Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Drecon]

Hey everyone, Ive been playing the game for a while and there are some things I've been wondering.

1: I understand the products traders bring to your fortress depend in part on the supplies you have in your fort. How far does this go? In understand it goes for cloth, food and wood, but does it apply to weapons, animals and metals too? If so, would this mean that as your stocks grow there's less and less stuff you can get from the traders?

2: I remember reading somewhere that there might be consequences to not giving trade preferences to the outpost liaison. Is this true and what would be possible consequences, just them bringing less trade goods or something more than that?

3: What do people usually trade for? I find that if I have a fortress with good starting conditions I run out of stuff to buy rather quickly. Once I have decent stocks of most stuff I just don't want to buy all that much stuff anymore.

These are just some things about trade that have been nagging at my brain, would appreciate any insights people could give.

[Jenniretta]

Hey everyone, Ive been playing the game for a while and there are some things I've been wondering.

1: I understand the products traders bring to your fortress depend in part on the supplies you have in your fort. How far does this go? In understand it goes for cloth, food and wood, but does it apply to weapons, animals and metals too? If so, would this mean that as your stocks grow there's less and less stuff you can get from the traders?

2: I remember reading somewhere that there might be consequences to not giving trade preferences to the outpost liaison. Is this true and what would be possible consequences, just them bringing less trade goods or something more than that?

3: What do people usually trade for? I find that if I have a fortress with good starting conditions I run out of stuff to buy rather quickly. Once I have decent stocks of most stuff I just don't want to buy all that much stuff anymore.

These are just some things about trade that have been nagging at my brain, would appreciate any insights people could give.

1 Traders will always bring a bunch of different stuff - your stocks determine quantity to an extent, but they will basically always bring food, weapons, drinks, etc. only a few items (like Anvils) are likely to be unavailable.

2 Not having an agreement means they don't know what you actually want, so the stuff you get will be more evenly distributed, I don't know that they bring LESS stuff, but they stuff they do bring will include more useless crap like figurines and earrings etc.

3 Metal, fuel, sand, seeds, dye, wood, leather, cloth, thread, animals etc. I trade primarily for raw materials like that, you can never have too much, any "extra" can go towards training unskilled dwarves.
I also tend to buy Weapons and Ammo, most of the weapons go into traps or get melted, and the ammo is either melted or shot into enemy backsides.
On metal-starved maps I usually buy as much armour as I can as well. Most of it is melted and reforged, but some (eg. steel) can be good enough to use even when it is of poor quality. If i REALLY need metal I buy the random metal junk they bring too (crafts and the like) to melt down.

[Magistrum]

1º: No, the amount of stuff they bring depends of how much "profit" they had in the last visit. Ex: If they entered in the map with, to say, 10000 dwarfbucks worth of stuff and you throw the caravan in magma, they will have a -10000 deficit, so they'll bring less stuff the next year, but, if you sell them some crap crafts for the price 2000, for some stell stuff in the price of 1000, they'll have a +1000 profit
and then, bring more stuff in the next year.

2º: No, you can even kill the liason(not recommended), the trade agreement only change what they will bring, not how much.

3º:I like to buy everything made out of steel and silver(good bolts), every brewable plant, and clotch, I aways have to buy lots of cloth till catch a Giant Cave Spider.

[AlmightyOne]

What do people usually trade for? I find that if I have a fortress with good starting conditions I run out of stuff to buy rather quickly. Once I have decent stocks of most stuff I just don't want to buy all that much stuff anymore.

Since your first two questions have been already answered, I can tell you what I trade for :-
(Selecting these from the liason)
cut gems(especially high value ones like diamonds,star rubies)since you can't keep mining forever for gems due to the FPS.
leather(again high quality like elephant, rhino etc) and valuable ores all for increasing wealth.
Heck even metal items sometimes for melting (when I don't have iron available)
Also can't get enough of Wood(making a LOT of wooden bolts for practice) and a normal sized fort does generate a LOT of worn out clothing which can be traded.
Plus sometimes if your lucky elves might bring along some *interesting* animals

[Drazinononda]

I think what you buy more of also affects what the next caravan brings. I.e. if you buy out all the armor and weapons from the dwarven caravan, but leave the waterskins alone, the next caravan will bring more armor/weapons and fewer waterskins. I've never actually compared the balance (taking into account, for example, what I requested and straight numbers vs. size of caravan) so don't take this for fact.

[Drecon]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Really helpful. I'm slowly getting a good handle on how stuff in the game works. I might even get decent at the game this way

[jonanlsh]

when i trade, its mostly for stuff that's always nice to have, like imported containers, bags of dye, booze (you can never have too much), animal cages and tools (minecarts, wheelbarrows, etc). On times when i have surplus, i buy all the metal bars, stone blocks and cut gems.

[Centigrade]

For the first few years, I generally buy and request raw, low-tier materials: wood, metal bars (all types, but highest priority is of course steel, iron, and pig iron), the ores of those metals, raw food, seeds, drinks, barrels and pots, buckets, crutches, splints, clay, sand, and specific caged animals like poultry hens or bitches. I eventually start buying all the cloth and leather that they will bring, all the gems, every kind of metal bolt, every kind of animal for slaughter, milks and cheeses, all sorts of random, metal items, and basically anything else that can be turned into something even more valuable by my craftsdwarfs.

