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[Mohawk_Bravo]

Okay, so after a few months of not playing (heresy!), I've jumped back in. I decided to start at a world right near the beginning of time with everything else set pretty even. I've started with my standard set up (Two miners, a woodworker, a mason, an engineer, a doctor/farmer/brewer and a leader). With the basics aside, I settled in and started building my fortress. Only problem is, I can't seem to find any iron anywhere. My bottom floor (cemetary) is mostly made up of marble. The only level I have open access to is my crafts district, and so far all I can find is lignite (ironically, a steady supply). Now I'm starting to get a bit worried since my population is going up and I'm unable to defend myself very well. I've started on a secondary entrance laced with traps that I can channel enemies through, but it will take some time and I'm fearing an invasion. Any creative solutions for reliably finding/securing iron/defenses rather quickly? Or is my new fortress at the dawn of time about to become a rather complex hole full of corpses?

[SixOfSpades]

Ask the goblin liason to send regular shipments of iron, copper, bronze, and silver. As you have plenty of flux stone (marble) and fuel/carbon, the production of steel will not be an issue for you.

[nbp]

You could use dfhack's "prospect" command to figure out if there's iron somewhere else in your embark, if you don't consider that cheating.  Alternately, keep looking underground, but make arrangements to harvest and use the soon to be incoming goblinite.

[weenog]

Invoke the Second Amendment: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  All of your adult dwarves are in squads.  Those that aren't in the regular military will be in squads whose uniform includes a crossbow and quiver only, and is worn over their regular clothing, and is worn even when the squad is inactive (nearly always).  Make enough quivers for everybody, and crank out wooden and bone bolts as if your life depended upon it.  Quantity has a quality of its own, and when every last civilian is shooting at the invaders, lack of skill doesn't matter much.  Your military might not even get the chance to clean up, if a few civilians get lucky.

Don't overlook the value of a well-crafted copper spear in the hands of a well-skilled user.  Forgotten beasts and titans tend not to be armored, and spears penetrate deep to hit those major organs.

If you have some sand, and magma access or abundant fuel, you can make many glass trap components.  This serves the dual purpose of softening up invaders, and inviting more of them to bring their assorted metal wares; a large serrated green glass disc is highly valuable, and putting 750 of them in your entrance corridor will boost your fortress wealth enormously.

[Awessum Possum]

It's probably too late at this point, but walls and drawbridges will allow you to survive a siege indefinitely. Other than that all you can do is ask the liaison for lots of metals and metal bearing ores, I have a nice volcano fort going right now with no iron, but because of the caravans I have plenty of good armor and weapons lying around.

[loose nut]

Good ol' spiked wooden balls, in enough quantity, will stop invading goblins. But the Swiss solution (crossbows for everybody) has way more style.

Most style = minecart shotguns, probably.

[JimmyBobJr]

Just dig down to the candy.
Every SINGLE time i try to get a steel industry going, it takes ingame YEARS. In a quater of that time i could have dug down, found the candy, mined the candy, stringed the candy, and smithed the candy into armor and weapons, AND manage to equip my militia.
And Candy is just about a thousand times more effective anyway, its on every map, and (If you know how) quite safe to mine.

[i2amroy]

its on every map,

Technically adamantine spires spawn 1 in every 2x2 embark tile zone so if your map is only 2xY or Xx2 then it is fully possible for you to not get any adamantine at all.

[MrWillsauce]

its on every map,

Technically adamantine spires spawn 1 in every 2x2 embark tile zone so if your map is only 2xY or Xx2 then it is fully possible for you to not get any adamantine at all.

2x2 is the smallest area you can embark in without hacks. He's right, it is on every map.

[Seraphim342]

It's possible to get none in a 2x2 embark.  Rare, but possible.

Anyway, cage traps would work as well.  Capture the goblins and strip their gear off.  Menacing wooden spikes are also pretty effective. 

