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[Larix]

I've built up a very productive textile industry for export, producing massive numbers of decorated ropes to sell to any unsuspecting trader. I found it notable that traders will often pay much inflated prices for some ropes (more than what the "v"iew screen quotes as item value, while other ropes sell for list price), and it appears to be related to the topics of the images.

Elves appear to disregard decorations depicting trade-able goods (ballista bolts, crowns, large gems, books...); they offer rates significantly below the "in-fort" value rating.
They pay +20x decoration quality for images depicting living things - plants (tunnel tube), animals (named giant leopard or somesuch), but also forgotten beasts and deities.
They pay +40x decoration quality for images depicting historical events and group symbols.
Geometric shapes and the various "small gem" images (small pebbles, cabochons etc.) get no markup.

Humans don't seem to have "disliked" topics for which they'd pay less.
They paid +20x quality for decorations showing tradeable goods.
They paid +40x quality for civilisation (but not local group) symbols and - pictures of dwarfs confronted by hated vermin.

I'm now awaiting the dwarven caravan.
The ropes and images were all made in plant fibre, so the actual mods might well be +10/+20, with both quality and material modifiers applied.

I could obviously only check for images this way, there may be additional preferences for different decoration types like spikes, bands, studs.

[Skorp]

Interesting... Maybe dwarves pay more for dwarf related items(Founding a fortress, booze, cheese)?

[itg]

Good catch! I have noticed inflated prices for textiles in the past (90% of my exports is used clothing), but I just assumed it was something like a hidden version of the dwarven trade agreement.

[BoredVirulence]

Interesting... Maybe dwarves pay more for dwarf related items(Founding a fortress, booze, cheese)?

cheese
cheese
cheese
On a more related note, thats interesting. Keep building up the list. I may be tucking this away for future reference.

[Niccolo]

This is some good science, Larix. Keep it up! If you decorate some bags or ropes with bits of bone or gems, you should be able to test for menacing spikes and adorning rings.

Out of curiosity (With regards to the upcoming Dwarven data), do the Dwarves pay more for their own crest?

And for the Elves, they pay more for historical events... Is the 40x modifier altered if the event in question concerns an Elf? What about if the Elf is being murdered (Or conversely, murdering?)

[Larix]

New data from the dwarven caravan just in:
I got lucky and ropes weren't "in season" this year, so unless the images had special value, list price and selling price were identical.

Dwarfs
dislike: depictions of plants (larch, kobold bulb, palm), adjustment -16x quality
like:
- depictions of people and animals (forgotten beast, bat, deity), +20x quality
- minor historic events - foundation of the fortress, creation of masterworks, +20x quality
- a fellow dwarf admiring a preferred item, symbol of the civilisation(x), +20x quality

- major historic events - an elf slaying a cyclops, election of the expedition leader, +40x quality
- a fellow dwarf being terrified of despised vermin, +40x quality

The latter may actually be "creature" images, with the double modifier just being due to _two_ "creature" subjects present in the image (dwarf + vermin, elf + cyclops, exp. leader + appointment committee). Although i find the idea amusing that seeing a fellow dwarf cringe in front of jumping spiders is a sight dwarfs (and humans) will pay extra for.

they pay normal for images showing inanimate objects, be they geometric shapes, gemstone patterns or tradeable goods. Probably cheese, as well.

Since material modifiers enter into the calculation (as i said, everything was done in plant fibre, which has 2x value), this means that despised images are rated at 1/5 normal value, liked images at 2x normal value; and "double-feature" preferred images possibly at 4x normal value. These ratings are applied to the value of the decoration only, the value of the base item is unaffected.

There are a few special cases, obviously, when multiple very different things are featured in an image - e.g. a dwarf showing off a masterwork item - humans might pay 4x, while elves might give a bonus for depicting a living thing but at the same time a penalty for materialism (they pay less for any pictures featuring a tradeable item). I didn't have the opportunity to test this yet.

Elves don't seem to care much about non-image decorations, i only had a small sample and everything sold at list price. Haven't checked at all with humans so far.
Dwarfs like "menaces with spikes" and "encircled with bands of" decorations, those appear to give 50% value over list price. They dislike "hanging rings" (but happily slap them on their wares, so with a good eye, you can make some bargains on stuff they import); they're rated at 1/5 nominal value.

(x) the civ symbol might be valuable to the dwarfs only because it depicts a pond turtle man.

By the way: an elf slaying a cyclops is one of the most prominent historical events (seems i've settled in the back of nowhere again), and all three trading civs love that picture.
The biggest discrepancy between "basic value" (fortress-internal value rating) and trader price was a barrel the dwarfs brought along - it bears a fine image in black pyrope, netting a basic value of 620☼. But the dwarfs only want 140 to part with it, because it's an image of a larch.

PS: Combinations of preferred and disliked images just multiply their adjustments with each other - x0,2 for disliked, x2 for preferred for 0,4 total. Tested with elves, showing them an image of a dwarf showing off a masterwork item.
Elves only offered +50% increased buying price for an image of a kobold bulb, while trees enjoyed the full +100% markup. The same lowered markup was seen with an elf-brought image of a blade weed. Seems that it's a lowered benefit (still a significantly higher price than listed value!) for crops?

[Larix]

And of course, most of all this can be traced back to the raws:
in entity.default, the "mountain" (dwarf) and "forest" (elf) civs have a bunch of lines like these:

   [ART_IMAGE_ELEMENT_MODIFIER:TREE:512]
   [ITEM_IMPROVEMENT_MODIFIER:SPIKES:0]
(from the elf entity)
base modifier appears to be 256, and the modifier seems to work as a plain multiplier for "image value" in the eyes of the civ.
The "discount" ratings for disliked decorations don't seem to work like that, or i've been miscalculating them somehow. The decorations disliked by dwarfs had their values reduced to 1/5, not the 1/4 suggested by the "64" modifier in the raws. Might be a rounding effect.

Both humans and dwarfs pay extra for decorations depicting items, and all races like pictures of people, animals and deities, although no modifiers are listed for any of those.