More content for bronze age

[BlackCDown]

Currently bronze only serves as a mere stop-gap to the iron age and the most significant addition over copper is an anvil to smith iron on. The end result is that players basically zip to the iron age the moment they smith themselves a bronze pick. It would be nice if there were more technologies that unlocked at bronze to allow players to enjoy the mid-game at a slower pace. I believe that if players feel like they have unlocked a new way of doing things, they will milk the enjoyment longer before moving onto the next milestone.

Let's compare how the different ages change gameplay:

• Pottery changes how you approach food processing, storage and also farming.
• Copper unlocks the wooden board, 'nuff said.
• Iron unlocks heavier industries such as kiln and metal doors.

Bronze does not really have these paradigm-shifting advancements. You can now build a helve hammer and a crusher but I'd argue you don't really need them the way you'd need a saw to vastly expand woodworking options. The former is just an alternative to making plates and ingots if you do not want to do it yourself, and the latter's main role is for making refractory bricks, and those only become significant in the iron age when you have iron doors.

Some technology could even be moved from the iron age too. There is a Discord suggestions thread requesting that water wheels be shifted to the bronze age. From what I gather (correct me if I am wrong) medieval water wheels relied more on carpentry locks than metallurgy, with metal only being needed to shape the wood. Wheel hubs even had little to no metal according to the pictures in this report. I understand that water wheels were arbitrarily gated behind the iron age just as a late-game power alternative to windmills, but if metal must be a requirement, perhaps it could be transferred to the bronze age to capitalize on bronze's structural advantages.

Edited May 17 by BlackCDown

[jerjerje]

While I am not against having more content for the Brone Age, I personally feel that Iron and Steel need would need additional content more than Bronze does.

Let's take a quick look at what each metal tier unlocks (not counting their respective tool/armor sets):

Copper: Pickaxes, Better Food Preservation (via Salt) and Pies, Leatherworking (and thereby Backpacks), Buckets (allowing you to make better Farms), Throughs (allowing the start of proper animal husbandry), Better Storage (Chests, Crates, Barrels), Most Mechanical Power (including Windmills, Querns, Chutes, Grinding Wheel, etc.), Prospecting, not to mention the new decorative options available

Bronze: Mining Bags, Quartz and Glass, Bombs, Helve Hammer, Pulverizer, Greenhouses

Iron: Beehive Kiln, Waterwheel, Door for Charcoal Pit, Coke Oven

Steel: Sturdy Backpacks

If I missed something, please tell me and I'll edit the post to add it.

 

From this, it seems to me that Steel in particular could use more content Aside from the (very good) tools, it doesn't give you much additional content to do.

Being able to make glass is pretty important for decoration. In my playthrough this is roughly the time I started building nice houses and such.

Additionally, bronze benefits from its closeness to the copper age: Since bronze is relatively easy to get (either via tin or via bismuth and zinc), it is likely that many players will reach it before creating everything they unlocked from copper. I would assume most players will still have plenty of Copper Age stuff to do during the Bronze Age (At least, I certainly did. For me the Bronze Age was significantly longer than the Iron Age).

Also, I don't think it is particularly easy for most players to "zip to the iron age" (as you put it), because of how rare iron is. I know I was searching for a couple of hours (counting both prospecting above ground and actually digging shafts to try and find the ore).

22 hours ago, BlackCDown said:

Some technology could even be moved from the iron age too. There is a Discord suggestions thread requesting that water wheels be shifted to the bronze age. From what I gather (correct me if I am wrong) medieval water wheels relied more on carpentry locks than metallurgy, with metal only being needed to shape the wood. Wheel hubs even had little to no metal according to the pictures in this report. I understand that water wheels were arbitrarily gated behind the iron age just as a late-game power alternative to windmills, but if metal must be a requirement, perhaps it could be transferred to the bronze age to capitalize on bronze's structural advantages.

I disagree with this. Iron already doesn't unlock much. And the Beehive Kiln in particular mostly gives more options for decorative items (and mass production of decorative items). Being able to make a permanent charcoal pit is nice, but it doesn't really affect much either. I certainly wouldn't call any of this "paradigm-shifting". I don't think taking things out of the Iron Age would be good for the games pacing.