[Mohawk_Bravo]

Well I used a combination of the in game solutions here. I was working on an order of 100 xbows and some bone/wood bolts. I dug down to the candy and was attempting to start an industry. Unfortunately, I was attacked. An ambush was not spotted until they were inside my first two gates and a forgotten beast woke up and decided to make my dwarves into rag dolls. Some migrants came but at that point the fortress somehow got sealed with everyone inside and everything died terribly. Well, thanks for the help anyway guys, next fortress will almost certainly employ some of these tips.

[i2amroy]

its on every map,

Technically adamantine spires spawn 1 in every 2x2 embark tile zone so if your map is only 2xY or Xx2 then it is fully possible for you to not get any adamantine at all.

2x2 is the smallest area you can embark in without hacks. He's right, it is on every map.

Your map doesn't necessarily line up with the 2x2 blocks though. So for example if the embark 2x2 blocks looked like this (assuming this is in the top left corner of the embark screen)

Code: [Select]

£..£
....
....
£..£It is fully possible to make a 2x4 or 4x2 fort and still not get any adamantine spires.

Code: [Select]

£EE£      £..£
.EE.  or  EEEE
.EE.      EEEE
£EE£      £..£And it doesn't break the 2x2 rule

Code: [Select]

£.|.£
..|..
--+--
..|..
£.|.£So it's not that a 2x2 is the only embark size that can get nothing, but a 2x'anything' embark can potentially end up with zero (though the chance reduces drastically with each additional tile you increase it by) as long as the 2xY embark doesn't line up with the corner of the embark map.
Since your map isn't necessarily aligned, this means that the various embark sizes can have (Arranged by ascending area):

Spoiler: Unaligned (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Size           Spires
2x2             0-4
2x3/3x2         0-4
2x4/4x2         0-6
3x3             1-4 (smallest guaranteed spire)
3x4/4x3         1-6
3x5/5x3         2-6 (smallest guaranteed dual)
4x4             1-9
4x5/5x4         2-9
4x6/6x4         2-12
5x5             4-9 (smallest guaranteed quad)
5x6/6x5         4-12
5x7/7x5         6-12 (smallest guaranteed six)
6x6             4-16

If you ensure that your embark area aligns with the map (so there is an even number of squares between either the top or bottom edge of your map and an even number between the left or right edge of your map then the table becomes this:

Spoiler: Aligned (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Size           Spires
2x2             1 (smallest guaranteed spire)
2x3/3x2         1-2
2x4/4x2         2 (smallest guaranteed dual)
3x3             1-4
3x4/4x3         2-4
3x5/5x3         2-6
4x4             4 (smallest guaranteed quad)
4x5/5x4         4-6
4x6/6x4         6 (smallest guaranteed six)
5x5             4-9
5x6/6x5         6-9
5x7/7x5         6-12
6x6             9 (smallest guaranteed nine)

And that then gives spire/area ratios of:
Edit: It was pointed out that I had forgotten to include weights in my calculations, and as such the Ratio (avg) calculation is worthless. Feel free to use the min and max though.

Spoiler: Unaligned (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Size           Ratio (max)           Ratio (min)           Ratio (avg)
2x2              1.000                 0.000                 .500
2x3/3x2           .666                 0.000                 .333
2x4/4x2           .750                 0.000                 .375
3x3               .444                  .111                 .278
3x4/4x3           .500                  .083                 .292
3x5/5x3           .400                  .133                 .267
4x4               .563                  .063                 .313
4x5/5x4           .450                  .100                 .275
4x6/6x4           .500                  .083                 .292
5x5               .360                  .160                 .260
5x6/6x5           .400                  .133                 .267
5x7/7x5           .343                  .171                 .257
6x6               .444                  .111                 .278

