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[Soadreqm]

At the moment, the only properties stones have are value and color. There's no hardness, all rock is equally easy to work on, and the poisonous minerals don't poison anyone. And yet I'm just now reclaiming a fortress with 200 units of marble in the wagon. Mostly for statues. It took several tries to find a civilization with access to marble, instead of the worthless, ugly limestone and chalk. And I almost never build anything out of the really soft rocks, like gypsum, or have movable bridges built of anything I feel couldn't handle the moving. And read the wikipedia articles for every rock I find. How is everyone else?

[Marlowe]

"worthless, ugly limestone?" 

Well, it's true that the game doesn't take into account many of the real world properties of things. I find bone crossbows a little unlikely, and although steel crossbows are a good idea iron ones, as far I as know, are not.

Obsidian, well useful for weapons, probably would not be a very safe building material. Like building a house out of broken glass.

Somebody pointed out in the "know your rocks" thread that the "soft" rocks, like Talc, are actually quite usuable for construction. The softness makes them highly resistant to shattering.

I think that colour is probably the major consideration for most people. Microcline is particulally despised by most people. Most people will avoid gypsum not because it's soft, but because it's yellow. I actually find marble quite hard on the eyes (being glaring white) and, since it's neither a sedimentry rock or igneous extrusive, have no reason to go near it.

[sneakey pete]

Marble *is* a sedimentary rock, though. It usually contains both magnetite clusters, the flux (marble itself) for making it into steel, and the fuel in the form of coal/lignite veins. Pretty much win if you ask me.

[Thuellai]

See, now, I like Microcline for its blue-ness.  And Olivine for its green-ness.

[Soadreqm]

Marble's metamorphic, I think. And the reason I try to have it is that the wikipedia article has pictures of the Taj Mahal and Venus de Milo on it.

I don't think obsidian as a building materia would be any worse than glass blocks. It does fracture into extremely sharp shards, yes, but you don't have to go and fracture it.

And I really, really wouldn't trust a talk bridge over a bottomless pit. It's not as bad a soap, but still. Constant walking on really takes its toll on any material, and the really soft ones erode fast.

[DJ]

Wait, there's coal in marble? I've never seen any, so I've been avoiding it lately.

Anyway, I like my forts made of limestone. Limestone buildings look quite nice, and I don't think that any of my forts would survive long enough for it to be damaged by weather. And as far as colours are concerned, I quite like microcline and olivine. But I like schist the best, because it's a nice replacement for wood.

[Marlowe]

Marble is metamorphic. It's the only form of flux that isn't sedimentary.

[Plank of Wood]

Marble is squished Limestone.

[Marlowe]

And might give you copper, zinc, lead and some silver; but not iron or coal.

While we're on the subject, mudstone is finer-grained slate and jet is higher-quality lignite. But you can't find iron in slate and you can't burn jet.

[Thuellai]

My favorite of all is Kimberlite, because it's a nice dark blue, but it's hard to find (if worth it when you do - a nifty rock and sometimes full of gems, to boot)

[Pilsu]

And might give you copper, zinc, lead and some silver; but not iron or coal.

Just today I embarked on a marble mountain to test something and found it was full of coal and had several iron ores along with large quantities of precious metals

Shame there was no magma or water around, it would have made a really nice looking fort. Damn you geology!

[Marlowe]

Kimberlite is nice. I have some, but I can't find it again.

The things I hate about microcline:

1, It's not blue. Kimberlite is blue. Microcline is the teal of 1960s Air New Zealand stewardess uniforms.

2, It's much too bright, and looks very glaring next to the usual browns and greys.

3, the name sounds interesting and techy. So if you don't know anything you think this might have some interesting properties. It doesn't.

4, It's a pocket rock that doesn't contain much of anything, so striking it practically guarantees you're not going to find anything good for a little while.

Anyway, you bought up what I think is a problem with this line of thinking when you bought up the soap. This is a game where we can (and do) build indistructable walls out of soap and glass and ashes. It seems a little odd, in that context, to complain about talc and gypsum.

I have to admit though, rock salt scares me.

EDIT: Marble mountain with iron? Interesting, somebody should check the wiki. I know marble doesn't show up highlighted on the embark screen. So it's not supposed to be sendimentry.

[sneakey pete]

My mistake, it was chalk with all the wonderful magentiteness. Get them confused a lot.

[KoE]

Personally, I find rock to be my mortal enemy. That whole thing where it forms in clusters and veins in the 'parent' rock without fail ruins any sort of delightful symmetry I had going on, at least color-wise. Microline, gypsum, even magnetite ruin my day. Not to hate on magnetite, as my dearest dream is to have a fort where I can make a magnetite mine separate from the rest and later use it as a tomb - or, better yet, a fort where I could incorporate a mined-out deposit as the dining room or barracks or something without it looking too hideous. I also have a mild distaste for copper in general as it seems to rear its ugly, low-value head more often than not in my forts.

In a perfect world, I'd probably go for having the great majority of the fort (ie, sans farms) hewn from something gray (granite, while a fairly pedestrian stone, would probably be my choice). I've also found myself intentionally doing things with red stone - most often kaolinite. I believe I used it as grates in a fort that had magma channels under all the floors once upon a time. I'd also like some stuff made of olivine just because that's totally awesome, not to mention green being my favorite color. I've also been known to plan 'realistically' with my shops (using the most easily recognizable realistic rock) and with making nifty things out of marble, but I don't bust my ass over it.

Largely, though, I've made my peace with the rock and just use whatever's handy for a strange mish-mash of random colors everywhere. I've become increasingly irritated at bright white flux stones (most recent fort is apparently a mix of marble and dolomite everywhere), but I'll just have to live with that and the increased value that'll no doubt bring an immigrant flood.

[Marlowe]

Granite is far from pedestrian, it's the only rock that gives you Tin and Bismuthinite. It also seems to be more heavily pocketed than other rocks, and occurs deep down.

I've only once hit granite in my DF career, and on that occasion I went looking for it both in the embark screen and in-game.

However, I wouldn't call it gray. Looks more like smudged black on screen.