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[wilsonns]

Hello, friends.
I've got a neat idea about the trade system of DF.
Instead of the game itself set a price for your itens based on the material and quality of the finished good, the player should be able to set the price of each material and then of each kind of item. The quality of the stuff is quite irrelevant in this part of the process.
Let's say you've got a bunch of iron helmets. You set the iron price modifier for 3 times, and then the price of a helmet for 100*. The final price for each piece would be 300.
 So, when a caravan comes and you offer them your helmets. Now, the quality is important. Based on the overral quality of your helmets, the material the helmets are made of and  the price of it, the caravan broker [I don't know if it even exists] would  examine the stuff and judge if it is worth buying or not.
This system could be attached to a 'fame' system. If a fortress is known for its primacy in crafting quality toys, merchants will be willing to pay more for it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

[ s ] is a strikeout tool. Use (s) next time.

For those of you at home, this is what it would have looked like:

"Hello, friends.
I've got a neat idea about the trade system of DF.
Instead of the game itself set a price for your itens based on the material(s) and quality of the finished good, the player should be able to set the price of each material and then of each kind of item. The quality of the stuff is quite irrelevant in this part of the process.
Let's say you've got a bunch of iron helmets. You set the iron price modifier for 3 times, and then the price of a helmet for 100*. The final price for each piece would be 300.
 So, when a caravan comes and you offer them your helmets. Now, the quality is important. Based on the overral quality of your helmets, the material the helmets are made of and  the price of it, the caravan broker [I don't know if it even exists] would  examine the stuff and judge if it is worth buying or not.
This system could be attached to a 'fame' system. If a fortress is known for its primacy in crafting quality toys, merchants will be willing to pay more for it."

-----

Some sort of economic prices and such is planned, but bear in mind that dwarven fortresses are basically vassals to the king--they likely don't have tons of freedom to set prices with other parts of the kingdom.

[Baccar Wozat]

Change title to "Your shit is too expensive, I'm going on strike!" and it's fine.

[Revanchist]

I'd agree with GreatWyrmGold. The fortresses we make likely don't determine the final price. It would probably be the decision of the king, or some other dwarven higher-up.

What that would mean when the monarch arrives at your fortress could become relevant...

[King Mir]

It doesn't make sense that a monarch would spend his time setting prices.

But I don't think it should be up to the player, except that there should be better haggling.

Material costs should be based on scarcity, which is a nation wide phenomena. I would prefer it be updated based on nation statistics every caravan, but not be controllable. The updates would come with news of major events in that nation. For item kinds and quality, the present system work, except the cost values need adjusting.

[MonkeyHead]

A possible role for the tax collector, once they return maybe.

[TheZoomZoll]

Change my name to "I make fun of people, I'm a hipster!" and it's fine.

Seriously?Somebody makes a suggestion and you just make a post to make fun of the guy?
I have expressed my opinion.

[SuicideJunkie]

While the fortress can't set the value that other factions consider an object to have, it is entirely reasonable for the fortress to set the value that the fortress considers an object to have!

If you do go ahead and set values on the items you're producing and the items you normally import, then you could make a market zone and let the dwarves trade automatically with whomever comes by to visit your fort.
Whenever your price and their price differ, both sides can turn a profit.

As such, if you set your prices for exports too high, then as the title indicates, the random automatic traders would leave in a huff and probably not come back until they hear good rumors about you from other visitors.

[NW_Kohaku]

Toady has expressed that he wants a system where prices are adjusted internally.  That is, if every room in a fortress has very expensive rent, the costs of renting the rooms goes down, or else the wages paid for the jobs goes up to compensate, without a need for government ham-fisted price manipulations.  (A move away from Communism - shocking, I know.)

I honestly believe the best solution to economic woes is to adopt a double-pricing system, where internal fortress economics drives a secondary market value compared to global market values for different goods.  (That is, in a fortress flooded with glass items, glass is cheap, even if it is expensive around the world - and that would make for trade caravans coming to your fortress for glass.)

Beyond that (as SuicideJunkie suggests,) setting prices for what prices you are willing to buy goods from outside the fortress, and letting trade take place automatically, while internal fortress prices are based upon either how much of that material you make, or else what price you bought it off of caravans, are sensible ways to let the player have some control over pricing without highly abusable direct state-controlled economics.

[Waparius]

I like the simplified, non-RSI-inducing version of trading, but IMO it would be better to have the final value of various items depend on the haggling skills of your broker. Ideally, you should be able to mark various items in both the fortress and the caravan for trade, set what priorities each of those items has and the kind of prices you want to pay, then let your broker work out a deal with the merchant. Depending on how good the broker is, the deal would be more or less in your favour.

ie - you set it so that your most-desired item is, say, *steel helm*s, but you'd also like barrels of gnomeblight, ropes and plump helmets. You're willing to offer as many rock mugs as they want but if they push it you'll throw gems, rock mechanisms and silver crafts. As an absolute last resort, you'll also sell them some of your gold furniture or large gems.

As a bonus, if your broker is sufficiently terrible it should be possible for him to sell all that gold furniture for a binload of -rock mug-s.

Ideally by this point regular dwarves should also have items of their own, and attempt to buy and sell at the trade depot. Or at the very least there should be shops and shopkeepers to do it.

[Randy Gnoman]

Internal price adjustments would be cool.

But I feel that I should point out:  price adjustments with traders are already implemented.  You ask for certain goods when you speak to the liaison, and this increases the 'value' of those goods- the price you pay goes up, and the next caravan brings more.  The liaison also gives you a report of what they need:  there might be inflated demand for mugs, for example, so that they'll pay 120% normal value for mugs.

The values you see are market values, not price tags.  The 'price' of your goods is whatever you get from the traders in exchange for them.  If you want to charge the traders a lot, just ask for a lot of goods in exchange for your own- so much that they're only making a very slim profit.  When you ask for too much, and they say "I couldn't possibly see you ending up with all that" or "I won't trade at a loss" what they mean is "your shit it too expensive, make a better offer."  And the margin you can get away with is influenced by your broker's skills.

Now, if the economy returned, and we saw shops again- I'd very much like to see the ability for some noble or another to influence pricing.  But the way that you influence values is currently pretty good, IMO (although more non-controlled or indirectly controlled factors might be nice, like market saturation- how many *felsite scpeters* can the mountainhomes really need?  It'd be good to have a mechanism like that to encourage industrial diversification).

[GreatWyrmGold]

It doesn't make sense that a monarch would spend his time setting prices.

Maybe not the king himself, but the Crown (ie the kingdom's officials) were miserly with the powers they granted to the lesser nobles. A baron or whatever would be able to set the prices he pays for items (probably with restrictions should abuses occur, or as a matter of course), but the prices he pays to royal caravans would be a bit less under his control.

But yeah, this (however it ends up) will come when the economy gets looked at better.