Edited May 18 by jerjerje
Added Pies and Greenhouses

[LadyWYT]

20 minutes ago, jerjerje said:

Also, I don't think it is particularly easy for most players to "zip to the iron age" (as you put it), because of how rare iron is. I know I was searching for a couple of hours (counting both prospecting above ground and actually digging shafts to try and find the ore).

It depends heavily on the player's knowledge, skill, and preferred playstyle. It's relatively easy to get to iron quickly, if one knows how and has the discipline to focus on that task. It's not necessarily fun though, and the player may end up ignoring other important things in that pursuit.

 

25 minutes ago, jerjerje said:

I don't think taking things out of the Iron Age would be good for the games pacing.

Agreed, plus it's not an uncommon complaint that certain things, like pie-making and the quern, are locked behind metalworking already. Not everything should be accessible in the stone age, nor should everything be locked behind the late game materials, but "front-loading" the game's pace by moving iron tier tech to bronze tier isn't a very good option. Part of the main appeal of iron/steel tiers at the moment is those tiers allow the player to start building heavy machinery and the proper equipment to handle the really dangerous monsters without as much risk of death.

Plus it won't really solve the "issue" of players rushing iron either, at least the ones who rush it for the equipment upgrade. I am definitely one of those players, since while bronze is useful it just won't hold up to the jobs I need my tools to do.

15 hours ago, BlackCDown said:

It would be nice if there were more technologies that unlocked at bronze to allow players to enjoy the mid-game at a slower pace.

I'm quite confident we'll be getting more stuff to do in the earlier parts of the game as Vintage Story receives more updates, which will slow the pace somewhat. However, I think the best answer here is for players to just play at the pace they prefer. It's not really necessary to play at a faster pace than one enjoys, and locking players to a pace that's too slow can easily result in frustration, especially if they have the appropriate skills to advance faster.

[Rainbow Fresh]

As things are right now, for most intents and purposes there are only two metallic tiers: the combined Copper/Bronze tier and the combined Iron/Steel tier - atleast that's how I see it. Since, as correctly brough up as topic here, bronze is just Copper but... better (stat-wise) and Steel is just Iron but... better (stat-wise). There may be the one singular odd recipe that only bronze but not copper can do or steel but not iron, and steel atleast requires doing something to achieve whereas the sole difference between copper and bronze (going off of the easiest tin bronze variant) is simply adding a second rock to the crucible. That's it.

However, to follow along the original discussion - that, by all means, doesn't mean bronze is in the need for something special. Atleast to me it doesn't. Iron will always be the ultimate goal (until steel becomes more useful later in the game's development) so no matter how much previous unlocks either copper or bronze give, getting to iron will always give it all and be the final goal in progression to achieve. Which will always result in some players, who choose to speedrun progression, will directly aim for iron and not collect any more copper and tin than necessary to make a pickaxe, hammer and anvil. Unless we go the brass route and actively lock exclusive recipes to a tier, i.e. copper and bronze respectively being able to craft something the other, and iron too, can't produce. But that is a bad idea, as I already hate that brass exists for the singular sole purpose to make torch holders. This kind of exclusivity forcing you to make an otherwise useless material seems dumb and I do NOT want more of it in the game.

Anyway, to get back to the point - copper here is the one getting the short straw rather than bronze. Sure, bronze doesn't add much in terms of unlocks over copper (atleast without mods) and is otherwise only required to make the anvil to use iron; but bronze is just overall better than copper and can be as easily made while not requiring to ever pick up any copper tool to begin with. The copper age itself is entirely skipable by just starting out with the stronger copper (bronze). Furthermore, bronze comes in 3 swanky variants (tin, bizmuth and black) to be more enticing decoratively than copper aswell. So any and all discussion about how much the bronze age adds vs. the iron age should include all copper unlocks aswell.

And then we are at the point of the further comments about it actually being the iron and steel age that need more, considering the copper/bronze age hybrid unlocks over half the game while iron just adds colored pottery and the necessities for steel. And steel adds... more durability than iron. But then again, there will be more content in the future seeing as there is one or another thing on the official roadmap that would certainly classify as steel age additions.

