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[krisslanza]

Gold is good for crafts and room value. Whats the prob?

Well, because while that's nice and all, it isn't quite as "useful" compared to the other metals Kohaku said.
"Useful" meaning from a military point of view. I guess.

[vjek]

1) Are you embarking on a specific type of site? Normally people complain about diversity because they are always embarking on volcanoes - volcanic areas only have a few types of stone layers thus don't have a whole bunch of minerals in those layers. Same goes for oceans and swamps, mostly.
...

I would happily embark on a non volcano region if there was a way to gain access to infinite lava that didn't require a volcano.   In other words, given the choice between building a pump stack up from the SMR-sea and having a volcano?  I'll take a volcano.  Building fully automated goblinite generators is MUCH harder without one.  Especially when you need large volume, flow & pressure.

Yes, you can use water, (or various other means & mechanisms) but then all those pesky biological remains and un-smelt-able bits are left behind.  Inefficient! (and miasmatic!)

[NW_Kohaku]

Gold is good for crafts and room value. Whats the prob?

If you have trouble getting good materials for crafts or tremendous room values, you're not playing the game right.

I'll point out that steel is worth more than gold, and so is aluminum.  More than that, using metals for crafts is an utter waste of perfectly good metal.  (Of course, gold is useless, so I guess it's hard to waste gold.) 

If you want high value, instead focus on training up high quality.  Infinite free food items grown and cooked with high skill dwarves will produce food stacks worth more than entire caravans.  Likewise, if you want high room value, just train an engraver. 

Further, after you have developed a self-sufficient fortress, trade caravans are actually more trouble than they are worth. They lag the game, disrupt work, and generally take more time to sort through than simply running an entire year without a caravan does.  Crafts are useless trade junk at that point that only clutter your fortress and steal your FPS.

[TSTwizby]

Just because there are viable alternatives to gold doesn't make gold useless, any more than gold furniture being a viable alternative to engraving makes engraving useless. One way to not have trouble getting good craft materials or room values is to use gold. Gold is not difficult.

[NW_Kohaku]

Just because there are viable alternatives to gold doesn't make gold useless, any more than gold furniture being a viable alternative to engraving makes engraving useless. One way to not have trouble getting good craft materials or room values is to use gold. Gold is not difficult.

The difference is that gold requires 3 times as much material as anything else, requires finicky managing of materials, and is of limited quantity, wheras consuming food or stone that are either in unlimited supplies or that you want to get rid of, anyway, makes the non-gold materials far more valuable as building materials simply because they take no oversight to manage.

[Captain Crazy]

A question 'bout minerals: how can I find the best embark? I just want huge veins of iron (i think Magnetite is the biggest-veined ore of iron). Is there a surefire way to know what layer I embark on?

[NW_Kohaku]

A question 'bout minerals: how can I find the best embark? I just want huge veins of iron (i think Magnetite is the biggest-veined ore of iron). Is there a surefire way to know what layer I embark on?

The fastest way is to use DF Hack's Prospector.

[melomel]

You want sedimentary layers for massive gobs of iron ore.  Someone floated the idea of removing the [FLUX] tag from marble, and running an embark search.  (Marble is the only non-sedimentary flux stone.)

That and tweaking the mineral/ore value in custom worldgen should give you more metal than you know what to do with.

I'll point out that steel is worth more than gold, and so is aluminum.  More than that, using metals for crafts is an utter waste of perfectly good metal.  (Of course, gold is useless, so I guess it's hard to waste gold.) 

If you want high value, instead focus on training up high quality.  Infinite free food items grown and cooked with high skill dwarves will produce food stacks worth more than entire caravans.  Likewise, if you want high room value, just train an engraver. 

Further, after you have developed a self-sufficient fortress, trade caravans are actually more trouble than they are worth. They lag the game, disrupt work, and generally take more time to sort through than simply running an entire year without a caravan does.  Crafts are useless trade junk at that point that only clutter your fortress and steal your FPS.

It still feels silly, though.  I mean, aluminum decorations?  What do the little bastids do, run around and put tin foil all over everything?

[khearn]

I find gold to be very useful at times. My current fort has no iron ore, but vast veins of gold. My dwarves are, therefore, completely armed and armored in steel. With a magma forge, it's quite easy to turn gold into steel. Just a little slower.

Human Trader: So, that's 5 iron piccolos and 3 iron drums. You bought a bunch of them last year, too. I'd love to hear your band some time.
Dwarf Broker: We don't have a band.
Human Trader: Huh? I'm not sure I understand, but I'm still happy to trade for your beautiful gold crafts.

3 months later.
Dwarf Trader: More iron instruments, hm? Still haven't found any iron ore, eh?
Dwarf Broker: Aye, and if you'd just bring us wagonloads of steel bars, we'd be happier.
Dwarf Trader: Oh yes, I'm sure you would, but we make more profit trading iron crafts for gold crafts.
Dwarf Broker: $%&*(&@#%!!

[GhostDwemer]

I guess people don't realize how valuable aluminum used to be up until we discovered a way to refine it an at industrial scale. You know the top of the Washington Monument is aluminum, right? One hundred whole ounces of the stuff, which was practically priceless at the time. Seeing as the dwarfs can't smelt aluminum from bauxite, they can't smelt it at industrial scales, and it would be very valuable as a precious metal.

[xeniorn]

I find gold to be very useful at times. My current fort has no iron ore, but vast veins of gold. My dwarves are, therefore, completely armed and armored in steel. With a magma forge, it's quite easy to turn gold into steel. Just a little slower.

