Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

DestinyCall · 2019-10-12 16:18:59

I've seen a lot of posts lately about how boring it is to play inside the rift. I think there are a number of reasons why this ends up being the case, but one of the problems is related to the speed of progression up the tech tree. Villages quickly advance from Eve camp to early village to established town within a single day. Once a town reaches end-tech, there are still things that need to be done to maintain the town and keep it alive, but the needs of each town are very similar which leads to greater repetition from life to life and less variety. After a certain point, if you don't know how to gather oil, you can't do much to help your town survive for the long-term and if you DO know how to gather oil, that is all you will be doing, life after life.

Early on, progression feels focused and purposeful. In a young village, you have many tasks that need to be accomplished to improve the town and increase its chances for long-term survival. There is a natural progression - > gather milkweed to make early tools - > make fire so you can get pottery - > begin early farming efforts - > hunt rabbits for clothing/backpacks - > gather iron to make better tools - > make a sheep pen and domesticate sheep - > etc. But once you reach a certain point, it gets harder and harder to figure out what you should be doing to help your village.

In a large town, many different things are needed, but there is no clear purpose or direction to follow to move the town in a positive direction. Many people complain that there is "nothing to do" in a big town, but that is obviously not true. There is a LOT that you can do in a big town - far more options than you will have available in a young camp that is focused on survival. In fact, there may even be TOO MUCH that needs to be done to make a big town really flourish and become a nice place to live - beyond farming crops, baking pies, tending sheep, and smelting iron ore, you will also need players to gather firewood, plant trees, make charcoal, gather rubber, build carts, find oil, mine for iron, make diesel engines and pumps, construct walls/fences, re-design town layout, build paths/roads, make clothing, move bodies, and organize clutter. When you get down to it, the bigger issue isn't a lack of stuff to do, but rather a lack of purpose or direction.

After the town have access to iron/sheep/deep wells ... there are lots of options, but but no clear path forward to a better town. Survival-oriented gameplay stagnates after this point and people start to get bored and goof-off because they can't find any tasks that they know how to accomplish and also know needs to be done to advance the town. They don't feel like they are able to directly contributing to town survival, so their actions feel meaningless.

Rather than adding more high-tech stuff at the end of the tree (where it can be safely ignored), I think a better solution would be to add additional links in the progression chain leading up to full civilization. This will help to extend the early stages of the game and spread out the advancement up the tech tree across multiple generations. We need more time at early water tech and new tool stages, furnace/oven types, and ore deposits.

...

Please note ... the number of uses for shallow well, deep well, and newcomen pump would need to be increased to allow players to spend more time at each tech level. If the rates of water loss are left the same, people will be forced to rush through the tree, chasing water. The goal for these changes would be to extend the "early game" so it takes more time to reach the end of the tech tree and towns have the ability to linger at different stages for a longer period before advancement becomes critical. This would allow towns to diversify into visibly and functionally different tech levels, but also create a clear path forward to a functionally superior town state. It would also open up the possibility of "early villages" being developed later in the arc.

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First - Stone tools

Currently we have stone hatchet (sharp stone + short tied shaft) and stone hoe (sharp stone + long shaft). I propose adding three new tools - stone hammer, stone pick, and stone (or flint) knife

The stone hammer would be used for basic smithing actions and simple stone-working. Using a stone hammer on a sharp stone gives a long blunt stone. Long blunt stone + tied long shaft gives a stone pick which can be used for surface mining. Use the pick on an ore deposit to gain soft ores, like copper and tin. Copper deposits would spawn naturally in swamp and have a greenish appearance. Tin deposits would spawn naturally in prairie and have a silver/white appearance. Stone pick is not strong enough to use on iron deposit. Each pick use gives a chunk of ore and uses part of the ore deposit. Final use leaves behind an empty pit which can be further developed later on using more advanced tools (similar to iron mine). Using the stone pick on a big rock or dug big rock creates a pile of round stones. This would be useful for making more stone tools ... or for quickly constructing a cistern or well.