[Itnetlolor]

If you're wondering what would be the best tradeoffs, If you're in a heavily forested area, then produce wooden spiked balls: They fetch a hell of a price apiece (even at crap-quality), and are cheap and quick to make. If you have a mass surplus of stone, and are trading with elves, produce rock/clay mugs (but not glazed ones, since wood products are used in the process, and they would be offended by them; if you can make an obsidian farm, produce obsidian mugs like no tomorrow. Mugs also produce 3 mugs-per-stone; minimum price is low, but after a few levels, they become quite trade-worthy (just remember not to trade the bin they are transferred in; unless it's non-wood or non-wood-based (like glazed clay or clear glass; green glass is okay, however, since no wood is involved in their production process. So for best trade, I suggest green-glass bins and barrels, and trade things through those; elves won't give a damn about it; and trade is much less tedious; plus, the green glass bin/barrel even fetches a decent price.)).

To maximize trade efforts and negotiations (pretty much, make the merchants want your babies each visit), and speed up your broker's levels in the relevant fields including appraisal, make a few micro-transactions at a 1:2 ratio (☼2000 sell, ☼1000 purchase (☼1000 profit), exit screen and repeat), they'll love you for it by the 5th or so transaction, and negotiations should be much better/easier in the long haul. Exit from trade, wait a few frames, and then go nuts making all kinds of crazy purchases with a 2:3 profit margin instead of less than that (they'll even counter-offer more often, just in case).

And lastly, what I suggest you purchase for the first year is some food, especially a wider variety of seeds (eating and drinking only plump helmet gets boring and gives bad thoughts), and as many typoes of items a moody craftsdwarf would possibly demand, and maybe a crate of cloth and a few balls of thread. Don't forget to grab a few cheap cut and uncut gems of various kinds while at it to cover any gem-based decorations that would also be used in the mood. Now that the bases are covered, invest in whatever else you need (I generally start with at least a bismuth bronze crossbow (makes a decent hammer when out of ammo) and some cheap metal bolts (bismuth bronze is also a cheap alternative to silver ones; copper works as well). The next year would be a more suitable time to purchase armor and such as well as all the raw materials you can get.

Speaking of which, instead of getting just plain cloth/leather bags, I suggest you purchase sand bags. They're not that much pricier, you get sand or seeds, and a free bag to go along with it. If you want more containers, get them while they're filled, especially smaller ones like bags certain barrels and bins. It's kinda like exploiting embark mode to get free bins and barrels and such just by going +1 past the containment limit of various goods.

Where dealing with Elves is concerned, invest everything in creatures first, then aboveground seeds and plants (more crop and food/booze diversity) and if they have it, invest in featherwood (or similarly lightweight wood) training weapons for danger rooms and sparring troops; it would be like they're sparring with foam pool toys or Nerf™ weapons.

Human trade investing is a combo of the two; good for filling in the blanks in the other categories like aboveground crops and such.

At least, that's how I deal with things. No pun intended.

[Magistrum]

I think what you buy more of also affects what the next caravan brings. I.e. if you buy out all the armor and weapons from the dwarven caravan, but leave the waterskins alone, the next caravan will bring more armor/weapons and fewer waterskins. I've never actually compared the balance (taking into account, for example, what I requested and straight numbers vs. size of caravan) so don't take this for fact.

Yes, it does change the amount, but, you won't get more armor and less waterskins, you'll get more armor and more waterskins and more whatever they bring.The item don't matter, only the profit they had.

[mobucks]

Yeah one time they left with over 100k profit and the next season they showed up with 8 wagons of goods.

[Larix]

Here is a short list of items the traders will bring if your fortress is considered in need. You'll only really notice the wood and cloth/leather, because caravans will bring food regardless of the need of your fort; but if there's no 'shortage' of clothes and wood, the caravans won't bring the related goods at all, unless specifically requested.

Ordering items via import/export agreement _does_ set the amount you'll receive: basically, for every 'level' of priority you set, the caravan will pack one extra of the item requested - ordering, say, bituminous coal on level one (lowest priority above zero) will get you one (extra) lump of coal, ordering it on top priority will yield four. This will show up in addition to any coal the caravan may randomly decide to bring along anyway. I don't know how long order lists interact with the normal caravan fare, but think that they supplant random trader junk - i.e. if you order all types of leather at top priority, the caravan will carry very little apart from a huge number of leather bins. I'm not entirely sure, gotta try this out some time.

This order behaviour means that ordering 'bundled' or 'multiplying' goods is most efficient - requesting iron bars at top priority will get you four (plus maybe one or two randomly present), while requesting hematite at priority two will get two ore lumps which smelt to eight bars. It's also not really worth requesting thread (which traders will always bring anyway), because for each type you can get at most four extra spools of thread yielding four bolts of cloth, while ordering the related woven cloth at top priority will give you four _bins_, each containing ten units of cloth.

I also love to order two each of thirty+ types of gems per caravan; gives my legendary gem setters something to do and makes for obscenely pimped-out stuff my dwarfs can hoard.

[Wastedlabor]

Never order stone, unless you absolutely need some flux. It takes space for a lot of other stuff.

When I have a big production surplus I order all of the cut gems and they bring a whole lot of them, but it's a real PITA to switch them one by one.

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

once you have those goods that you can buy a whole caravan with, like golden decorated goblets, buy the crap crafts and retrade them, maybe decorating them tom.

[zzedar]

Depends on the map, of course -- some places lack important resources. And if you have a noble with a preference for a hard-to-find material... also, if there's some broad class of material you can't get but want to have ready in case of moods, you can get a little, but that doesn't take a lot. I used to stock up on leather and cloth, before I discovered the wonders of goose leather.

I think the amount of trade you do has some impact on future migrants, but I wouldn't swear to that.

If your map doesn't have a lack of natural resources, the only traders who'll bring anything useful are the elves, who'll sometimes bring snazzy animals (even if you're in a savage area, you're not going to be able to compete with elven animal trainers).

However! All this changes if you don't have the resources you need, obviously. The foundation of economics is scarcity. Embark where there's no water, or no ore, or even (to a lesser extent) no trees, if you want trade to matter more.