I dunno; I think Ore might just be showing up as wildflowers right now. I just explored the whole map and didn't come across any ore at all, but I did get to build a couple Wildflower spots and right when I started I thought "Oh, yay, Ore!" .... And then I zoomed out and the ore turned to a wildflower tile.

Sadly no, it produces prestige. I think. I didn't check to see if it actually was though, but either way - no ore anywhere to be found on my map.

Made my few soldiers equipped with iron weapons (got some metal from a quest or two) really effective tho

Same thing here. 

Also, I don't think the wildflower tile is giving the right amount of prestige.  Meaning, you only get 1 prestige for the wildflowers, yet it costs a whopping 50 materials and takes 8 turns to build.  The prestige number should be increased to reflect this higher cost.

Yup... I've had the same issue. A tile, innocently looking like iron ore, turns out to be wildflowers. There are no ore producing tiles yet, so far as I can tell.

I blame elves and their habit of making weapons and armours out of flower power.