Bonk, you start in the southwest corner of the map, then there's a volcano right above your base that blows up pretty fast. The spot I'm talking about is the grey area a few blocks north of the volcano. You have to restart a few times to make sure there's a common ore spot up there, though.
Hooman, I'm not too great at the game, and there was too much of an ore toss-up for me to make a decision. On Hard, you start with a 1-bar in your base, and even with two smelters (or a third wedged in there inconveniently) you'll never have enough for an army. There's a one or two bar to the far right of your base but that gets attacked by incoming forces. Alternatively, there's either a common or rare south of your base (sadly, no Magma on hard or this wouldn't even be an issue). So it's either, have no rare ore but plenty of common, or be swimming in gold without a piece of copper.
I just chose to relocate, since if you tap the 3-bar right above your smelter you'll hit 10k common before the lava blows up the mine, 3 trucks, only building the command centre/structure factory, an agridome, two residences, standard lab, university, and medical centre as I did in the picture. If your timing is right you can knock out a vehicle factory and still leave with 10k, which is more than enough for a new smelter + a robo-miner.
Sadly, no other colony game is as well-suited to "alternative strategies" as this one (except Eden Population, a la move all your stuff to the far right and almost never get attacked).