Spears are the king of the battlefield. Always have been in real life. Swords are a sidearm. Not having a good steel spear because "Balance Issues" is a lame pants on head copout. I get it if what you're going for is bushcraft bronze age only, but it goes strait up to steel in terms of tools and full on plate armor. We have things like the Ruined Ranseur, Warhammer, Boar Spear, Voulge, all these great historic weapons we can't make even though the tech we can achieve is far higher- and I don't even care if they can be thrown or not. Steel is no cake walk to just jump to either. People seem to forget that weapons and armor were an arms race.
And to add to that, I don't agree with the argument that the player should be forced to keep collecting copper for spears and such in late game unless they actually need it. I sure know I'd still be making a copper roof and lanterns, just means less materials going into the tool void and actually going into building.
