I still feel that iron access is a potential game breaker under some rare cases in long term games. So iron gets us (among others) access to mines, labs and naturalists, which all together takes (very roughly) 20 - 30 ore, on top of quite a few other not as critical items at the top of the tech tree. And on an unlucky map generation you'll get one or two surface iron deposits. This immediately mandates finding a spot for an iron mine and railroading for it or risk being more or less permanently locked out of those options. That by itself isn't massively problematic, assuming you know the tech tree pretty well but would potentially block a less fanatic player than I think are typically on this forum. I don't believe there is a situation where it would become completely possible to lockup the tech tree otherwise, although I can think of a few that would require careful management (like large bandit presence on only surface ore with a start kit lacking iron) which would be close to a luck based mission. This isn't an issue for me, because I deliberately build mines to avoid resource exhaustion, but in terms of newer players I can definitely see a potential issue.
Cool, I think the new revision will do alot to shut this down. I'll report back anything that still feels potentially bad, but I suspect that iron will play more of a now you get these optional but fantastic things role.
