TL4 Without Iron

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Early adopters of iron were those who had limited access to bronze. All they were doing is trying to keep up with their bronze-using neighbours. They never had an advantage over them.

They had an advantage compared to a version of themselves which had not adopted iron.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

My point is that there would be no TL4 society on Earth without iron. There simply isn't enough accessable bronze and copper on Earth to sustain it using bronze alternatives.

Well okay. Lots of advances past TL1 don't require iron to use, but I can certainly see the argument that the hypothetical society would be too fundamentally different from historical TL4 societies. This is really just an attempt to grasp how bronze behaves in it's own right in the absence of iron. The actual setting I have in mind will have a rather more complicated material set up but I want to have a baseline to work from. So I'd appreciate generosity regarding skepticism of hypothetiland.