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[Juxtapoisson]

I am now bored with trading, it's too easy to abuse and I no longer find it fun.  I realize this is a subjective problem that no one else can actually solve, but I am hoping some of you have suggestions on ways to approach trading that don't feel like I am abusing the system.
My particular experience is that it is trivial to generate excess meaningless value and trade it away. Simply pumping out rock crafts is enough to allow you to trade virtual garbage for useful stuff from the caravan. It's the same with rock mechanisms. It's worse if you make them out of valuable rock like native gold, and if you smelt the gold it's completely absurd. One gold ore makes 4 bars which becomes 8 craft goods and each single craft good can be as valuable as a steel weapon or all the food in a caravan. Don't have gold? There's a bunch of other ores that are just as bad, and plain stone crafts are still a problem all by themselves.
It's easy enough to tell myself I won't do these things, but I need to find some trading I can do that feels right to me.

Unacceptable: craft goods, mechanisms, other virtually unlimited things (doors, tables, etc). Meals because they are so valuable they again make trading trivial. Gems; they're not worth much, but my Manager or Doctor can just sit their churning out gems. Clothes if I am importing leather/cloth. Weapons, armor. Battle loot.

I might try rules like: Only exporting things I actually need, like bars of iron. Or only raw materials my fort produces, barrels of plants or meat or sacks of flour or bolts of cloth.  But in the end I suspect this will simply mean no trading early on and then later end up back at the "I can buy whatever they have" situation.

I'll try no trading at all. Or only trading for things I REALLY need (billion for the baron who likes this metal my dwarves have never heard of). Or things that might be a little different; "yes, I'll take this mated pair of gorillas".

I'll try only trading Artifacts. Then we can see how much I want what the caravan offers.

It would be more fun for me to endure selling a dwarf to the goblins than it is to sell finished goods. Selling finished goods feels like it has no cost to the player. I guess if I sold animals I'd at least have the small risk that I accidentally sell a Titan or other prisoner and have to deal with them getting free. FUN is where the fun comes from.

Are my embarks just too easy? My caravans are rarely threatened. If more got chased off would I be more desperate to trade? Is my military too small? If I had more soldiers I'd have less dwarves available to spit out crafts.

So, IDK. How do any of you handle this problem?

caveat: I am perfectly happy to make craft goods for my dwarves to enjoy. No matter how much I hate a specific dwarf I am happy for them to wear a bracelet or whatever, even if the dwarf sucks and the bracelet is worth 3K.

[Salmeuk]

trading has never been 'fun' really. it's less to do with the trading but instead the associated systems of dwarf needs. trading provides no real economic value to the player beyond the occasional unique item or material, excluding certain embark and their respective lacks.

it's a sub-problem of the much larger problem of "DF is not actually difficult." tough to interact with, sure, but as a game it proves imbalanced. Too easy to generate food, dwarves too easy to keep happy, fights too easy (looking at you, Minotaur that was punched to death by a potash maker),  and metals and materials are too easy to gather and process. Without that context of difficulty trading loses most of its narrative context.

there is a reason players refer to traders as garbage trucks. .

you seem to have discovered the natural solution, which is roleplay or setting challenge rules for yourself. This is the true way of DF

[Juxtapoisson]

One extra.
If I don't engage with the fall caravan at all, will they update my fort value to encourage more migrants?
What about if I don't even have a depot?

[Salmeuk]

yeah the https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Diplomat will meet with your dwarves regardless of whether or not you trade with the actual caravan. IIRC it is this meeting that updates the value of your fort? actually.. I don't really know that one. but yeah, unless you also lock out the Diplomat that meeting will still occur

[anewaname]

Consider what your primary goals are for your fort and what you need from trading to achieve those, then don't worry about the rest of trading. You do not want to be in the position of having self-imposed rules that restrict the primary objectives of your fort, like fort building, fighting the hordes, or having a temple with 20 dancing dwarfs. In the past I found that self-imposed rules lead to rage-quitting for the wrong reasons. I use a few self-imposed guidelines now but no self-imposed rules, and sometimes I throw a guideline into the trash for a specific fort.

Currently I buy books and stuff that can't be produced at the fort (food/drink/animals/materials) and trade away whatever I have an excess of (usually low quality mugs and wheelbarrows, worn clothing, totems, etc).

Do what feels right, not what feels contrived or annoying; then trading will become enjoyable again.

[NTJedi]

I am now bored with trading, it's too easy to abuse and I no longer find it fun. 
...
So, IDK. How do any of you handle this problem?

Here's some options to consider:
  1) Trying playing a game where your fort is within a haunted, terrifying or sinister biome...   where your new goal can be focusing on the safe arrival and safe exit of the merchants.
  2) You may want to consider adding a mod which adds new civilizations and new materials... this might help the trading event become more interesting.
  3) You could play the game without trading... just don't build the DEPOT building. This will definitely be more challenging.  No harm with ignoring something which has become boring.
 

[Schmaven]

Are my embarks just too easy? My caravans are rarely threatened. If more got chased off would I be more desperate to trade?

In short, yes.

An embark with a dangerous rain in a reanimating biome makes trade very difficult.  Especially if the biome has giant undead birds.  But that makes everything a struggle, not just trading.  I've never experienced thralling dusts, but the Wiki describes them as providing great opportunity for Fun as well.

Armok help you if you get any undead echidnas though...

[Blue_Dwarf]

I'll try only trading Artifacts.

You can trade Artifacts now?

[Salsa Gal]

you seem to have discovered the natural solution, which is roleplay or setting challenge rules for yourself. This is the true way of DF

This is exactly what it took for me to actually get into Dwarf Fortress fully, playing it purely as a "get as big and strong and powerful as you can in the least amount of time" game gets boring quickly without some extra rules to apply. It's more of an RPG than a strategy game.

[Juxtapoisson]

I'll try only trading Artifacts.

You can trade Artifacts now?

Yes? They keep showing up in my trade stock piles if I don't do something to prevent it. And if I don't offer the trade merchant a full 50% profit they'll go into counteroffer mode and always add one to the trade list if there is one at the depot.
AFAIK dwarves that make artifacts get very very sad when you sell them (whether they are worth a decade of caravans or a steel corkscrew). Between this and the sheer irreplaceability of artifacts few players (possibly no one) does trade them off.
The point being, trading them off would create an actual cost to the player, because artifacts are unique and priceless.

[Blue_Dwarf]

you seem to have discovered the natural solution, which is roleplay or setting challenge rules for yourself. This is the true way of DF

This is exactly what it took for me to actually get into Dwarf Fortress fully, playing it purely as a "get as big and strong and powerful as you can in the least amount of time" game gets boring quickly without some extra rules to apply. It's more of an RPG than a strategy game.

The only other option is to have Rimworld mechanics, where the game keeps sending bigger and bigger waves of enemies, and you never get the feeling of beating the game.