The long blunt stone from earlier could also be sharpened using a boulder, resulting in a long sharp stone. Combine with short shaft to form stone knife. Alternatively, flint chip + short shaft makes flint knife. Either way, this knife would be SINGLE USE. It is fragile and breaks after each use, which makes it more wasteful and time-consuming, compared with better materials. Some knife tasks might require stronger knives, but the flint knife could be used for basic tasks, like to skin animals, cut bread, carve turkey, and slaughter animals for meat, among other things.

Second - Copper tools

Advancing beyond stone requires metal working. The adobe furnace is used to fire copper ore into copper ingots. Then, you would need to form the hot ingots into tools using the stone hammer. This would create copper axe head, copper shovel head, copper hoe, and copper shears. The copper axe would be able to chop soft trees, like pine. The copper shovel can be used for all shovel tasks, but wears out quickly. Same with copper hoe. Better than stone, but not really good enough to justify mass-producing. Most villages will probably make the axe and shovel, but stick with stone hoe, if they have enough milkweed. Copper shears are weak and break easily, but open up sheep-shearing and the creation of wool pads for early villages, once they have constructed a sheep pen. Alternatively, a new source of medical supplies (herbal medicine?) could be added to the game so that sheep would not be needed immediately.

A milkweed update would also relieve the pressure to get sheep immensely and allow more time in the stone age. Personally, I would like to see milkweed re-seed itself, if it is picked in the final stage. Or change domesticated milkweed to three plants per tile to allow compact milkweed farming. The current situation is pretty bad and needs to be addressed eventually. More stone tools using rope will only make things worse.

With the copper axe and shovel, towns could get firewood to maintain a fire and dig a shallow well to allow moving away from ponds. However, wood-making tools would require further materials and an upgraded crafting station to reach ... the Bronze Age!

Third - Bronze tools

Bronze is an alloy made from copper and tin. It is much stronger than either base metal and well-suited to tools. To make bronze tools, molten bronze is cast in molds made from sand or clay.

Short shaft + short shaft = two short shafts (can be picked up and contained)
Two short shafts + two short shafts = stack of short shafts (stationary on ground)
Stack of short shafts + rope = empty casting frame (can be picked up and contained)
Casting frame + clay = casting frame with clay (stationary - use empty hand to remove clay)

Various tool heads and other objects can be used on the clay to form an impression for molding. For example - copper axe head + casting frame with clay = axe head mold.

Once the mold is prepared, place a tin ingot and copper ingot into a crucible together. Fire up the furnace, heat the crucible, then use the hot crucible on the clay mold to form a bronze tool head.

Using bronze, it is possible to make improved axe, shovel, hoe, pick, and knife. Also, bronze age will unlock access to the chisel and basic wood-making tools, adze and froe. Most importantly, the bronze pick is strong enough to mine iron deposits, allowing collection of "surface iron" from these deposits and you can now make the bronze file, which opens up the ability to make a bronze knife, which lasts longer but still breaks with repeated use, and a bone saw, which unlocks deep wells, buckets, iron mines, and carts!

It might be a good idea to add some additional steps to prolong the time to make the bronze file, but I'll leave it alone for now. It already has a few additional steps compared with the other bronze level tools, due to requiring goose oil.

Fourth - Wrought iron/cast iron/pig iron

Using the bronze pick, you can now gather iron ore from natural deposits. But to process iron ore, you will need a hotter furnace. Adobe isn't going to cut it any longer. To make a stone furnace, use the bronze chisel to split a big stone, then use the chisel again on the split rock to make a pile of cut stones. Then place the cut stones on an adobe kiln to upgrade it to a stone furnace. The stone furnace can be used to smelt copper or bronze, like the adobe kiln, but it also burns hot enough to allow iron and steel smelting. However, the stone furnace does not make charcoal. It is a dedicated furnace with non-removable bellows. For charcoal production, you will need to have a separate adobe kiln and move charcoal to the stone furnace using a basket.

