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[Corona688]

Digging out every sedimentary layer I can find, seeing nothing.  All civillizations seem to have it in short supply;  goblins don't even have it, they wear copper.  As for deep metals, all I can find is lead, lead, lead!  Endless lead.  And a bit of copper.

[nomad_delta]

There might straight-up be none in your embark; what mineral scarcity settings did you generate your world with?  I change it from the default of "sparse" to "frequent", but each individual site is different.

Other than that, have you dug exploratory mining all the way down to the magma sea?  In my current fort I was convinced I had no iron at all (same thing, just piles of sphalerite and such...) until I dug all the way down to the magma sea and encountered several veins of hematite along the way... and gold, yay!

If you're not already familiar, check out the wiki pages for the various types of stone layers, like this one for Igneous Extrusive layers:

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010:Igneous_extrusive_layer#Stone_found_in_igneous_extrusive_layers

Specifically, read the "Stone found in..." sections for each layer type.  Generally what I do if I'm looking for iron is dig a 3x3 vertical shaft of up/down stairs all the way down to the magma sea to get started, and if I'm lucky that shaft will intersect an ore vein along the way down.

If it doesn't, I take a look at the stone layers I went through on the way down and start doing horizontal exploratory digging on the stone layers that the wiki says might contain the type of ore I'm looking for.  Make sense?

Or you can just cheat and use DFProspector, but I don't like to cheat. 

--nomad_delta

[Corona688]

Nothing but lead and copper all the way down through three cavern layers, the magma sea, and semisolid rock.  I think I'm simply out of luck.

What seemed odder to me is that even the goblins don't have iron.  Is that normal now?

[nomad_delta]

Nothing but lead and copper all the way down through three cavern layers, the magma sea, and semisolid rock.  I think I'm simply out of luck.

What seemed odder to me is that even the goblins don't have iron.  Is that normal?

it can be -- I think it depends on what territory the goblins grab for themselves on the world map during world-gen, and whether that territory has iron ore in it... if you happened to generate a world without much iron ore to go around the goblins may have run into the same problem as you.

I guess if you're totally stuck without iron, think of it as a challenge: you'll have to come up with alternate means for arm yourself and defend your fortress.  If you've got some copper, use that and try to make bronze if you can find the tin to mix it with.  Only use metal for things you *have* to -- like use wood or bone or shields, crossbows, bolts, etc.  I'd probably rely heavily on Marksdwarves behind fortifications as the lack of armor won't matter so much then.

Probably also build lots of traps, and maybe engineer yourself some sort of water or magma-based defense system, like a flooding "kill room" to trap the goblins in... or make a winding narrow path of traps many z-levels high as your entrance and build traps on it to try to get the goblins to dodge off the edge to fall to their deaths.

You can also import a small amount of iron and steel from the caravans -- use the sliders to request as many iron and steel bars as they'll bring you, plus request iron and steel weapons and armor, and iron/steel anvils which you can melt down into bars (1 to 1 return on melting anvils I think) to turn into something else.  Keep doing that every season and eventually you should get enough to decently equip at least a handful of dwarves to augment your massive squads of marksdwarves and traps and things.

That's what I was doing in my current fort until I lucked out and found that random hematite vein way down deep, anyway.

--nomad_delta

[Fredd]

 One fun way to prospect, is to crank up adven mode to look for sites. If the human stores have iron armor, this is a good clue. Traveling around, you can find bit coal deposits, flux, and iron. Of course you prolly will have to deal with a aquifier, but it is generally worth it

[Crashmaster]

and request iron-bearing ores and flux stone from the caravans as well

[Lytha]

1.) Gen another world, and this time, adjust the mineral scarcity to your liking.

2.) Nobody stops you from modding something that you have on your map, for instance, cobaltite, into an ore of iron; and something like orthoclass into flux.

[evileeyore]

2.) Nobody stops you from modding something that you have on your map, for instance, cobaltite, into an ore of iron; and something like orthoclass into flux.

Don't lie to him.  You know full well we'll all go to his house, kick in his door, and give him a swirly if so much as mods anything!









 

[Hrv123]

Regenerate new world with AWG and Z above ground value set at 1, this should give you sediment layers (coal, iron, platinum) deployed on map as it should be, at it looks that option is a bit bugy.

or just pick highest mountain peaks that exist on your map and chances are iron/coal layers will be on their top z levels.

EDIT:
P.S.
Mineral scarcity have nothing with lack of iron/coal