There is always goblinite...
And how pray tell shall we get said iron? With our dainty little wooden elf spears?
Let me say of the scarcity update in the clearest possible terms:
FUCK. THAT. SHIT.For those psychotic masochists who want only to survive with wood or clay or whatever, let them do their own self imposed challanges or mod out metals or whatever they want to do. I don't want to have to waste half an hour to an hour every embark trying to set up a fledgling fort only to discover that the random number god has decreed that I shall suffer his wrath and survive on BISMUTHINE as my only metal.
It is already a monumental challange to build a world with enough potential embark sites to get one that I want (haunted/terrifying, brook, trees, flux and iron) without having to worry that I will need to waste six or seven embarks trying to find one that has metal worth embarking on. God forbid I undergo the ordeal of having to regen the world if the first one doesn't work out.
Dwarf fortress is a game, and one that I have to play in the hour between when I come home from work and when I go to bed. The idea of having to waste as much as an entire work week just trying to find a site that I can build a fortress on and have the tiniest hope of surviving is something that does not appeal to me.
If we the players have to suffer arbitrary bullshit metal restrictions, then at least let them apply accros the board and have our raiders/siegers suffer the same metal shortages. Because nothing says "Fuck you player" more than having only copper (and no coal with which to smelt it) to hold off the marauding horde of goblins clad in iron plate and with 10 trolls along for fun.