For more efficient charcoal production, you can add cut boards followed by more adobe to upgrade the adobe kiln to a large adobe kiln which burns firewood and produces two or three baskets of charcoal. The large adobe kiln cannot be converted to an adobe furnace - it is only used for firing pottery and making a lot of charcoal at once. The large adobe kiln could be used for large-scale charcoal production in a late village, as well as unlocking new pottery options. In this way, later villages would have charcoal/pottery production have its own dedicated crafting station.

You can also place cut stones on the adobe oven to form a stone oven. The stone oven is used for higher tier baking and would burn using firewood, rather than kindling.

Reaching iron working would be significant to make the newcomen pump and progress water tech to the next level as well as unlocking (heehee) the ability to craft keys and locks. Using stanchion kits, additional tin and copper can also be harvested during the bronze/iron ages, relieving some of the pressure caused by early exploitation of these resources and extending the usefulness of bronze tools. Some villages might switch over to using steel tools as soon as they become available, while other villages might continue to use bronze for basic tools, while iron is saved for higher tech purposes, like making oil tech.

Fifth - Steel tools

Last, but not least, we reach the age of steel. At this point, we have access to everything else. Further differentiation and adjustments could be possible, but I'll stop here for now.

....

Also, on the subject of rope costs, I'd like to see some better early building options. I would suggest changing the wood frame recipe to reduce rope usage and encourage people to build pine walls, as well as adding a few other options ... like animal hide walls!

Long shaft + Long shaft = two long shafts
Two long shafts + two long shafts = stack of long shafts.
Stack of long shafts + rope = large wood frame
Large wood frame + mouflon hide = hide wall panel

It would be cool if we could make unique hide panels for each animal type - seal, wolf, bear, sheep, mouflon. Alternatively, there could be additional steps to process and tan the hide before mounting it, so all hides would look identical as cured leather walls. Or the mouflon/sheep hide could be the only hide used for walls, to give an outlet for excess hides. I want to build a yurt!

...

Also, if these changes were implemented in-game, I would strongly recommend removing or significantly limiting ground iron spawns. Ore would be gathered directly from the related deposits using the appropriate tool or mining equipment. You would no longer need to gather iron ore BEFORE you mine for iron ore. Instead, you just need access to rocks and sticks to start mining copper. Also, since the stone furnace requires bronze tech, you will not be able to skip directly to iron smelting, even if you found some iron on the ground. It isn't even useful to you until the appropriate crafting station is built, which requires a bronze age chisel.

With these changes, each new "age" is associated with new or upgraded tools AND a new level of water tech (stone/ponds, copper/shallow well, bronze/deep well, iron/newcomen pump, steel/diesel pump). Reaching bronze age would be similar to getting access to iron in the current game-state, but now there are additional steps, both before and after this point, which unlock further crafting options, tool usage, and more advanced tech instead of everything opening up all at once.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-10-13 16:30:33)

Melea · 2019-10-12 20:09:52

This honestly sounds AMAZING!

I've always thought the jump from stone tools to iron/steel was too abrupt, and progressing from just learning agriculture to making complex engines and cars/planes goes too quickly.

WalrusesConquer · 2019-10-12 21:00:01

Wouldn't people just skip to the better option? No point in makIng bronze just for steel immediately after

DestinyCall · 2019-10-12 21:59:15

Iron deposits are in the badlands and you would not be able to tap them without making bronze pick. It won't be instant, since after you get the tools, someone must go off and gather the supplies to advance to the next tool stage. After gathering iron, you also need to upgrade to the stone furnace and smelt the iron. It would be harder to finish all that in a single life.

Can it still be rushed?

Sure ... but it spaces things out a little more and creates more "tech gates" in the tree. Instead of unlocking everything with iron and more iron, you gain access to new tools more slowly and leave more tasks for the next generation. It also links water tech with tool tech, so Jason could play around with water levels to create more or less time at each stage before it becomes critical to progress up the tech tree for survival.

Ideally, you should gain access to copper around the time you need to make your first well and move on to bronze before you need a deep well. Then you will need to get iron so you can make a pump.

