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[SwiftSpear]

No you moron, I don't want to trade all my iron and steel armors that I specifically traded from the humans for my military so the mountain home can make 10000$ profit on what is supposed to be a 2000$ transaction.  I thought the 1000$ profit I was giving you was already pretty damn fair.

Ok, granted I put the item in the trade depot in the first place, but FFS, it's buried in one of my 25 armor bins full of leather and other assorted crap dead goblins gave me... I can't really selectively remove it before it goes in the trade depot, and it's definitely not my fault the damn retard military dwarfs just sort of forgot to pick the stuff up the entire last year it's been sitting around rotting in bins.

ARG, this is the most frustrating thing ever.  It makes trading impossible when I can't even trade a couple barrels of dwarven wine into my fortress for a few stone crafts without the opposing trader demanding the most expensive iron plate mail I have in my fortress.  Maby you can get the plate mail in a different transaction, but I'm sure as hell not casually tacking it on in a transaction where I'm already giving a 40% profit margin.

Seriously.  If a feature like negotiation is in such an unfinished state don't put it in the game yet D:

I have done sales work, it doesn't work to demand a customer buy's a new laptop when they came in for a USB cable.  That's essentially what the traders in game are doing to players right now.

[Capntastic]

I've never had any problem with traders concerning negotiations; just because they're offering a huge markup on something doesn't mean you have to sell.

[Derakon]

The problem is that he wants some random cheap thing the traders have, and the traders are demanding that, in addition to paying for it with the random cheap things that he has (which work out to a more than fair transaction already), he throw in some incredibly valuable item as well. I've had this problem as well, and the really annoying part of it is that once the traders fixate on an item, they'll basically refuse to not get it, regardless of the value of the other items they're being offered or the items they're selling.

That being said, you should be able to track down which armor bin it's in and mark it for not trading. Items in the depot that aren't marked for trading won't be shown on the trade screen.

[Crafty Barnardo]

If the merchants offer you a shitty trade, you can always just leave the trade screen and go back in.  That should clear any existing trades and let you start over.  They shouldn't try to get the same items again but they might.  I have noticed that they tend to ask for the types of things that they asked for in their most recent trade agreements.

[Trollvottel]

Trading with an inexperienced negotiator: Traders will accept deals with 50% - 100% markup. 80% seems fairly safe. (To get stuff worth 1000, trade them stuff worth around 1500 - 2000. Just make it "nearly double" to play it safe, and the traders will be happy and not ask for more stuff).

Using a more experienced trader IMO lets you get better prices out of the traders ... though I wonder what for. Bought out the last two caravans using nothing but "low-quality narrow items worth 150 or less", and I've still got a storage problem. (Oh no, four more corpses just showed up in one of the weapons trap fields. *g*)

[Sykirobme]

I've never had to renegotiate a trade after offering 150-160% of the value of items I've wanted to buy.  If I offer any less than that amount (even 145%) with an inexperienced trader, then the counter-offer comes.

But I've never had a problem with merchants fixating on a specific item.  I almost always un-mark the items they've added, add something cheaper to bring my offer up to at least the 150% mark, and I'm fine....

[GreyMario]

I've been able to buy 10,000 monies worth of stuff with only 2000 monies profit.

Sure, it's still a ripoff, but I don't think my negotiator is that skilled...

[Lyrax]

...
So why are you surprised that sometimes the merchants are reluctant to take this deal?

[gurra_geban]

merchants should get alot of profit still. its the whole deal of travelling through terrible savannas and conifer forests that makes them want to earn a living ^^

[Kogan Loloklam]

quote:Originally posted by SwiftSpear:
<STRONG>
I have done sales work, it doesn't work to demand a customer buy's a new laptop when they came in for a USB cable.  That's essentially what the traders in game are doing to players right now.</STRONG>

You are a very enlightened salesman then. Anytime I am in a computer section of a store people always try to get me to buy expensive crap I don't want/need. In fact, hardware stores too...

Then again, that isn't exactly what happens. What happens is like a car. You walk up and offer them a handful of beans for a new car, the salesman counters by demanding a cow. You, needing the cow for beans, remove the cow from the table and offer a husk of corn too. The trader doesn't like that, and asks for 10000$ in addition. You, not wanting to get cheated, remove your husk of corn and handful of beans and offer again. The trader finally accepts, and you get more skilled at trading. Maybe next time you will be able to convince him to take the corn husk and handful of beans for the car  

[SwiftSpear]

It's not so much the fact that the trader IS trying to negotiate that bugs me.  It's the fact that he's frigging retarded, he adds on a 10000$ profit for himself when when the transaction before was 3000$ of goods changing hands with a 1000$ trader profit.  It's not feasible, it just pisses me off.  If the trader is allowed to get pissed off when my dwarf trader makes bad offers, then why are his offers so ridiculous?

[Align]

Well, he's got the goods. Monopoly allows you to set your own prices.

[Derakon]

Monopolies only allow you to set your own prices to what the consumer is willing to pay. If the consumer's demand is elastic, as it is with most goods that the traders have to offer, then the consumer will opt to simply not trade rather than spend too much.

Now, if the traders had a monopoly on wood (edit: noting that demand for wood is fairly inelastic, as you need it to make beds), say, like if your dwarves were in a glacier, then they might well be able to get away with charging a suit of iron plate armor for a wagon of wood, even though the supposed value of the wagon's contents is only 50.

[ April 10, 2008: Message edited by: Derakon ]

[SwiftSpear]

quote:Originally posted by Align:
<STRONG>Well, he's got the goods. Monopoly allows you to set your own prices.</STRONG>

I'm reasonably satisfied to not trade.... I mean I don't really need the stuff this guy has, it'd just be nice at this point in time.  However, what I really really want here is the trader to not be retarded.

[Lightman]

Sorry, I really think you just need to play a bit more and get a hold on how to trade. It's really not that hard and you don't have to accept any trade they suggest. If you have a skilled trader it will also help and if you trade with a bit of common sense you can make good deals. Make the foreign trader happy to begin with and they are much more likely to accept your offer. The race of the trader matters too, I think.

As gurra_geban pointed out, they travel quite far to trade, so it's only fair for them to get something out of it.

Once you kill some goblins, you have so much goblin crap to get rid of that you could pretty much trade it for everything they have.