Go frog!

I thought that the real issue was that they don't find it fun in their game. But yeah, you are totally right. And even if one person knows, then he needs the time to teach that knowledge and have his students to be able to produce something useful, etc.

Shouldn't we get stones as weapons? No tech required to hit people with them (ranged combat or not!).

your first paragraph gives it away. if the people come out from the ruins in a post apocalypse world i would assume that they are either the same or at most only a few generations apart from the people that made up the pre apocalypse society. i doubt that the knowledge and craftsmanship would be lost in such a short time frame.

your example about modern people not knowing how to make warbows, spears and swords does not make much sense to me, because this knowledge is not widely used in modern society. you also have to keep in mind that a medieval society works very different in regards of preserving and spreading knowledge then our modern society, for example development in weapons and armor were made through mostly trial and error in the smiths rather than theoretical work in schools and universities.

You da Frog!

There was a show on Discovery called "The Colony". While it was an example of how even highly intelligent people can succumb to stupid issues like intersocial drama, the one thing going for it was to show how people could survive in a post apocalyptic world.

I mean, they made a wood gassifier, practically from scratch. As long as all the smart people didn't die out, and not all of the texts and other forms of knowledge were completely lost, then some knowledge should come back fairly quickly.

And in fact, that's how I kind of look at it in the game. The speed at which things are researched, developed, and put into a practical execution is way too quick to be something done from scratch, purely as an innovative leap of intellectual thought.

I put research into the same category as population. It's always been there, all you are doing is gathering up and funding the practical applications of it. Be it researching new technologies, or creating infrastructure to take in more refugees lost in the wilderness. Heck, population could even be: how well you can keep track and tax your populace, and how much money and production they can afford to give back to the kingdom.

The rate of population growth, and the rate of technological advancement would not make sense any other way.

The first step is just gathering the people together to survive.

The next step would be to find people who know how to do things (like large scale agriculture, smelting, etc.). 

The next step after that would be to disseminate that knowledge across your fledgling kingdom.

If someone wants to make the case that it would be fun for the society to start out just "knowing" out to do that, that's fine. But seeing people casually argue that people would just "know" how to make swords makes me wonder how much thought they've put into it.

There's a great book called "The Year 1000" which talks about everyday life in that year.  I think it is very safe to say that any medieval historian would find it amusing to be told that the average peasant had the knowledge to make, for example, a weapons-grade bow.

In the game, Fallen Enchantress, the world is about 150 years out from a castastrophe that wiped out 99% of the population and laid waste to the landscape.  There are plenty of swords, bows, and other equipment out there.  The challenge is regaining the knowledge to make these things in a short amount of time.

A typical game of FE lasts about 40 "years" during which time an extraordinary individual has founded a settlement from nothing and attracted a few thousand people from the wastes. During that relatively brief time, they'll regain virtually all the knowledge they lost including the knowledge on manufacturing high grade steel weapons, armor, siege weapons, construction, etc.

The people aren't primitive. They already know what they need to learn. They have examples of what they want to make. That's why they're able to uncover it so quickly. But yea, they do have to uncover it still.

Moreover, anyone who argues that people would "know" how to do this stuff should really think about that for a minute.   They wouldn't know. But they can find out. And they do in the relative blink of an eye.

There's a great book called "The Stand" which I imagine quite a few people here have read. They go through the same thing. There are two groups and they get into a race in trying to figure out how to use stuff that we take for granted in our modern lives. 

triple

people out in the countryside would (even before cataclysm) need to be largely self sustaining. I know of one person out in the country that knows how to forge 'basic' steel and make 'basic' penicillin.

I think that some of the more rudimentary knowledge ... things that were 'major breakthroughs' at the dawn of civilization, would still be around post-cataclysm.

As surviving country folk (with this knowledge) begin to gather in the newly formed cities, those few that are self educated in such matters (at this point it would have become a hereditary thing) would be able to spread it amongst the rest of the population.

But today we live in a society of refrigerated supermarkets, and the majority of farming is now done mechanically.

Pre-Cataclysm, likely 90% of the rural population had more than basic agricultural knowledge.

ah ... >.>

I was thinking only the urban centers were obliterated, leaving the countryside relatively unscathed with only 50% losses.

at 99% losses, it is much less probable that even common knowledge would be immediately available. Which would lead to a situation as Draginol describes.

Still, what is better from a game play perspective?

(and it does not change the fact that civ traits which give a free tier 1 tech are a relatively poor Trait choice)

Which is a different argument all together.  Starting out with swords is "fun" but not clubs? The starting point, game-mechanic wise, is irrelevant.  

Either weapon technology is a progressive thing or it's not. If someone thinks it shouldn't be, then they're really looking for a different game. If they agree that weapon technology should be progressive, then it makes sense to start it at a point that people can agree that your average peasant could make -- i.e. clubs and work your way up from there.

And in the world of FE, swords, bows, magical staffs, etc. are all around. They're there. But the game makes a distinction between a "one off" as opposed to manufacturing them from scratch.

Are the starting techs at least removed as a standalone power?

Now I could see a Civ Trait that gave a starting tech ... and ALSO gave a % bonus to teching in that tree.

Now with regards to the GAME (FE) the issue some people have with learning Spears I think is because they feel like they have to learn that tech.

But that's a design failure, not a problem with Spears. If you have to research something then it's not really a choice. And if it's not a choice, then it doesn't belong in the game.

I agree with Sarudak.

Turn one weapon for each faction that exemplifies their culture. Make staff more viable. In my mod it has a counterattack and does 5 cutting defense. Something I came up with when one of my friends suggested we do a real world test of my staff skills against his kendo training. I won. Or we both lost if you count blood loss. 

Add a terrible version of every weapon in the beginning. Call them Crudes, since we already have that name in the xml. 

If you are looking for variety on turn one, that would do it.