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[Rogue Yun]

This is not a suggestion, this is something that already is. Dwarven Mountain Homes seem to always have steel on hand whether there is iron ore available or not. They seem to pull it out of their ears.

Wikipeida (that unreliable resource) has this to say on steel:

"Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and low cost."

What do you think could be a solution to this?

[Dirst]

This is not a suggestion, this is something that already is. Dwarven Mountain Homes seem to always have steel on hand whether there is iron ore available or not. They seem to pull it out of their ears.

Wikipeida (that unreliable resource) has this to say on steel:

"Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and low cost."

What do you think could be a solution to this?

This is sort of a bug that affects any sites that aren't player forts.  Civilizations have access to the products of any PERMITTED_REACTION in their entity raws, whether they have access to the reagents or not.  So, you will always have access to a steel anvil at embark, even if you can't get an iron one.

[MDFification]

A way to fix this would be to force the game to check available materials for each site and add them to a list of available materials for that civ. Still, this would not result in in-game representation of mining (because that would require rewriting the site generation). It's a really simple fix, so no doubt Toady has already thought of it and just doesn't think it's worth implementing at this point.

[GavJ]

It's just a quick shortcut cause he didn't want to code a whole tree search. The solution is obvious -- have world gen follow the whole tech tree as a tree. It's just a matter of Toady getting around to doing it.

[Knight Otu]

This is sort of a bug that affects any sites that aren't player forts.  Civilizations have access to the products of any PERMITTED_REACTION in their entity raws, whether they have access to the reagents or not.  So, you will always have access to a steel anvil at embark, even if you can't get an iron one.

Not all products - I'm pretty sure it's just reaction metals that are available regardless of reagents. Also, here's the relevant bug report.

[Larix]

1. it can be rationalised that reaction metals are made from imported materials. I have a .34.11 fort that has no iron ores and didn't buy iron from caravans, still managed to equip its military entirely in steel - from refined goblinite.
2. a home civilisation without iron ores would mean you couldn't get a starting anvil, a home civ without any copper or iron ores no starting picks. If humans are unavailable or similarly metal-poor, you could end up with extremely restricted gameplay imposed on you.

To me it's a rather arbitrary realism argument that serves no purpose apart from making some civs/worlds harder (to impossible) to play.

[Rogue Yun]

1. it can be rationalised that reaction metals are made from imported materials. I have a .34.11 fort that has no iron ores and didn't buy iron from caravans, still managed to equip its military entirely in steel - from refined goblinite.
2. a home civilisation without iron ores would mean you couldn't get a starting anvil, a home civ without any copper or iron ores no starting picks. If humans are unavailable or similarly metal-poor, you could end up with extremely restricted gameplay imposed on you.

To me it's a rather arbitrary realism argument that serves no purpose apart from making some civs/worlds harder (to impossible) to play.

Or more FUN

Wikipedia on the history of anvils. We learn that there was some stone and bronze anvils. I post this for discussion.

Early anvils were first made of stone as a lithic stone tool, then bronze, and later wrought iron. As steel became more readily available, anvils were faced with it. This was done to give the anvil a hard face and to stop the anvil from deforming from impact. Many regional styles of anvils evolved through time from the simple block that was first used by smiths. The majority of anvils found today in the US are based on the London pattern anvil of the mid-19th century.

[Niddhoger]

If this was "fixed" we'd need the opportunity to preview an empires material lists before embarking.  Thus we can avoid exiting the game (or starting/abandoning a fort immediately) if we choose an embark site and realize our civ doesn't have anvils.  Or we can knowningly choose a civ without anvils for added !FUN! Think of it like settling on a treeless, evil, freezing, and/or aquifer embark- the game readily lets you know the !FUN! beforehand.

[Rogue Yun]

If this was "fixed" we'd need the opportunity to preview an empires material lists before embarking.  Thus we can avoid exiting the game (or starting/abandoning a fort immediately) if we choose an embark site and realize our civ doesn't have anvils.  Or we can knowningly choose a civ without anvils for added !FUN! Think of it like settling on a treeless, evil, freezing, and/or aquifer embark- the game readily lets you know the !FUN! beforehand.

