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[resin007]

Ok, now that I've managed to kill two fortresses (the first died in a zombie attack, the second ran out of water sources and went berserk "The Shining" style. I've never seen so much ASCII blood...), I'm officially having Fun! Love it!

While there are several aspects of the game that I'm trying to figure out and mostly succeeding, Trade remains a mystery to me. The wikis and tutorials on Trade mostly say that when a caravan arrives, I'll trade with it and don't go into much nitty-gritty. But I feel like I'm missing something.
As far as I can tell:
-a caravan shows up (my three-tile access is fine. No problems there)
-asks what items I want (I assign priorities)
-then says here's what we like (blank screen, "a - to stop listening in")
-then offers up a final screen with goods on it (I have no idea what this represents)
-they bid a fond farewell.

The next year, they show up again and do it all over again, including the "asking what I want them to bring" part. When exactly is the part where I get the items I requested? In my second fortress, I hit gem veins galore and a huge gold mine, so I had piles and piles of cut gems and gold coins and no idea how to spend them to get things to stay alive!

Is there a blow-by-blow tutorial on how to handle Trade?

[KVC627]

What your doing is talking to the liaison, not trading.

When the caravan arrives and unloads their good you have to "Q" on the trade depot.

This will give you the trade menu.  It allows you to select the items you want to trade, you can choose to use a broker or any dwarf to conduct the trading and when the arrive you can begin trading.

(Be aware the Broker will decide to eat, drink, sleep and do anything other than actually trade for a while before he shows up. Drives me nuts!)

Check the Trade Depot wiki entry:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Trade_depot

[Sutremaine]

That's just the trade liaison having a meeting with whoever's in charge to set how much you're willing to pay for different things and how much they'll bring next year.

*To trade, you need a Trade Depot, which is a 5x5 building built using b, D. You put this down somewhere where the wagons can reach it, otherwise you only get pack animals. You seem to have done this step.
*When the merchants turn up, you need to send a dwarf to the depot to trade. There's a noble position called the broker, which allows you to send the same dwarf to trade with each caravan. Press n to go to the nobles screen, go down the list to the broker position, and select a dwarf. High social skills are good.
*Once you have your broker appointed, q over the depot and set it to 'trader needed at depot' and 'only broker may trade' (exact wording may be slightly different). The broker should come to the depot, although they're infamous for going on an eat-sleep-drink-On Break cycle during the month that traders are there. If that happens, change the settings to 'anyone may trade'.
*q over the depot, then g. This takes you to the screen where you select which items you want to bring to the depot for trading. There's a search function here, or you can use the list on the left to move between categories of items. Use the Enter key to select items.
*Wait for the dwarves to start bringing items to the depot, and for the traders to finish unloading. You can trade as soon as unloading is finished -- you don't need to wait until all the goods are in the depot.
*q over the depot again, and press t to start trading. The merchant's goods will be on the left side of the screen, and yours will be on the right. Press Enter to select what you want from them, and what you want to give them for it. If your broker has sufficient Appraiser skill you'll be able to see the prices, and if they have sufficient Judge of Intent skill you'll be able to see the trader's mood. They start neutral and their mood can be lowered to the point where they'll pack up and leave in a huff, so don't try and almost break even on your first trade of the fortress.
*Press t to iniate the exchange of goods. Hopefully the merchant's mood is raised by this, which gives you more breathing room for more exchanges with this particular caravan. The o button offers your goods without asking for anything in return. Don't use this one unless you want to give the caravan free stuff.

[Pantsmansoy]

I have a followup question...

When I enter the trade dialogue, some of my goods are brown and some are grey. What is the difference between them? I'm using Phoebus tileset.

[Quietust]

Brown goods were produced at your fortress, while grey goods were "imported" from elsewhere (brought during embark, purchased from another caravan, or liberated from invaders). Selling "imported" goods doesn't count toward Exported Goods, and imported goods cannot be Offered as a gift to a caravan (e.g. when you want to summon your Monarch).

[resin007]

Thanks for the specific run-through! I had it all down up to this part:

*q over the depot again, and press t to start trading. The merchant's goods will be on the left side of the screen, and yours will be on the right. Press Enter to select what you want from them, and what you want to give them for it. If your broker has sufficient Appraiser skill you'll be able to see the prices, and if they have sufficient Judge of Intent skill you'll be able to see the trader's mood. They start neutral and their mood can be lowered to the point where they'll pack up and leave in a huff, so don't try and almost break even on your first trade of the fortress.
*Press t to iniate the exchange of goods. Hopefully the merchant's mood is raised by this, which gives you more breathing room for more exchanges with this particular caravan. The o button offers your goods without asking for anything in return. Don't use this one unless you want to give the caravan free stuff.

Arrrrrrgh!! So I had the depot, a broker, and even moved the goods I wanted to trade there. So when I'd get the message from the liaison I'd think, "oh boy, now we're trading!" and then proceed to be really confused when nothing really happened...

Thanks!

[Joben]

The liason related screen that says "Stop listening in on conversation" baffles me.

It tends to pop up randomly like 20 realtime minutes after we've set the trade agreement up.

It's kinda like having someone burst into the room yell "Goodbye" and leave.

What conversation is this supposed to be anyway, the trade agreement notification? Certainly nothing else is ever 'said'

 Who in a narrative sense was doing the listening anyway? It seems a kinda fourth wall breaking way of putting it too considering this is a game with no player avatar, where ostensibly the dwarf nobles and managers are overseeing things.

[Garath]

The liason related screen that says "Stop listening in on conversation" baffles me.

It tends to pop up randomly like 20 realtime minutes after we've set the trade agreement up.

It's kinda like having someone burst into the room yell "Goodbye" and leave.

What conversation is this supposed to be anyway, the trade agreement notification? Certainly nothing else is ever 'said'

 Who in a narrative sense was doing the listening anyway? It seems a kinda fourth wall breaking way of putting it too considering this is a game with no player avatar, where ostensibly the dwarf nobles and managers are overseeing things.

I think it's sort of a "halfway through meeting message"

[GreatWyrmGold]

The liason related screen that says "Stop listening in on conversation" baffles me.
It tends to pop up randomly like 20 realtime minutes after we've set the trade agreement up.
It's kinda like having someone burst into the room yell "Goodbye" and leave.
What conversation is this supposed to be anyway, the trade agreement notification? Certainly nothing else is ever 'said'
 Who in a narrative sense was doing the listening anyway? It seems a kinda fourth wall breaking way of putting it too considering this is a game with no player avatar, where ostensibly the dwarf nobles and managers are overseeing things.

The way I understand it is, the game is telling you the important parts of the conversation and leaving out the rest. When the liason says "
Goodbye," it's at the end of a seiries of meetings over a few weeks, hammering out details of import and export agreements, then exchanging news (which doesn't really concern you, so you don't hear it).