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[Artinnio]

I've noticed in most of the fortresses I've founded, I have never gotten any truly precious gems like emeralds, or rubies. Neither have I ever dug up more than a mere handful of platinum. I'm just wondering, where is the best embark points generally located for wealth?
I usually get iron ores so I always have a steel industry, but never do I get much glittery stuff...

[SkyRender]

If you're after gemstones, deserts are your best bet.  Although currently you'll get far more wealth from steel than any other material thanks to the fact that it's the most valuable metal for making trap components (which are so utterly broken value-wise that literally nothing else in the game can even come close to their potential for profit).

[smjjames]

The biome doesn't have any effect on how much underground wealth there is.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

you can try lowering the 'mineral scarcity' value in advanced world-gen parameters. You will find valuable metals, gems etc everywhere if its less than 500. (The default is 2500 - the lower the value here, the more you find)
I usually have my worlds mineral scarcity at 1500 for general, non-challenges/megaproject/science forts.
That tends to yield a decent spread of valuable metals, not too much that it makes is worthless, but just enough you can enjoy your find..


You could also try increasing the layers at level 4 and 5 - although that will mainly increase the size of the candy spires (thus more), but doing the same thing for layers 1 and 2 can extend your potential quantity of shallow metals drastically, as there is literally more layers to find some in.

Beware though, using too high a value for the layer number will make your game lag hard, due to all the extra squares the game needs to track.
I find that using 7-10 for 1 or 2 layers seems fine on my rig, as long as the other layers are at 5 or less. I usually embark on 5x5 for reference. 

[Artinnio]

Awesome, I usually embark on a 5x5 too. I seem to have luck with gold, last embark for example I had over 70000 when I used prospect.

I'll take a look at the mineral scarcity value then. I have no problem finding opals and zircons, but nothing noteworthy...

[Broken]

value 40 gems and above are very, very rare. Your best bet is using DF Prospect command to search.

Note: Value 60 gems (Aka, most diamond types) are SUPER RARE. even if the fort have them, you will only finf 10-200 units in the map.
Value 40 gems are somewhat more frecuent; rare to find, but you can get lots in a good mine.

(One of my old fortresses had thousands of esmeralds, it was pretty awesome)

[AWellTrainedFerret]

Your best bet is to trade for gems, because you embark will always have a finite number, but the mountainhomes....well if they have a single fort in an area with a single diamond you can trade infinite diamonds off them. as for scarcity, I've noticed that in recent patches you have to turn mineral scarcity WAY down, like in the 0-500 range to even have a chance of your world spawning the 1-tile rare gems.

Though if you don't want to trade, your best be is to embark in an area with high volcanism. This will likely get you several layers that are rich in emeralds. Emeralds are far more numerous than the other 40-value gems this way, because they are layer-wide, while the other 40-value gems only spawn in pockets of non-layer stone.

[KingBacon]

I found some sites in my worlds with like 6000 emeralds or diamonds (FY and LY, not the good stuff but Kimberlite has a cool color.) The most sapphires (which are rarer than rubies)/ rubies I've found on a site was about 400.

[Urist McOriginalname]

To get truly outrageous amounts of gems , embark anywhere with a mountain. Those places usually even have gems sticking out to the surface and as i have noticed every mountain contains at least some kind of valuable minerals like deep metals and flux.

[vjek]

Did some experimenting today, managed to gen a world with a 3x3 embark that contains:

name : value : qty : levels
            SAPPHIRE_STAR :  60 :        56 Z: 132..138
                RUBY_STAR :  60 :        41 Z: 132..138
           DIAMOND_YELLOW :  60 :        11 Z:  85..89
              DIAMOND_RED :  60 :         4 Z:  85..89
            DIAMOND_GREEN :  60 :        14 Z:  85..89
            DIAMOND_CLEAR :  60 :        35 Z:  85..89
             DIAMOND_BLUE :  60 :        28 Z:  85..89
            DIAMOND_BLACK :  60 :        15 Z:  85..89
                 SAPPHIRE :  40 :       238 Z: 132..138
                     RUBY :  40 :       154 Z: 132..138
               DIAMOND_FY :  40 :       459 Z:  85..89
               DIAMOND_LY :  30 :       397 Z:  85..89
                DEMANTOID :  30 :        19 Z:  96..98
        INDIGO TOURMALINE :  25 :       115 Z: 132..138
             CLEAR ZIRCON :  25 :        17 Z: 106..109
       YELLOW SPESSARTINE :  20 :        56 Z: 118..121

Primarily, based on Granite, Gabbro, and Diorite in large quantities.

[Artinnio]

Bloody hell... That embark would be a magpie's wet dream...

The infinite diamonds thing, I didn't realize that that worked.

Just looking at genning a world, mineral scarcity is set at 700, how do I increase the layers? Is that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

   [HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_1:1]
   [HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_2:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_GROUND:15]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_1:5]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_2:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_3:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_4:1]
   [LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_5:2]
   [LEVELS_AT_BOTTOM:1]

those lines in the World_gen?