True. I kind of feel the game needs an option to review everything (including available resources) before embark to prevent that. Abandoning forts from start happens to me anyway when I realize I forgot to check for goblin civs nearby. I've grown accustomed to this and have become more careful, but there are those who are not as comfortable where "This is the info about the place you have chosen:<info> Are you sure you want to embark here?" could be a very handy thing.

[Niddhoger]

Or.... we could choose our civilization after we choose our embark site.  So as we are flipping through the available goods, we can flip through the civs to see how they differ.  At the very least we need an easy way to return to the "choose embark site" after selecting.  As I mentioned earlier, the only way out of the "plan carefully" screen is either restarting the game or just abandoning the fort before you've spit from the starting wagon.

[Rogue Yun]

Or.... we could choose our civilization after we choose our embark site.  So as we are flipping through the available goods, we can flip through the civs to see how they differ.  At the very least we need an easy way to return to the "choose embark site" after selecting.  As I mentioned earlier, the only way out of the "plan carefully" screen is either restarting the game or just abandoning the fort before you've spit from the starting wagon.

I support your opinion on this whole heartedly! There might be more/better solutions to this. If it ever came to a vote on whether something should be done about it, you would have mine.

[SixOfSpades]

The solution is obvious -- have world gen follow the whole tech tree as a tree. It's just a matter of Toady getting around to doing it.

I know that many people here have voiced a dislike for tech trees, calling them too gamey . . . and they are right.
Other people have said that tech trees are the only realistic way to simulate an evolving civilization . . . and they are right, too.
Unless Toady and ThreeToe truly mean to keep having dwarf civs spring, fully formed, from the forehead of Zeus, then at some point they are going to have to choose.

For now, possible alternatives to checking each civ's (metalworking) tech tree during worldgen are . . .
1) Only place Mountainhomes near sources of iron.
2) If a Mountainhome's territory includes no iron ore, enlarge its borders until iron is "claimed".
3) Once a Mountainhome is placed, force a vein or two in there.
4) Have all Mountainhome sites check for access to goblinite.
Even if the Mountainhome is located on a tiny island that just barely happens to include a Mountain biome, option 3 would still give settlers access to iron anvils. Frankly, I find the ability to embark on the opposite corner of the map from one's Mountainhome to be far less plausible than a civilization that has steel, but not iron. (Their stocks of iron could be really limited, and steel is better for everything, so as soon as they get a little iron, they smelt it into steel. Perfectly reasonable.)

[utunnels]

Can we assume they traded with other civilizations, or robbed from goblins?

[GavJ]

If this was "fixed" we'd need the opportunity to preview an empires material lists before embarking.  Thus we can avoid exiting the game (or starting/abandoning a fort immediately) if we choose an embark site and realize our civ doesn't have anvils.  Or we can knowningly choose a civ without anvils for added !FUN! Think of it like settling on a treeless, evil, freezing, and/or aquifer embark- the game readily lets you know the !FUN! beforehand.

Nah. Just add a world Gen rejection popup if any dwarven civs don't have iron or steel.

[Dirst]

If this was "fixed" we'd need the opportunity to preview an empires material lists before embarking.  Thus we can avoid exiting the game (or starting/abandoning a fort immediately) if we choose an embark site and realize our civ doesn't have anvils.  Or we can knowningly choose a civ without anvils for added !FUN! Think of it like settling on a treeless, evil, freezing, and/or aquifer embark- the game readily lets you know the !FUN! beforehand.

Nah. Just add a world Gen rejection popup if any dwarven civs don't have iron or steel.

The issue is a world with multiple Dwarven civs.  The Rainy Anvil-Bracelets has access to iron/steel but the Purple Oily Frost-Tunnel has access to iron but no flux (steel) and the Battle-Rock of Rainbows has neither.  It's annoying to find a lack of iron and have to go back to the very beginning of the embark process.