Spoiler: Aligned (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Size           Ratio (max)           Ratio (min)           Ratio (avg)
2x2               .250                  .250                 .250
2x3/3x2           .333                  .167                 .250
2x4/4x2           .250                  .250                 .250
3x3               .444                  .111                 .278
3x4/4x3           .333                  .167                 .250
3x5/5x3           .400                  .133                 .267
4x4               .250                  .250                 .250
4x5/5x4           .300                  .200                 .250
4x6/6x4           .250                  .250                 .250
5x5               .360                  .160                 .260
5x6/6x5           .300                  .200                 .250
5x7/7x5           .343                  .171                 .257
6x6               .250                  .250                 .250

So in general:
1)Aligning your map raises the minimum while lowering the maximum (with the exception of any map with two odd dimensions such as 3x3, 3x5, 5x5, and 5x7 as they are always aligned).
2)Unaligned maps have a better overall spire/area ratio then aligned maps do. Edit: Disproved
3)All aligned maps have an spire/area ratio of .25 spires per embark square with the exception of dual odd dimension maps. Edit: Disproved, All maps have a spire/area ratio of .25.
4)The best unaligned maps for finding adamantine in ascending area order are 3x3, 3x5, 4x5, 5x5, and 5x7.
5)The best aligned maps for finding adamantine are any 'even'x'even' maps

[weenog]

One more, simple thing to consider: doors.  Seriously, have doors.  Building destroyers will deconstruct them, and thief/snatcher types will just ignore them, but for your basic ambush or wild animal attack, a forbidden door will hold them back indefinitely.  They're not a great long-term security solution, but they can buy you the time you need to get things done.

[Anathema]

So in general:
1)Aligning your map raises the minimum while lowering the maximum (with the exception of any map with two odd dimensions such as 3x3, 3x5, 5x5, and 5x7 as they are always aligned).
2)Unaligned maps have a better overall spire/area ratio then aligned maps do.
3)All aligned maps have an spire/area ratio of .25 spires per embark square with the exception of dual odd dimension maps.
4)The best unaligned maps for finding adamantine in ascending area order are 3x3, 3x5, 4x5, 5x5, and 5x7.
5)The best aligned maps for finding adamantine are any 'even'x'even' maps

Actually (2) isn't quite true, your averages are off. It looks like you just averaged the min and max, without considering the weight of each - consider for example the 2x2 unaligned, i.e. in the middle of a 4x4 grid such that it could miss all spires. Each of the four spires has a 75% chance of missing your embark, and a 25% chance of being included in it. The odds of a 0-spire embark are .75^4 (31.6%), the odds of a 4-spire embark are .25^4 (3.9%). Therefore you can't just average the max of 4 (1 spire/area) and min of 0 to get 0.500 avg spires/area, the average number of spires is weighted closer to the min since each spire has less than 50% chance to be included. Your average embark actually has .25*4 = 1 spire, or .25 spires/area.

In fact every embark, regardless of alignment or dimensions, should have exactly .25 average spires/area; a 1x1 averages .25 spires/area and every other embark is just a combination of 1x1s. If your embark contains half of a 2x2 with one spire somewhere in it, your chance of getting that spire is 50%, or .25 spires/area for those two tiles - and obviously including the entire 2x2 gives you exactly one spire, still .25 spires/area for those four tiles. Unaligned even-dimension embarks just have higher variance - there's more chance of both unusually low or high results.

Edit: Sorry if this sounds overly critical, aside from that one detail it was an interesting and useful analysis. I love how pervasively useful mathematics (particularly statistics) are for analyzing DF, it's proof of the game's depth.

[i2amroy]

Actually (2) isn't quite true, your averages are off. It looks like you just averaged the min and max, without considering the weight of each - consider for example the 2x2 unaligned, i.e. in the middle of a 4x4 grid such that it could miss all spires.

I was afraid something like that would happen, as that was pretty much what I did. I blame the fact that I was typing that whole thing up (including calculations) in the middle of my Mechanics of Materials lecture and wasn't quite paying as much attention to some of the meanings of my calculations. Thanks for pointing out the problem. I'll edit the original claim post to show that.