Human Trader: So, that's 5 iron piccolos and 3 iron drums. You bought a bunch of them last year, too. I'd love to hear your band some time.
Dwarf Broker: We don't have a band.
Human Trader: Huh? I'm not sure I understand, but I'm still happy to trade for your beautiful gold crafts.

3 months later.
Dwarf Trader: More iron instruments, hm? Still haven't found any iron ore, eh?
Dwarf Broker: Aye, and if you'd just bring us wagonloads of steel bars, we'd be happier.
Dwarf Trader: Oh yes, I'm sure you would, but we make more profit trading iron crafts for gold crafts.
Dwarf Broker: $%&*(&@#%!!

Love this one.

Just a comment to NW_Kohaku: Of course steel is a much more useful metal and gold's utility fades in comparison with it, but not every player strives towards max efficiency while stomping over immersion. I mean, if you like to actually imagine the world as seen from your dwarves' eyes, steel-clad military dwarves walking through 100 % engraved fortress filled with steel statues and endless hallways speckled with masterwork steel doors, with a bunch of steel weapon traps in the entrance, it seems pretty bleak, doesn't it?
Also - saying "If you want high value, instead focus on training up high quality" doesn't really make sense, since training your craftsdwarves and using gold to make crafts/other stuff don't get in each other's way. Finally, if you really don't see absolutely any special value in gold, you can just enable it to be built into items just like regular stone. Native gold tables/thrones/blocks are worth more than items made of almost any other stone! So, gold cannot really be perceived as useless from any point of view.

I guess people don't realize how valuable aluminum used to be up until we discovered a way to refine it an at industrial scale. You know the top of the Washington Monument is aluminum, right? One hundred whole ounces of the stuff, which was practically priceless at the time. Seeing as the dwarfs can't smelt aluminum from bauxite, they can't smelt it at industrial scales, and it would be very valuable as a precious metal.

Ah, you beat me to it.

[NW_Kohaku]

I find gold to be very useful at times. My current fort has no iron ore, but vast veins of gold. My dwarves are, therefore, completely armed and armored in steel. With a magma forge, it's quite easy to turn gold into steel. Just a little slower.

Human Trader: So, that's 5 iron piccolos and 3 iron drums. You bought a bunch of them last year, too. I'd love to hear your band some time.
Dwarf Broker: We don't have a band.
Human Trader: Huh? I'm not sure I understand, but I'm still happy to trade for your beautiful gold crafts.

3 months later.
Dwarf Trader: More iron instruments, hm? Still haven't found any iron ore, eh?
Dwarf Broker: Aye, and if you'd just bring us wagonloads of steel bars, we'd be happier.
Dwarf Trader: Oh yes, I'm sure you would, but we make more profit trading iron crafts for gold crafts.
Dwarf Broker: $%&*(&@#%!!

Again, why would you trade in a fort with iron, flux, and wood for a fort with gold, and then try to trade for your iron? 

Trading is a terrible idea, and should be avoided.

Metals are only valuable for the weapons you can make from them - everything else can be done better with stone, wood, or other materials that are both more common and less of a hassle to deal with.

[NW_Kohaku]

Just a comment to NW_Kohaku: Of course steel is a much more useful metal and gold's utility fades in comparison with it, but not every player strives towards max efficiency while stomping over immersion. I mean, if you like to actually imagine the world as seen from your dwarves' eyes, steel-clad military dwarves walking through 100 % engraved fortress filled with steel statues and endless hallways speckled with masterwork steel doors, with a bunch of steel weapon traps in the entrance, it seems pretty bleak, doesn't it?
Also - saying "If you want high value, instead focus on training up high quality" doesn't really make sense, since training your craftsdwarves and using gold to make crafts/other stuff don't get in each other's way. Finally, if you really don't see absolutely any special value in gold, you can just enable it to be built into items just like regular stone. Native gold tables/thrones/blocks are worth more than items made of almost any other stone! So, gold cannot really be perceived as useless from any point of view.

Actually, immersion-wise, who would want to live in a solid gold house?  That would be even more ugly than a solid-steel one, and besides that, the point I'm making is not to make anything out of metal at all.  Stones like granite or marble are far more interesting to look at than gold.  Especially when engraved.

Even native gold is not worth the effort, as using it takes far more micromanagement than it's worth.  It's far better to have a simple reliable source of layer stone than gold, as it allows you to color-coordinate much more easily, and value will never, ever be an issue.

[GhostDwemer]

Jeez, Kohaku, you may as well say "The only thing with any value in the game is wood. From wood, you can make beds, cages, bins, barrels and menacing wooden spikes. This is all you could possibly need to survive, so everything else has no value."

You, ah, do realize there is more than one way to play this game, right? But perhaps you have seen the "You've WON Dwarf Fortress!" screen, and know secrets the rest of us don't.

[khearn]

Again, why would you trade in a fort with iron, flux, and wood for a fort with gold, and then try to trade for your iron? 

Trading is a terrible idea, and should be avoided.

Metals are only valuable for the weapons you can make from them - everything else can be done better with stone, wood, or other materials that are both more common and less of a hassle to deal with.

Because I prefer to play the hand I'm dealt, rather than stacking the deck by running dfhack's prospector on every potential embark to make sure I have the exact combination of metal ore needed to make the "optimal" fortress. Sure, it's a lot easier to play an embark that has iron, flux, and wood. Be sure to also pick a spot with fresh water, moderate temperatures, and non-evil surroundings. An island where goblins can't reach you is also very handy, if you're going for that sort of thing.

There must be something terribly wrong with people who embark on terrifying glaciers next to goblin towers. Don't they know they're Doing It Wrong^tm?