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[madmenyo]

So for some odd reason on my last games on worlds with lots of resources did not yield fuel or iron or both. So i created some some worlds with resources everywhere and this did yield fuel+iron at almost any site i embarked on. But now the merchants won't bring anvils for 5 fresh starts in a row, they always bring me an anvil when i don't have fuel/iron on the "lots" starts and now they trick me by not giving me an anvil...

Is this pure coincidence and bad luck or is this programmed in somehow? I feel really tricked, i tried buying almost everything from the dwarf caravan and stuff them with steel/iron bars and wait for the human caravan but they just do not trade it. I am aware of when they do not have access to iron they will not have an anvil, thats why i create a new world every time,

I am at the point i just want a damn anvil... so how do i hack it in? Then when i bashed some goblin armies with steel i might go back to previous worlds and bash some with bronze .

[FuzzyZergling]

Just luck.
If you want an anvil so bad, why not bring one with you at embark?

[ullrich]

Also of note you don't need fuel in the form of coals on embark as long as you have trees, under furnaces there is a wood furnace, it can make charcoal form 1 log, it acts as fuel.

[Starver]

If necessary (e.g. glacial embarks), you can use subterranean 'trees' to the same purpose, just breach the necessary cavern and where you have a suitable surface.

(I've almost never had a glacial embark without multi-layer soil directly beneath at least some of it, but YMMV...  not too much experience of muddying stony ground, since the end of 40d, but that may be necessary otherwise, or just go get the mushroom 'trees' direct from the cavern, I suppose, with whatever due precautions you think you need to take in such circumstances.)

[Edges]

If it makes you feel any better, I've made 23 worlds, started 14 fortresses, played 7 fortresses for about 8 game years each, almost entirely digging out about 30 z-levels and sending deep shafts in each, and I've never found either iron or fuel other than trees. My dwarves spend most of their time making clothes and stonecrafts, digging and engraving, waiting for caravans to bring more wood which gets burned in half a season.

Sorry I don't know how to hack in an anvil though. Good luck.

[Rafal99]

Instead of wasting time making fortress only to find what metals the embark area has, you can use DFHack reveal or prospector utilities.
You may also want to check the wiki in what rock types the iron ores are found. And try to embark in area with specific stone layers.

Personally I almost always embark in flat, heavily forested areas. And have iron ores most of the time.

Btw I never seen a dwarven or human caravan without an anvil, unless it was full of stuff requested from liason. Usually 3-5 anvils per caravan, and even more once caravans get bigger.

[MarcAFK]

You could just increase the mineral frequency and embark onto overlapping biomes each of which contains shallow and deep minerals.
Should increase your chances of getting defferent resources.

[cerevox]

It might be the areas you pick to embark in. I have found(although i have no evidence to back it up) in my experience, that iron tends to occur around mountains and other hilly areas. Flat plains with lots of trees almost never seems to have iron, so if you are picking nice level zones with lots of trees, you might be avoiding the iron rich areas. Coal and other fuels occurs in similar areas to iron, so the same thing is probably happening with that.

[NonconsensualSurgery]

Ignore the trees. Drill a hole straight down to magma.

No, seriously. Wood takes a lot of dwarven labor. You've got to chop it, haul it, burn it and store it. It is easier to build a staircase straight down to metalsmith housing and forge rooms directly over the magma sea and power your industry with the infinite energies of the earth itself.

You'd think such a deep stairwell would create a hauling problem, but it really doesn't. Dwarves run up and down vertical stairs with superhuman speed, seemingly covering tiles in the z-direction at the same rate they cover them in the x or y directions. My current fortress does this and it works pretty well. I had to place a weapons/armor stockpile in the barracks so militiadwarves who want to drop or pick up equipment wouldn't run far to do so, but that's something I should have been doing anyway.

[Nibble]

Are you using custom world creation? I have found that in the current version, using custom world creation often results in worlds without any iron or fuel, even if you mess around with the settings. If you just use the default world creation wizard and set resources to high, you should be able to find lots.

[Tiruin]

Stupid question I'm asking, but did you firstly check if you could embark with an anvil?

If you can't see any (really doubtful in vanilla), then your race can't make anvils.  Though, anvils can be made from other metals than iron.

You...could request an anvil from the Liaison.

[madmenyo]

Yeah i know i can bring an anvil, somehow since it's in a couple of embark packs delivered with lazy noob. But i can't seem to find it myself, since i have my own embark setup. So where is it listed? There is no anvil category as the liaisons give.

I just find it weird that if i notch mineral availability up max the liaisons do not bring anvils. And like i said i have a serious hard time finding iron together with (mineable) fuel when i notch it 2nd to max. I do know reveal and prospector by now yes. I just use reveal to see the prospector list as i feel seeing the map spoils a bit of the game. Anyway i do know where to find iron and coal, i had several fortresses in the passed with everything i needed but the lack in experience let to some great fun there.

Well, i have no experience with magma yet but maybe i should start digging down and see what fun this brings me. So thats what i'm going to do now, make some stone swords and bring my dwarves to fun .

[Tiruin]

Anvils under Finished Goods.

Well, have fun with those Obsidian blades, and getting that magma where you want it to be.

Iron gets delivered every winter if you lack it by your warlike friends-- the Goblins.

You could use wood for fuel in the meantime if you can't find coal. Order some from the Liaison.

Or forbid all wood just before any caravan comes, they will 'sense' this and bring wood for trade.

Note: Mineral availability does not affect the production of, or the existence of Anvils.

Iron ore can be gotten from Hematite, Limonite and Magnetite. Sedimentary layers. Which, bluntly, is just deeper in.

[Blailus]

If you're using DFHack for prospect you don't have to use reveal to see all the ores available on the map. You can use "prospect all" instead and it checks the entire map and shows ALL the resources.

Pretty useful at a new embark to see if you've found the site you really want (if you're getting tired of not having iron+fuel).

I'd do what was suggested above though.  Dig down to the core of the earth (it's not too terribly hard to wall off any cavern entrances you inadvertently make) and use magma.

I spent about 12 years of my current fort very near the surface, and once I built magma forges/smelters (because I ran out of bitmous coal/lignite) I started moving my fort down to where the magma forges were. It has taken a long time to set things up far below where I was setup before (and leave my defenses intact anyhow) but it's a process, and my fort is working much more efficiently down there than it ever was at the top.

[MarcAFK]

When you first embark if your Civilisation has no access to iron you won't be able to take an ANvil with you, and traders won't have them either, you'll need to edit your raws to Make an anvil out stone or something.