People have been harping on the poor guy to move up the tech tree for years. What they don’t understand though is that he’s gone about as high as you can before you start to need a civilization. The copper, bronze, and iron ages were based on regional trade and specialization. One person cannot mine ore, smelt it, forge it, sharpen it, and hone it for a reasonable amount of effort, even if you are lucky enough to have viable deposits on your land which could be mined. Each step in that process from “rocks in a cave” to “knife” involves a lot of special tools, skills, and infrastructure that all have to be built up. All the time to build that infrastructure and learn those skills has to happen in the little free time left after barely being able to grow enough food to feed yourself and chopping enough wood to live through winter. If a single person was doing it, you might spend 20 years to get to that knife.
Civilization, trade, and surplus agriculture accelerate progress to an astonishing degree, which poor Mr. Plant’s commenters don’t seem to appreciate. He’s a pleasure to watch though!
