alt Hacker News"The main advantage that agricultural civilizations had was population size."
Metallurgy?
Not just firearms.
Stone axe vs bronze sword?
Bronze sword vs iron sword?
Iron sword vs steel?
Nomadic people got their advanced weapons usually through trade from settled ones. The nomadic horse archers dominance was rather an exception, also their kingdom included cities where the weapons they used were made.
"Without any external pressure, multiple peoples concluded that settling and eating grass was preferable to being nomads"
And there always was external pressure. Also .. our knowledge of that time is just fragmentary. We don't even know the real names of those cultures.
So yes, clearly there were benefits to settling and planting corn, otherwise humans would not have done it. But to my knowledge, it is not correct to call it a voluntarily process in general. Once there are fences, the nomadic lifestyle does not work anymore. Adopt or die out was (and is) the choice.
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1 v 1, the average nomad could kill the average conscripted peasant who was physically weaker and less experienced. An iron vs a flint spear isn't going to make nearly as much of a difference. Superior numbers for the creation of a professional class of fighters that conquered the weaker nomads, but the steppe nomads remained superior in combat. The Roman, Chinese, Persian, and Muslim empires were only able to keep them at bay by turning them against each other. When they united, they were completely unstoppable.
All technological advancement is downstream of population size and in particular density.
You can't divide work if you aren't near enough other people.