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[Looger]

I don't start with any crafters anymore. For the first caravan I usually produce some wooden wheelbarrows since they have a base value of 50 and can be easily produced by a carpenter from one log.

For later caravans I often produce crafts.

[Larix]

For maximum value out of a log, large serrated discs and giant spiked balls should still be best. Wheelbarrows aren't too bad, though.

A somewhat challenging approach is - clothes. You _must_ get your pigtail seeds in the ground as quick as possible and work pretty hard at getting the industry started to have anything produced for the first caravan, but no-quality pigtail robes sell for about 90 dwarfbucks, once you get quality, prices go up like crazy.

[kingubu]

You can't make discs out of wood, but spiked balls are just as valuable.  Just to see how much I could make, I once traded 1 million urists in wooden balls to the first trader.  Now that's exploity.

In actual working forts, I trade food and mechanisms.  Mechanisms give the same value as mugs for a stone and trains a skill I actually care about, but the downside of mechanisms vs crafts/mugs is hauling.  Mechanisms weight a ton and don't stack in bins.

For beginners, I'd recommend rock mugs.

[jonanlsh]

Early game, I traded in stone crafts. They can be made in bulk and without excess supervision from you.
Middle game, I traded in prepared food pots and the remainder of the stone crafts. The prepared food is a great way to buy everything you want from a caravan and give them extra profit at the same time.
Late game, I trade in used clothing. Seriously. I have a stockpile that surrounds the trade depot filled with old clothing in bins. All I have to do is select the bins 10 blocks away from the depot and I can easily trade 100k dwarfbucks of worn out and otherwise useless clothing.

In summary, the trade caravans are the game's method of giving you a garbage dump that gives you useful stuff in exchange for your trash. Giving the caravan 100k dwarfbucks for 50k dwarfbucks of goods is nothing when your fortress is valued at 20 million dwarfbucks.