And finally, the helve hammer (which I didn't even know is bronze+ only?) certainly has a viable use. Not entirely sure about the pulverizer but once you start making big, thicc plate armor (either for the wearing thereof or just the display collection) or just when you have alot of iron (or steel) blooms to process it becomes rather invaluable real quick. Or just in general when you want to spam a million lanterns all over your base, cause manually smithing plates gets tedious real quick, not to mention the unholy consumption of hammers and their durability.

Edited May 18 by Rainbow Fresh

[MKMoose]

On 5/17/2026 at 1:12 PM, BlackCDown said:

Currently, pottery changes how you approach food processing, storage and also farming. Copper unlocks the wooden board, 'nuff said. Iron unlocks heavier industries such as kiln and metal doors. Bronze does not really have these paradigm-shifting advancements.

19 hours ago, jerjerje said:

Bronze: Mining Bags, Quartz and Glass, Bombs, Helve Hammer, Pulverizer

Bronze actually unlocks quite a lot of things, but most of them are either an efficiency upgrade, or a prerequisite for iron and steel, or both - almost none actually unlock properly new things the way copper unlocks stuff like the fruit press, the bucket and many tools:

• tool tier 3, allowing to mine:
  • quartz - not particularly important for most players unless using a lot of glass for building; some quartz can be obtained from panning and loose ore chunks before that,
  • bituminous coal and anthracite - mostly irrelevant before iron processing, at least for my playstyle,
  • gold and silver - purely optional or endgame uses,
  • borax - mostly just an alternative to lime, only required later for steel processing,
• helve hammer - just an efficiency upgrade,
• pulverizer, and by extension:
  • cloth mordant and crushed cinnabar - specific dyes are required for certain warm clothes, otherwise it's purely cosmetic,
  • bombs - optional,
  • refractory bricks - mostly irrelevant before iron,
• shields better than crude - not particularly meaningful,
• mining bag - just a storage space upgrade,
• reinforced wooden crate trap - mostly irrelevant, just doesn't have almost any meaningful uses,
• elk medallions - you need bronze to progress the story in the first place, and most people will have iron by the time they get around to it either way, so this is mostly irrelevant.

But that said, I think we generally also want bronze to not be too impactful, no? Too many things being locked behing copper has been, as mentioned here already, a fairly common complaint. Progression gating should generally be limited to the early game, while higher metal tiers doing the same would feel very provibitive - locking important features can easily make the player feel like they have to rush through progression just for basic quality of life.

The benefits of bronze, iron and steel involve improved tools, improved combat effectiveness, automated or more scalable production or processing of certain resources, and general efficiency improvements, so experiencing all that can already make the player rush to it on subsequent playthroughs. I'd imagine that adding sawmills (supposed to come in 1.23), elevators (seemingly put on hold indefinitely for now), steam engines (eventually), rail transport (eventually) and stuff like cast iron stoves, cookware and cauldrons (I don't remember if it was even teased, but it really should be added at some point) will not contribute positively to community sentiment on the early game, especially pre-Copper Age which has always been quite underdeveloped.

 

14 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Unless we go the brass route and actively lock exclusive recipes to a tier, i.e. copper and bronze respectively being able to craft something the other, and iron too, can't produce. But that is a bad idea, as I already hate that brass exists for the singular sole purpose to make torch holders. This kind of exclusivity forcing you to make an otherwise useless material seems dumb and I do NOT want more of it in the game.

I think this is a very good thing to do where it makes sense. Restricting torch holders to brass is completely arbitrary and has no reasonable justification that I can think of other than that it's just an old feature that was never updated. The bug net being copper-only is pretty odd, and so are chutes, though the latter can at least serve as a copper sink in the late game where copper is often nearly useless unless for lanterns or something. Some things that are restricted to bronze or iron and not copper (e.g. the crate trap or the mining bag) can also be confusing due to how arbitrary they are.