I'd also suggest making the difference between bronze and iron tools fairly modest. Higher durability, but not amazing. There are many other things to make with iron/steel, so it might be better to continue using bronze initially, until your iron supply is high enough to justify using it for basic tools and phasing out bronze.

Joseph Stalin · 2019-10-13 01:53:45

jason, I know you dont like suggestions, but I really think early game needs to be more flushed out, we lived the vast majority of our existence as hunter gatherers, not farmers...

DestinyCall · 2019-10-13 03:28:25

According to wikipedia:

"The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make implements with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 3.4 million years and ended between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking."

I'm not suggesting that we should have a stone age that lasts anywhere near that long, but it would be nice to get a few more stone tools so we are not completely dependent on iron for basic tasks. Playing as a true hunter-gatherer in this game shouldn't be easy, but it should at least be possible.

MrShuriken · 2019-10-13 11:41:10

Great suggestion, Jason take some notes

antking:]# · 2019-10-13 19:15:19

Great suggestion!

I really like the idea of upgrading the forge, it always bugged me that you can make an engine with an adobe forge..

I would also like to see an anvil that allows you to craft iron tools, so that their is less pressure on flat rocks and also because smithing on flat rocks is just weird save that for the cave men.

Spoonwood · 2019-10-18 18:41:51

I don't know how this would flesh out in full for sure, but I think there's potential here in terms of the idea.

Ilka · 2019-10-20 20:29:26

What good ideas!
We really should be developing a lot slower.
Nobody likes developed cities where there is nothing to do?
So why are we in such a hurry to reach this state as soon as possible?
Of course, many people have already talked about it, but the technology tree is irrational.
Why don't we have matches?
A better oven for cooking?
Why is our basic tool a sharpened stone (a knife replaces flint, but a sharpened stone has no substitute)?
We use rabbit bones as needles ... really?
Modern technology is mixed with prehistoric.

DestinyCall · 2019-10-21 00:07:06

Ideally, I'd like to see the majority of early tools eventually replaced by more advanced, longer lasting tools.

We start off making fires with a fire bow. Eventually, we should be using steel & flint. Later on, we might have matches. Eventually fuel-based lighters.

You could still laboriously start a fire using a clump of juniper tender and leaves ... but why would you use stone-age tools when modern fire-making tools are more convenient and reliable?

In fact, why are we still tending open bonfires in advanced towns? Fire should also advance beyond the stone age. Fire pits. Stone fireplaces. Cast iron ovens/stoves. There are so many things that could be added to allow the game to progress through distinct technological ages, instead of being a haphazard blend of sharp stones and airplanes.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-10-21 00:08:22)

Saolin · 2019-10-21 16:50:42

I agree Destiny, and adding steps in the middle of the tech tree could keep us busy for longer before reaching the top of the tech tree. Its probably an easier way of extending the tech tree than adding new items at the top too.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-29 17:47:01

This post is old, but with the recent iron changes, I think it is pretty relevant.

Can we get some early tools to use before we reach iron/steel? Or for those times when iron is unavailable but life must go on without it.

Psykout · 2020-03-29 17:55:14

I agree with this necro. Even when you simply just look at two tools side by side, it seems like a crazy jump

Stone Hoe
Number of uses: 5
Chance to use: 20% (last use is 100%)
Estimated uses: 21

Steel Hoe
Number of uses: 5
Chance to use: 8% (last use is 100%)
Estimated uses: 51

Double the uses - 20% chance to 8% chance. That's a helluva jump right there. I'd say even just throwing one extra tier in there, drop stone hoe down to 12-15 uses and up Steel to 60-65 and you got something that feels nice

Bronze Hoe
Number of uses: 5
Chance to use: 15% (last use is 100%)
Estimated uses: 30

Elsayal · 2020-03-29 18:28:29

Well, iron, steel, stone, bronze hoes. It doesn't really add anything to the game, right ?

Gogo · 2020-03-29 18:34:29

Yeah, acutally I wanted to mention that steel tools decays too fast, IRL they stay super strong for years.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-29 18:37:58

Elsayal wrote:

Well, iron, steel, stone, bronze hoes. It doesn't really add anything to the game, right ?

