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[Spectre9000]

I like making massive worlds and I like how it all has so much history and diversity to it. However, this has led me to never having a site with iron (Seriously I channel out all the sedimentary layers), and none of the other fun stuff. Don't get me wrong, I've finally made a strategy that works well enough (dig until I hit magma, mine the adamantine, use it for shields, use tetrahedrite to make copper armor and silver warhammers), but I want to actually enjoy myself more with having some of what I'd imagine many to consider the bare necessities such as iron.


Therefore, I've come to ask you all for a good world seed that has everything a fun-seeking dorf could hope for, preferably in a 4x4, though 5x5 is fine. I've not had performance issues really with map size, but don't know if I will with 6x6 or not. Also, Dwarf caravans are a must (no dead home civ) and Humans trade caravans would be greatly appreciated. Another thing is no Aquifer. I haven't taken on that beast yet, and I'm not sure I want to.

[Fleeting Frames]

To get iron, generally embarking where you have shallow metals on non-igneous area, with setting minerals to be very frequent (low mineral frequency) gives best chance you can get, and on older version you can confirm it's presence with dfhack's prospect before embarking.

For further reading,
v0.43.03+ worldgen thread
v0.42.06 worldgen thread
v0.40.24 worldgen thread

(If you want exact setup from one of the older versions in a newer version you can generate a world in older one and then copy the region folder.)

Mind you, some players consider the geography of most worlds in worldgen threads to be alien, so YMMV on it much like aquifers and reanimating husking biomes where you have to fight zombie apocalypse to trade with human caravan.

[Melting Sky]

Fleeting Frames has pretty much summed it up nicely already, but I should add that when you are in the embark finder view where you choose your starting location you can filter your search with various criteria. You want to look for at least shallow "metals." You want the plural of the word since this indicates more than one type and increases the odds that one will be an iron ore. If I remember correctly there is one iron ore (hematite maybe?) that you can find deep in igneous rock, but the others are shallow and in sedimentary, so finding both shallow and deep metals is a plus.

Another great trick is to embark where multiple biomes overlap since the underlying geology will also be different. This helps ensure a wiper variety of mineral resources to choose from. Some maps you can end up with multiple types of iron ore and others you can get none, but the more times your roll the dice the better your odds of finding some good stuff so look for biome border embarks.

Pretty much any world you spawn will have some very iron rich embarks if you know where to look for them. In a large world there should be literally dozens or even hundreds of embarks locations that have iron on them and meet your criteria. I should add you can just turn off aquifers when you load up the game in PeridexisErrant's DF Starter Pack or if you are running vanilla then you can change it in the init file.

[Fleeting Frames]

Oh yeah. Without changing the init files, aquifers are generally linked to high drainage (also affects soil depth) and low elevation - I believe it is a chance depending on layers, with mountains very rarely having aquifers as a result.