[vjek]

Yep, that 238-Sapphire-embark worldgen below, as an example.
The "Levels above layer 1" is what I adjusted in this case.
Given gabbro, granite, and diorite are the targets, I just removed erosion and rain and volcanism to give them as much room as possible.  (they wouldn't be replaced by sedimentary and/or igneous extrusive, is the theory)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Created in DF v0.34.11.

[WORLD_GEN]
[TITLE:RICH1]
[SEED:d5gelGEwasdBHvPtP6XA]
[HISTORY_SEED:DYEjYcR4snLQfgpqxRVe]
[NAME_SEED:bPexrIzBLg3mcf3fj9Fq]
[CREATURE_SEED:MNI2gOyUkIwbwrK42tFS]
[DIM:17:17]
[EMBARK_POINTS:2500]
[END_YEAR:200]
[BEAST_END_YEAR:200:-1]
[REVEAL_ALL_HISTORY:1]
[CULL_HISTORICAL_FIGURES:0]
[ELEVATION:100:400:0:0]
[RAINFALL:0:0:0:0]
[TEMPERATURE:75:75:0:0]
[DRAINAGE:100:100:0:0]
[VOLCANISM:0:0:0:0]
[SAVAGERY:0:0:0:0]
[ELEVATION_FREQUENCY:2:8:0:0:0:2]
[RAIN_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[DRAINAGE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[TEMPERATURE_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[SAVAGERY_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[VOLCANISM_FREQUENCY:1:1:1:1:1:1]
[MINERAL_SCARCITY:5000]
[MEGABEAST_CAP:100]
[SEMIMEGABEAST_CAP:100]
[TITAN_NUMBER:100]
[TITAN_ATTACK_TRIGGER:0:0:200000]
[DEMON_NUMBER:20]
[NIGHT_TROLL_NUMBER:0]
[BOGEYMAN_NUMBER:0]
[VAMPIRE_NUMBER:0]
[WEREBEAST_NUMBER:0]
[SECRET_NUMBER:0]
[REGIONAL_INTERACTION_NUMBER:0]
[DISTURBANCE_INTERACTION_NUMBER:0]
[EVIL_CLOUD_NUMBER:0]
[EVIL_RAIN_NUMBER:0]
[GOOD_SQ_COUNTS:0:0:0]
[EVIL_SQ_COUNTS:0:0:0]
[PEAK_NUMBER_MIN:0]
[PARTIAL_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
[COMPLETE_OCEAN_EDGE_MIN:0]
[VOLCANO_MIN:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:SWAMP:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:DESERT:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:FOREST:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:MOUNTAINS:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:OCEAN:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GLACIER:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:TUNDRA:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:GRASSLAND:0:0:0]
[REGION_COUNTS:HILLS:0:0:0]
[EROSION_CYCLE_COUNT:0]
[RIVER_MINS:0:0]
[PERIODICALLY_ERODE_EXTREMES:0]
[OROGRAPHIC_PRECIPITATION:0]
[SUBREGION_MAX:5000]
[CAVERN_LAYER_COUNT:1]
[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN:1]
[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MAX:5]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MAX:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MIN:25]
[CAVERN_LAYER_WATER_MAX:35]
[HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_1:1]
[HAVE_BOTTOM_LAYER_2:1]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_GROUND:2]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_1:100]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_2:2]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_3:2]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_4:2]
[LEVELS_ABOVE_LAYER_5:3]
[LEVELS_AT_BOTTOM:2]
[CAVE_MIN_SIZE:1]
[CAVE_MAX_SIZE:1]
[MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:0]
[NON_MOUNTAIN_CAVE_MIN:0]
[ALL_CAVES_VISIBLE:0]
[SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:2]
[TOTAL_CIV_NUMBER:1]
[TOTAL_CIV_POPULATION:0]
[SITE_CAP:0]
[PLAYABLE_CIVILIZATION_REQUIRED:1]
[ELEVATION_RANGES:0:0:0]
[RAIN_RANGES:0:0:0]
[DRAINAGE_RANGES:0:0:0]
[SAVAGERY_RANGES:0:0:0]
[VOLCANISM_RANGES:0:0:0]


Also note I used mineral scarcity 5000, just to show it's potentially more about the stone layers to get more kimberlite, in this case.  Might be better with Mineral Scarcity 100, but I was not getting the results I wanted with 100.
Also genned another world with 2.8k Emeralds in a 3x3, using similar parameters.

[iofhua]

In advanced world gen, "levels above ground" is how many extra layers of atmosphere you will have above your tallest mountain. It's completely useless and you might as well set it to 1. "levels above layer 1" is how many stone layers are between your soil layer and the top of your first cavern. Increasing this gives you more room to dig out your fortress and more metal to mine.

As far as I know, there is no direct way to increase the number of soil layers you have. If anyone knows a sure-fire way to give a world more deep soil, please let me know.

[Quietust]

In advanced world gen, "levels above ground" is how many extra layers of atmosphere you will have above your tallest mountain. It's completely useless and you might as well set it to 1.

No, "levels above ground" is how many extra layers of sky you will have above the tallest hill in your embark region - if you set it to 1 and then embark in a totally flat area, then it will become impossible to build any sort of tower.

[iofhua]

Oops. I mis-read the wiki. I don't build towers though so I still think it's useless.