Started a new fort on a new world. Desert + mountain, no trees, no vegetation. Just sand and rock.
Got lucky and found a decent chunk of platinum deposits on the surface. I'm planning a fort built down in the third cavern and below, with a Moria-esque entrance. A starter base on the surface has been dug out, alongside a massive circular cliff edge and pit.
Digging down, I find plenty of native gold and native silver. First cavern reports the same findings, with a bit more native silver than native gold.
No luck on getting iron or copper, though. Goblinite, ho!
I pray to Armok the gold, silver, and platinum aren't cursed.
but everything a dorf touches with a pickaxe is cursed calling forth the forgotten beasts like a lantern lures the moths.
Oh it is definitely cursed now. The fort is crashing regularly in the same month.
*Sigh*. Back to the drawing board.
EDIT:
Alright, custom worldgen, new fort. A tiny tower stuck in a thin valley in a mountain range, hiding the entrance to our underground fort. Civ supposedly dead, but dorfs keep coming. Worldmap shows dead fortresses and hillocks completely isolated on the other side of the mountain range. Only one fort, also dead, is reachable on our side. Guessing gobbos screwed our kin royally.
We've settled in the first cavern layer. Remarkably, it has a cavern lake not connected to any edges of the map, as well as a nice rocky wall right through the middle over the lake. A fitting place for a base fort.
Cleared some rock, flooded the ground for some farmland. Plenty of critters, too. Cave crocodiles (YISS!), giant cave spiders (YAY), elk birds, giant cave toad, giant olm, and some drunians, among others. Also some gorlaks and trolls, but they're basically useless.
Naturally, we're breeding the crocs. As well as the elk birds, toads, olms, and drunians. Elk birds, being the PITA that they are, have some enhanced breeding infrastructure. 'Tis a shame the toads and olms don't have child forms. Can't really tame them.
As for rock, we've got some dolomite and marble near the surface, and schist and slate in the first cavern. Metals seem to be tetrahedrite on the surface and sphalerite in the cavern. Copper, silver, brass. Yay. For now, anyway. No-one seems to have heard of iron, so goblinite it is.
Interestingly, they haven't heard of shirts, tunics, or vests, either. For the upper body there are only dresses, robes, and coats. So naturally, the military consists of fancy, dress-wearing, copper-armored, silver-hammering badasses.
The same cannot be said of our queen. Her Majesty is currently cowering in the elk bird pen. Apparently the elk bird hatchlings triggered her PTSD.