Trade goods are dominated by either mass stone crafts or expensive cooking. Metal doesn't make much sense to trade away, unless you've got more of it than you could possibly handle. And in any case, most of the really expensive metals come in nugget form, so the raw stone is as valuable as the smelted bar. You get to use the stonecrafter efficiency bonus applied to the metal's worth.
The only real decision is between metal and wood. All other materials and associated points are moot in one way or another.
For trees, you need to pay just as much attention to where you're settling as a metal-based fortress. If you're lucky, and you settle in a well-watered forest, you could get hundreds of trees to make stuff out of.
However, and this is important, trees require three years to grow from a fresh sapling before they can be harvested. And that's only if the sapling survives, which means it does not get stepped on too much and is in a not-too-crowded area vegetation-wise.
You also need make more things out of wood, including not only bins and barrels and beds, but also shields and trap components. For this, you need a team of woodcutters who will have to venture into unprotected areas in order to harvest your lumber. There are only two ways to avoid this, fencing and treefarming. Fencing requires a vast supply of materials (stone would be the wisest choice), a significant period of time and a workforce of laborers to build the wall. Treefarming requires either an underground pool or river, which will not only cause you to go scouring even further for the perfect wood-based spot, but will also limit the number of "natural" trees you can harvest for the early fort. Furthermore, it requires you to dig out a massive area underground for an effective treefarm, which will yield a staggering amount of stone.
So in order to have an efficient and safe wood-based fortress, you will need either A) a dense forest without an aquifer (you need to get to the stone for fencing), or B) a mountain with an underground river, or an underground pond with some other replenishable source of water (aquifers work, but are a pain to manage).
So there's not as much freedom in location choice as one might suspect. And although it does remove the "need" for magma, a chasm is always fun to have. There's another checkbox on your location list, if you're that kind of person.
Then there's the metal-based fortress. The metal-based fortress will need wood, especially early on. However, a "starter pack" of wood can be purchased with leftover points from a sold anvil at the starting screen, so the tree density of your chosen location is not as important.
And here's the metal-based "however". Metal is rarely found in quantities significant enough to power a fort for any length of time. You need either a fortress or a large starting area in order to get enough for most of your purposes.
Except for magnetite. Magnetite appears in several massive clusters that will provide all the metal you will ever need, and it will even provide a very valuable and useful metal at that. But for that, you need a sedimentary layer.
So there's our first metal-based location list item, a sedimentary layer. Now for the second.
Magma. You *will* need magma. A charcoal industry will strip your forest of trees before you know it, and coal is never found in any appreciable amount. You will require magma to power your furnaces, which is not only another checkbox on the list, but is also a hazard due to its inhabitants (and its temperature, but that's just more FUN).
So there we have it. Magnetite and magma. Kinda has a ring to it, doesn't it? Anyways, those are the basic requirements for any metal-based fort. With that, you can make any weapon or armor, and also supply your dwarves with iron bins and barrels. Wood is still needed for beds, but that's all it's needed for, and you can usually get enough wood through trade to at least take a bite out of your bed requirements.
If you want a bonus, get a flux layer along with the magnetite. This will grant you access to the most powerful alloy in the game, steel. However, this also requires carbon, so we come right back around to coal/charcoal shortages.
If you are fortunate enough to get coal veins along with everything else, you will have access to enough steel to equip your favored warriors. However, that's a very rare spot that quite a few people would love to get their hands on...
For charcoal, don't even bother. You need the wood for beds, so you can't spare any for making steel. You'll have to import bituminous coal (three bars of coke per stone) to get your extra carbon.
So there you have it. A wood-based fortress is easier to get up and running, but will be difficult to sustain. A metal-based fort will be much harder to set up properly, but will sustain itself quite well once you get going. Both types require special locations to function perfectly, and both types can "make do" in less optimal locations.
The only fort type that provides near-perfect freedom when picking a spot is the merchant fortress. Harvest plants, cook plants into expensive meals, trade meals for whatever building materials you can get.
Flexible, but dreadfully inefficient.
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Topic: Metalless fortresses, a good thing. (Read 3861 times)