But there is a number of applications where copper, bronze, brass and some similar metals are often simply superior to iron and steel, primarily stuff like:

• bells and musical instruments,
• bearings and some other mechanical parts,
• some precision devices and tools, e.g. astrolabes,
• certain boat/ship components (or generally anything exposed to saltwater),
• cannons and firearms,
• cookware,
• roofs,
• statues and ornamentation,
• and maybe something that I've missed.

Those arguably should be only craftable from copper, bronze, brass or adjacent metals where appropriate, or at the very least there is a strong realistic argument to be made for most if not all of them, due to corrosion and wear resistance, easy casting of complex shapes, and some other properties. Iron and steel were the dominant metals for weapons, tools, armor and machinery, but copper and bronze have retained several applications well after iron and steel became relatively cheap and widely available.

Some things like more advanced armor (brigandine, chain and plate) could also justifiably be restricted to iron and steel only, and it might even end up changing nothing about how the majority of people play the game.

 

18 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm quite confident we'll be getting more stuff to do in the earlier parts of the game as Vintage Story receives more updates, which will slow the pace somewhat. However, I think the best answer here is for players to just play at the pace they prefer. It's not really necessary to play at a faster pace than one enjoys, and locking players to a pace that's too slow can easily result in frustration, especially if they have the appropriate skills to advance faster.

Personally, I really hope that we get some more meaningful means of progression outside of simplistic metal tiers. Carving, woodworking, pottery, textile production and weaving (maybe also wickerwork), glassmaking, leather crafting, agriculture (including herbalism), pastoralism, trapping and hunting, and more - there's so many systems which could be developed greatly and provide alternative means of progression, and I think that just focusing on the metals tends to neglect a lot of potential depth that the game could have. Many of those other progression chains would naturally benefit from or occasionally require some metals, but equally, the power and durability of tools, weapons, armor and other stuff shouldn't be just based on which metal you put on a stick.

As it stands, the game also heavily favors having a single base location, which I think partially contribures to people feeling kind of pressured into fast vertical progression. No mobile storage, no portable food preservation methods remotely competitive with cellars, no tents or other portable shelters, restrictive respawning system, and a couple related factors - the game really feels like it loses out on a lot of variety that it could have. Some features like steelmaking being restricted to stationary locations makes sense, but something like animal husbandry ideally really should be perfectly viable with a more mobile lifestyle as well.

Edited Monday at 08:52 PM by MKMoose

[BlackCDown]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Plus it won't really solve the "issue" of players rushing iron either, at least the ones who rush it for the equipment upgrade. I am definitely one of those players, since while bronze is useful it just won't hold up to the jobs I need my tools to do.

I'm quite confident we'll be getting more stuff to do in the earlier parts of the game as Vintage Story receives more updates, which will slow the pace somewhat. However, I think the best answer here is for players to just play at the pace they prefer. It's not really necessary to play at a faster pace than one enjoys, and locking players to a pace that's too slow can easily result in frustration, especially if they have the appropriate skills to advance faster.

Mind you, my concern is not at all about experienced players rushing to iron since they would do it regardless of mid-game content, and I certainly do not see a need to arbitrarily hold them back. My concern is that players might not even get enough contentment from unlocking bronze technologies to even feel like lingering in the bronze age, it's just the first step on the quest to iron. When I do linger in the bronze age, it's less so I'm savouring what the bronze age unlocks more so I'm still enjoying the burst of technology from copper age. Which is well put by jerjerje below.

12 hours ago, jerjerje said:

Additionally, bronze benefits from its closeness to the copper age: Since bronze is relatively easy to get (either via tin or via bismuth and zinc), it is likely that many players will reach it before creating everything they unlocked from copper. I would assume most players will still have plenty of Copper Age stuff to do during the Bronze Age (At least, I certainly did. For me the Bronze Age was significantly longer than the Iron Age).

 

12 hours ago, jerjerje said:

From this, it seems to me that Steel in particular could use more content Aside from the (very good) tools, it doesn't give you much additional content to do.

Agreed that steel is pretty lacking. However, end-game is not my focus because I'm more a fan of the mid-game and enjoying the process.

12 hours ago, jerjerje said:

Being able to make glass is pretty important for decoration. In my playthrough this is roughly the time I started building nice houses and such.

That's a good point, didn't think about that. That by definition unlocks the greenhouse too and players are sure as hell not skipping that one.

