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[Vahir]

1. Can you disable vampires, or make them similarily harmless? I'm relatively new to DF, and I've yet to make a fortress that hasn't died in the first few years. Having vampires out for my blood is a bit much.

2. Is there a way to find a location with a 100% chance of having Iron?

[thiosk]

No, Iron is one of those luck of the location thing.  I've found river sites tend to have good sedimentary layers.  I basically have ONLY iron, so I beg the dwarven caravans to bring me ANYTHING else.

Luckily I had enough tin cages from a big alpaca purchase that I was able to satisfy a mayoral demand.

As for vamps, have you encountered them yet? Dealing with them is part of the fun!!!  I'm sure I'll hate the first one that shows up, but I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it even now.

[XXSockXX]

In worlds with shorter history you are less likely to encounter vampires. With 30-50 years you might get just one and with less history probably none at all.

[Calech]

1. Can you disable vampires, or make them similarily harmless? I'm relatively new to DF, and I've yet to make a fortress that hasn't died in the first few years. Having vampires out for my blood is a bit much.

Setting up advanced worldgen settings with the vampire curses reduced to zero should make vampires not appear.

A less worldgen-parameter-altering setting, if you're on an existing world you really like, is to manually inspect every migrant's thoughts screen if they appear to have abnormally large skill lists. Vampires get kicked out of a lot of places, so they tend to have lists of past affiliations that go on for about a screen or so.

Of course if they're the monarch they don't get kicked out, but they announce their status in their job description so you know what to expect.

Detected vampires can be walled in or pitted into harmless places, since they don't eat or drink they'll live forever unless disturbed.

2. Is there a way to find a location with a 100% chance of having Iron?

Um... change all metals to iron and embark somewhere with metals? (Actually, even that probably wouldn't work)

There's no guarantees with iron - it's most common in sedimentary rock, with only one of the three iron ores appearing anywhere else. Since most flux stone is also sedimentary rock, this also solves two problems (iron + flux for steel).

Using the site finder to find a site with shallow metals and flux stone is possibly your best bet (outside of using DFHack and its prospecting function to find the approximate mineral composition of the area), just be careful that the site you're given doesn't fulfil these two criteria independently and/or in a tiny area.

The real best source of iron is its fourth ore, goblinite, found in most locations and usually delivered straight to your fortress by considerate citizens.

Alternatively, you could try trading with the dwarven and human caravans - this only works if they themselves have access to iron though! (Dwarves will bring steel even if they have no access to iron, because magic)

[highmax28]

1. Can you disable vampires, or make them similarily harmless? I'm relatively new to DF, and I've yet to make a fortress that hasn't died in the first few years. Having vampires out for my blood is a bit much.

Setting up advanced worldgen settings with the vampire curses reduced to zero should make vampires not appear.

A less worldgen-parameter-altering setting, if you're on an existing world you really like, is to manually inspect every migrant's thoughts screen if they appear to have abnormally large skill lists. Vampires get kicked out of a lot of places, so they tend to have lists of past affiliations that go on for about a screen or so.

Of course if they're the monarch they don't get kicked out, but they announce their status in their job description so you know what to expect.

Detected vampires can be walled in or pitted into harmless places, since they don't eat or drink they'll live forever unless disturbed.

2. Is there a way to find a location with a 100% chance of having Iron?

Um... change all metals to iron and embark somewhere with metals? (Actually, even that probably wouldn't work)

There's no guarantees with iron - it's most common in sedimentary rock, with only one of the three iron ores appearing anywhere else. Since most flux stone is also sedimentary rock, this also solves two problems (iron + flux for steel).

Using the site finder to find a site with shallow metals and flux stone is possibly your best bet (outside of using DFHack and its prospecting function to find the approximate mineral composition of the area), just be careful that the site you're given doesn't fulfil these two criteria independently and/or in a tiny area.

The real best source of iron is its fourth ore, goblinite, found in most locations and usually delivered straight to your fortress by considerate citizens.

Alternatively, you could try trading with the dwarven and human caravans - this only works if they themselves have access to iron though! (Dwarves will bring steel even if they have no access to iron, because magic)

The steel explains how a Dwarven colony who happened to come out of nowhere is forced to use a steel anvil (to hell with the gods!). It's rediculous how a site I embarked on for a fortress has NO IRON whatsoever, just copper and silver. And VERY VERY little ores able for bronze.

[The_Jester]

Not having had a vampire show up in one of my forts yet, I found myself intensely checking every new migrant I got for a list of suspicious vampirisms. Then I realized that I really don't care about any one of my dwarves enough to try to catch a vamp before he feeds. I will worry about it when it happens.

[Gaybarowner]

Vamp dwarves are easy to find if you have a lot of time just see who has the LARGEST history out of all of them thats your traitor

[i2amroy]

Vamp dwarves are easy to find if you have a lot of time just see who has the LARGEST history out of all of them thats your traitor

Note that while almost all vampires have large histories, not all dwarves with large histories are guaranteed vampires. I have had some dwarves show up with huge histories, and even sometimes had therapist have problems with them, and they have still not been vampires. So while large histories is right 99% of the time, beware of that extra 1% (since they can be pretty badass dwarves that make up that 1%).

[Gaybarowner]

Vamp dwarves are easy to find if you have a lot of time just see who has the LARGEST history out of all of them thats your traitor

Note that while almost all vampires have large histories, not all dwarves with large histories are guaranteed vampires. I have had some dwarves show up with huge histories, and even sometimes had therapist have problems with them, and they have still not been vampires. So while large histories is right 99% of the time, beware of that extra 1% (since they can be pretty badass dwarves that make up that 1%).

if my dwarf is that bad ass he would be military leader in a snap but i just make armed suicide vamp dwarfs to guard the circus

[GreatWyrmGold]

Look, base diagnoses based on eating or drinking, or reactions to undead, NOT history.