It adds new materials. It adds more tools. It adds more progression. It adds a fall-back point if you fail to secure your iron supply or if iron mines were only available in a race-limited biome. It adds a choice between making steel tools (which are more durable than lesser materials) or saving your limited steel for higher tech that only uses steel.

It cleans up the tech tree and allows Jason to manipulate resources in a way that targets early, mid, or late game villages instead of just twisting the iron lever and causing the whole tech tree to break in a dozen different places.

Elsayal · 2020-03-29 18:43:57

Sorry double-post.

Last edited by Elsayal (2020-03-29 19:00:00)

DestinyCall · 2020-03-29 18:52:34

Hmmm?

Elsayal · 2020-03-29 19:01:10

This is not content in my point of view. It's just another way to do same things.
Personnaly I would prefer new food, or more tech advanced stuff.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-29 19:09:54

I'd also be happy for more tech tree advancement and more food items. I have a ton of ideas related to things I'd like to see in future updates, both for late-game tech and for generally fun stuff, like new types of domestic and wild animals. But fleshing out the early tech tree IS new content, just like adding a slot box or dung box is content.

Right now, many aspects of the tech tree hinge on iron. It is a key resource of dozens of objects, especially critical tools, but also the majority of the late game tech - pumps, drills, engines, oil rig, etc. By adding early game materials that are distinct from iron, it changes the tech progression to allow villages to advance through different stages and feel different from each other depending on the resources that are currently available.

Ideally, you should still want to progress up to iron, but if your village is currently stuck at copper, you can still do some basic things. Right now, if you have no access to iron, you are just SOL.

Ilka · 2020-03-29 19:21:41

And in my opinion, we need the development of medium and low level technology.
Is it logical that people who build cars heat up with a bonfire in the middle of the room?
And they wear rabbit skin pants or a grass skirt?
Doing things like a tiled stove could be just as pleasant as doing a car (and a stove would be more useful).
This, however, would require throwing away all the last "patches" restricting water, oil and iron.

Unfortunately, my faith in Jason is not very big. His only correct vision is that he does not add, but limits everything he can.

Psykout · 2020-03-29 20:21:30

Elsayal wrote:

Well, iron, steel, stone, bronze hoes. It doesn't really add anything to the game, right ?

As Destiny pointed out its Iron or bust at the moment. This is because iron/steel was infinitely foraged, and it removed mining tech from the game. Engines were not created or added to mines because there was no reason to. Developing further tech into mining was also pointless because it was easily sidestepped. The approach to fix that was to radically change how iron was gathered, which hit both the top end and the bottom end. There is now more pressure to get oil and engines going because you need an engine to tap muddy sites to secure more beyond your homesite mines. There is now a timer essentially added into any village that starts, you need to have an engine and oil before you use up too much of your home iron or you are screwed.

On the flipside if there was say the ability to make the starting tools (Shovel, Axe, Pick and Hoe) out of copper, you could make steel tools special and luxury item. You could add in more advanced forging techs without breaking early game to pieces on top of that.

Gogo · 2020-03-29 20:23:38

Elsayal wrote:

This is not content in my point of view. It's just another way to do same things.

But we would gather malachite first, for copper, then iron from same area. We won't need to go further if we can use different resources for same things, just improved.

Last edited by Gogo (2020-03-29 20:23:54)

Dantox · 2020-03-29 20:54:44

id love having more sense of progression. i like it.

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#1 2019-10-12 16:18:59

Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

#2 2019-10-12 20:09:52

Re: Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

#3 2019-10-12 21:00:01

Re: Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

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Re: Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

#5 2019-10-13 01:53:45

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#6 2019-10-13 03:28:25

Re: Early Tool Overhaul - Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron

#7 2019-10-13 11:41:10

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#8 2019-10-13 19:15:19

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#9 2019-10-18 18:41:51

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#10 2019-10-20 20:29:26

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#11 2019-10-21 00:07:06

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#12 2019-10-21 16:50:42

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