it before, after aggravating factors like back talk.

Anyway, I find it quite enjoyable when I had five forges, and a similar number of people helping to smith. It's rare, and watching slower people end up with tongs in their hands or other objects can be funny to watch. It can also be infuriating when you needed one more blade for a kraut board and they stood there with the item you need cluelessly in their hands. But running the forge with many people doing work at the same time is a special part of this game. I'd describe it as highly coupled cooperation, in time and space. Most things in this game are loosely coupled. Somebody sometime made piles of firewood for example, which is used for days to keep the camp fire going. How many times have you seen two people making a diesel engine as fast as possible together?

In closing, the real heros are the men and women who bring the iron from the wilderness and leave piles around the forge. Also, the kindling gatherers.

If you have gotten this far, has anyone calculated or know the number of maple or lombardy trees required if you wanted to keep a small fire going indefinitely on kindling only harvested from tree branches.

ollj · 2019-07-14 05:49:58

stone holders are as rare as unicorns i nthe game, only third to kindling gathering.
your whole description sounds utopian and far from the common reality of the game, where half of all city extinctuins are likely because they ran out of kindling and axes and rope, and its usually the kindling first, then no axes are being made.
i found many ruins in many stages, with items in them, and its rarely an axe, kindling or raw-rope-stuff.

arkajalka · 2019-07-14 13:06:16

Ye total utopia this is. What i find people doing when they come to "help" is standing on top of the iron piles, picking up stuff in disorder and moving every single object to a different place at the forge.

What i like to do is lit a own fire for the forge. As you cant count on people actually keeping up the town fire. Might aswell have a fire at the forge which never wears out, but theres a downside tho. It attracts gossip girls. They come in hoardes with their babyes and berrymunching habbits. They starve you out of any foods you have gathered there to keep you fed while forging and block objects with their speech bubles and babyes. Ask you stupid intructions(where is bunnies, have you seen...)when you are obviously occupied wiht hardcore metal beating. Asking directions from smith is like asking a baby to spell blitzcrieg bop. Smiths stay at the forge. Ask the hunter!

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#1 2019-07-14 05:26:32

Civilization size, job specialization, and smithing

#2 2019-07-14 05:49:58

Re: Civilization size, job specialization, and smithing

#3 2019-07-14 13:06:16

Re: Civilization size, job specialization, and smithing

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