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[SixOfSpades]

We've all seen the tales / screenshots of the dwarf wearing 27 stone crowns simultaneously, and I'm sure we've all got dwarves running around performing all their tasks while carrying 5 scepters, 8 figurines, & a large gem. (With no pouch, backpack, or bucket, of course, they're just holding all of these in their hands while they're smelting pewter or mincing beer or whatever.) This gets another layer of silly when you consider trade requests: Why does the Mountainhome have "demand" for crowns & scepters? Don't the nobles already have these tokens of authority, and why would they allow anyone else to have them?

Suggestion #1: Impose a hard limit on the number of personal adornments that can be worn at a time, determined by physiological constraints (1 ring per finger, 3 earrings per ear, 1 crown, no more than 5 amulets, etc.), and soft limits determined by social mores (procedurally generated by each civ). Dwarves who have created a masterwork, or earned a combat title, or have reached (and maintained) a certain level of skill in a profession, or fill a position of responsibility, thereby gain the right (or in some cases the responsibility) to wear tokens indicating that achievement. e.g., one civilization might restrict the wearing of crowns to dukes & monarchs only, while another permits their use by offices as low as broker. A third civ might mandate that all militia captains should carry scepters (particularly ones made of bone). Another civ might create identical copies of a certain ring, to be worn by all members of a specific guild. Etc. Dwarves wearing tokens which they have not earned, or too many bangles than is considered socially acceptable, may be punished, with possible penalties including item confiscation and grudges from other dwarves with high Modesty. Dwarves with preferences for these types of items can still indulge these tendencies, by storing the items in their bedrooms and changing out said items every time they sleep. Urist's unhappy thought of not being able to flaunt her whole collection of amulets should be balanced out by how she took pleasure in choosing which amulet to wear today. These societal guidelines should also have exceptions for dwarves wearing their own handiwork: For example, say a given civ has a law against common citizens wearing more than 2 items made of gold, but its Metalcrafters have a special dispensation that allows them to wear double that.

Suggestion #2: Expand the list of items that can be made, to include stuff that seems far more reasonable to produce / collect / wear / trade than 8 million stone mugs.
Buttons, belts, handkerchiefs, hinges, figurines of animals (i.e., toys), plates, bowls, silverware, slingshots, combs, hair/beard ornaments, brooches, snowshoes, animal harnesses, plows, locks/keys, pocketknives, spatulas, etc.
Their full functionality doesn't really need to be implemented in Fort mode (needing a specific key to unlock a door, and realistic field-plowing, would require a lot of work on Toady's part), but they'd still be valuable as trade goods, and it's far easier to rationalize that your fort's trading partners could use some more commonplace useful articles like bowls, combs, & door hinges, than that they're apparently suffering a "shortage" of scepters & crowns. It's also a lot more realistic to see that Bomrek is wearing a vest with 11 buttons on it than to see that he's wearing an entire tower of 11 stacked crowns.

[yxe]

I like the idea of certain items like a SET for guilds/groups/cult/etc, one special set can be for example: 2 silver ring, one wood scepter, a red shirt, etc

In adventure mode, if you try to impersonate someone of a specific group, the other person could (if they already know of that group) blow up your cover if you didn't put the full set.

In trade mode/caravan, they can tell you there is a request to build 10 sets for the guild/cult of <whatever>, or a fully golden armor for the king/noble adorned with the image of his kingdom and menaces of some other material.

Other idea, that I dont like too much, could be: its known that your nobles bans the export of certain goods, but they never demand the import of one, two or all of certain goods. (this could lead to very challenging trades, even to let go things that you don't want to)

[Orange-of-Cthulhu]

Other idea, that I dont like too much, could be: its known that your nobles bans the export of certain goods, but they never demand the import of one, two or all of certain goods. (this could lead to very challenging trades, even to let go things that you don't want to)

I don't think trade should be harder. it's already close to being useless when the fort is big enough to get nobles, as you can make almost everything yourself. I use it mainly as a garbage bin for xclothesx and mostly just ignore the Elven caravan.

So I think it's already too problematic to trade for what it's worth you can get loads of dwarves imprisoned if a noble issues a mandate after you did the clicking in the trade screen - and if it's made harder lots of people will just quit doing it at all.

[Starver]

I rather thrive (insofar as my forts have to) on just churning out something like mugs, from whatever dominant bedrock(s) I have[1]. Switching to crafts (or whatever else looks profitable) once a trader request comes in for which a stone craft of whatever other kind can provide. (And saving anything not currently with a trade bonus, that I'm happy to honour, until perhaps it does pop up in commercial conversations.)

So I have no issue with not being able to flood the world with just one thing (though I also like the possibility that my fortress becomes famous as the last word in mugwrighting), some diminishing returns may mean that I need to diversify (outwith actual external demands) to not be on the worst point of the retail equation slope. And I'm sure this is something I've replied with much the same before, so not sure how far I should go in potentially repeating myself.
 

[1] ..that doesn't match my often self-imposed requirement for my structual/decorative/magma-proor requirements in other workshoppy uses.

[SixOfSpades]

Well, to be brief, trading has a whole LOT of problems, and we're (almost certainly) not even going to mention, let alone solve, them all in this thread. I just think it'd be nice if we could get a bit closer to a more realistic flow of trade goods, wherein raw materials (stone, timber, livestock, produce, etc.) tend to flow from smaller, rural settlements toward the major cities, and are balanced by finished goods made by master artisans flowing in the other direction. But in practice, what we usually (?) see/play is the exact opposite: We're ordering raw goods from the Mountainhome and sending back our own finished crafts. We are treating our own capital city as if it were one of our colonies.

It would make a lot more sense if the merchants specified that your fort is definitely not trading with just the Mountainhome (or the nearby major human/elven cities); rather, you are part of a more circuitous path that also visits several smaller villages. That would solve the "trade flow" problem, or at least explain it away. But there's definitely a limit to how many crowns, statues, large gems, and musical instruments that any settlement can reasonably value, and for a tiny little hill-dwarf settlement, that limit should be almost zero. That's why having more types of trade goods is important: For most of (?) a game of Fort mode, your fort should be economically between a rural village and the Mountainhome. Expanding & diversifying the list to include more "middle-ground" trade goods seems like a sure step toward that goal. Functional, utilitarian products such as belts, combs, buttons, & hinges, and also more modest decorative items like simple beads & brooches, seem to occupy something of a sweet spot: They're simple enough for a journeyman or even apprentice craftsdwarf to produce, but yet they're still labor-intensive enough that a peasant farmer would be unlikely to have the time to invest in producing them, or in learning the craft itself. So your fort could easily spend its first few trading years in enriching the lives of the surrounding hill-dwarves: where before, all they got was a flood of stone mugs & bone crossbow bolts, now you can send them far more useful articles such as plows, forks, & halters. Not to mention seeing more individuality & expression among your own dwarves: Would you rather see little Bomrek Paddlewhips simply "Play", or "Play at marbles"(1), which she carries around in her belt(2) pouch, right next to her own pocketknife(3)?