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[Fearless Son]

612dwarfavenue makes an interesting point there. This would be a great start for difficulty settings: an easier setting could have lenient traders that had needs for almost everything, whereas harder settings could have traders that came in with fewer "bulk" needs, but lots more specific needs.

See, I think that rather than difficulty levels, such things should be scaled with the wealth of the fortress.  An early settled fortress, with few dwarves and little industry established, should have lower expectations about what it can provide.  Low-grade stone mugs?  Sure, a simple fortress can provide that, and not a lot else.  Expect to see a favorable return on deals for that versus basic unprocessed goods.  But a wealthy fortress, with an advanced industry and home to many skilled artisan dwarves?  Expect merchants to approach you with many more elaborate requests, and are willing to pay well for their manufacture. 

[jockmo42]

612dwarfavenue makes an interesting point there. This would be a great start for difficulty settings: an easier setting could have lenient traders that had needs for almost everything, whereas harder settings could have traders that came in with fewer "bulk" needs, but lots more specific needs.

See, I think that rather than difficulty levels, such things should be scaled with the wealth of the fortress.  An early settled fortress, with few dwarves and little industry established, should have lower expectations about what it can provide.  Low-grade stone mugs?  Sure, a simple fortress can provide that, and not a lot else.  Expect to see a favorable return on deals for that versus basic unprocessed goods.  But a wealthy fortress, with an advanced industry and home to many skilled artisan dwarves?  Expect merchants to approach you with many more elaborate requests, and are willing to pay well for their manufacture.

And expect these merchants to wait around as long as they can for such goods to be manufactured (the player could let them know that it's on the way), perhaps having a drink at the tavern or spending a few nights at the inn, socializing with the resident dwarves until their requests are filled out. If the player takes too long on a request that they said would be finished, the merchants could get a small relations drop with the fortress upon leaving. It'd probably be fairly minor though, if the player did any other trading with them. It's not as though a failure to provide a certain promised good would completely overshadow all other successful and happy trades that happened during that visit.

Most of this would have to wait until Toady gets a nice implementation of Inns and Taverns first, but that won't be too far off in the grand scheme of things, judging from the dev plans for the next few releases.

[Neonivek]

Well in theory a Carrivan can visit towns and sell all their toys to the thousands of customers.

So mass of junk being sold isn't entirely thematically inappropriate.

[jockmo42]

Well in theory a Carrivan can visit towns and sell all their toys to the thousands of customers.

So mass of junk being sold isn't entirely thematically inappropriate.

Not entirely, but I think it's reasonable to assume that most caravans won't be looking for anything you're willing to sell, and have their own agenda that requires certain categories of goods. I suppose when all the world-gen stuff gets put in, caravans could be more influenced by their entity's specific wants and needs, and will only take so much of everything else. This would mean caravans from well-to-do communities would often take nearly anything, since they'd likely be looking to expand their trade relations and the variety of goods in their warehouses.

[Pilsu]

Food and liquor should become major trade goods in any revamp of the trade system. And I don't mean selling soup that somehow forms a convenient, ever-fresh pile on the ground for over ten thousand dwarfbucks, I mean selling tougher varieties of bread, barrels of flour (tight sacks are labor-intensive and largely kept for the household's needs), dried, smoked or salted meat and fish etc.

[irmo]

Food and liquor should become major trade goods in any revamp of the trade system. And I don't mean selling soup that somehow forms a convenient, ever-fresh pile on the ground for over ten thousand dwarfbucks, I mean selling tougher varieties of bread, barrels of flour (tight sacks are labor-intensive and largely kept for the household's needs), dried, smoked or salted meat and fish etc.

Agreed. There are lots of historical methods of preserving food for transport (smoking, drying, pickling, canning), and caravans should refuse food that isn't transportable.