I wouldn't say steel is a problem for a hermit. I've played about 1-2 months on my fresh alt. Did my village, walls and stuff with my own hands without "helping myself" with goods I got in other locations. And I never built a minehole, I've just collected some flots + pearls and bought steel off

You can get either bluebell/flotsam or few edels just by going to curio location in 10-15min easily. And steel bar is "only" 20 pts, so you can get 5 of them (gates) for 2 bluebells and a flot (or 2 pearls).
Except if you are hermit and you have a huge base to cover with walls, tons of CRs and everything else. But even then you can solve it by trading bears and other things
