I roam a lot of black forest for thistle and some cript but i found all the copper and tin very close to meadows border. Maybe ''the problem'' is that i don't care to build epic building and just stuck with core wood building. The iron for tool and armor and weapon is not much. I even craft the useless sledgehammer just for fun.

Imo the game need some option when you start a server where you can set the difficult of some settings.