12 hours ago, jerjerje said:

I disagree with this. Iron already doesn't unlock much. And the Beehive Kiln in particular mostly gives more options for decorative items (and mass production of decorative items). Being able to make a permanent charcoal pit is nice, but it doesn't really affect much either. I certainly wouldn't call any of this "paradigm-shifting". I don't think taking things out of the Iron Age would be good for the games pacing.

I consider the beehive kiln to be significant because it's the first time you can make coloured pottery and fire at scale where previously it was never possible. In that sense I'd accord it the same value as glass in the homesteading aspect.

When you put it that way iron does feel a little lacking. When I mentioned metal doors, I was thinking of it more as a new technology you could not previously get, but on second thought outside of the kiln it doesn't really do much for you unless you really like how they look on your house. Charcoal pits are not a super compelling reason and their other functional use is just to unlock the steel age kinda like the refractory bricks from the bronze age.

Edited Monday at 02:26 PM by BlackCDown

[BlackCDown]

3 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

• tool tier 3, allowing to mine:
  • quartz - not particularly important for most players unless using a lot of glass for building; some quartz can be obtained from panning and loose ore chunks before that,
  • bituminous coal and anthracite - mostly irrelevant before iron processing, at least for my playstyle,
  • gold and silver - purely optional or endgame uses,
  • borax - mostly just an alternative to lime, only required later for steel processing,
• helve hammer - just an efficiency upgrade,
• pulverizer, and by extension:
  • cloth mordant and crushed cinnabar - specific dyes are required for certain warm clothes, otherwise it's purely cosmetic,
  • bombs - optional,
  • refractory bricks - mostly irrelevant before iron,
• shields better than crude - not particularly meaningful,
• mining bag - just a storage space upgrade,
• reinforced wooden crate trap - mostly irrelevant, just doesn't have almost any meaningful uses,
• elk medallions - you need bronze to progress the story in the first place, and most people will have iron by the time they get around to it either way, so this is mostly irrelevant.

But that said, I think we generally also want bronze to not be too impactful, no? Too many things being locked behing copper has been, as mentioned here already, a fairly common complaint. Progression gating should generally be limited to the early game, while higher metal tiers doing the same would feel very provibitive - locking important features can easily make the player feel like they have to rush through progression just for basic quality of life.

Yeah I stand corrected on quartz, glass production is a pretty significant milestone. I was less inclined to mention shields because I felt that you aren't unlocking a new technology altogether rather refining a previous one, which all metal ages do over the previous anyway. Funny enough I'd consider mining borax early at bronze supposing how bad a time I had looking for it in the past.

Regarding progressing gating, my suggestion for water wheels is to actually reverse this trend, to bring some iron technologies down a notch to an earlier age if they can be justified with bronze's material properties.

[Lanceleoghauni]

On the topic of metal rebalancing, I'm sure it's brought up often but the fact that I need to gather and pour *nine* additional ingots for an anvil just to get lanterns is kind of crazy to me. Casting a flat square seems very simple. 

Edited Friday at 01:50 AM by Lanceleoghauni

[Zane Mordien]

13 hours ago, Lanceleoghauni said:

On the topic of metal rebalancing, I'm sure it's brought up often but the fact that I need to gather and pour *nine* additional ingots for an anvil just to get lanterns is kind of crazy to me. Casting a flat square seems very simple. 

Not sure I've ever heard that one before. You need the anvil anyway so it isn't a big deal. There is so much surface copper around that getting enough to make the anvil isn't a big issue to me. 

 

On 5/18/2026 at 10:21 AM, BlackCDown said:

When you put it that way iron does feel a little lacking.

Iron for me is purely about durability, which is also the reason I go past bronze as fast as I can. I wouldn't mind if iron was a bit harder somehow if bronze was more durable. As it stands now it is more annoying to find everything I need for bronze all the time vs finding one iron vein and being done. In lore mode iron could be in a Iron Mine POI only that requires you to fight to get it. That would force you to get armor to get iron. Maybe that wouldn't be a popular idea, but it is an idea. If lore mode was turned off you would have to just go back to like it is now.