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[TV4Fun]

It would be nice if the game had some better long term memory about trades, as this would save having to re-enter a lot of trade info every year. Some ideas:

• Have the outpost liason remember your trade priorities from last year and have these pre-entered. These can be updated as needed.
• Have the ability to mark goods for trade and bring them to the depot any time, not just when a caravan is present. Perhaps the ability to designate goods for trade, like you can forbid, dump, or melt. Failing that, have the depot remember which items you have brought to the depot in the past, instead of having to go through the list every time.
• It would be nice if one could mark certain goods as being direct to export, like crafts and such. You could maybe set a link from certain workshops to your trade depot, like you can with stockpiles, and the output would go direct to trade. Automatically sending other goods, like discarded worn clothing would also be nice.

Any thoughts? Apologies if some of this has been made irrelevant by DF2014, but I have yet to have a fortress get as far as the first caravan without the game crashing.

[Dirst]

I like the idea of marking things for trade at any time.  A rework of the trading interface has almost worked its way up to the top of Toady's to-do list, and this could be part of it.  Treating it as a linkable stockpile would be convenient.

The outpost liaison zeros out your trade requests each time because presumably you got those things and don't need them anymore.  If the choices are to forget all requests, keep all requests, or add a complicated interface to designate standing orders, I'd prefer forgetting everything.

[dudlol]

Link stockpile to Trade Deposit would be amazing for putting trade goods of specific quality and/or type and/or material up for trade automatically.

[Shazbot]

Perhaps this could be the new dialogue flow for trade discussions.

--

1. Shall we discuss our prior trade arrangement, or start afresh?

A. We would like to revise our earlier requests.

B. Our situation has changed dramatically, let us clear the slate.

--

2A. Very well, let us get down to details. (Trade screen with priorities carried over, can be adjusted.)

2B. What requests do you have of our merchants? (Trade screen with all priorities reset. )

--

It could also be a dynamic that if you requested a good one year, and still requested it the next year, you could begin gathering a discount on the price as the merchants economized on their end. You would have an incentive to keep a stable trade relationship with the merchants, and adjustments to your request for a good would reset the discount.

[Dorf and Dumb]

Definitely a good idea.  But it would also be nice to be able to specify quantities to some degree - especially, to say that when you want iron bars, you mean you want a *LOT* of iron bars.

[Getix Kain]

Definitely a good idea.  But it would also be nice to be able to specify quantities to some degree - especially, to say that when you want iron bars, you mean you want a *LOT* of iron bars.

I would also like to have the total length of the items displayed in the Trading window with more characters.
I would like to be able to read the FULL name of what I am buying rather than just the first part of the name.

Currently using 40.04 with LNP and I seriously miss the DFhack search function to isolate what I need (cloth, socks, bars.. etc..).

[Loci]

I'd personally like to see the focus shift away from the liaison trade agreement. Instead, have merchants bring trade goods based on previous transactions and profitability. For example, if your fortress purchases all the steel bars the caravan brings, they'll bring a larger number next year (and raise the price, too). If you trade goods equivalent to several times the value for those bars then the merchants will bring many more (and raise the price accordingly). Eventually the supplies and prices should reach an equilibrium. If your fortress stops buying steel bars the number offered will steadily decrease over a few years back to the default. If your fortress never purchases an item (ropes, for instance) over several years the number offered for trade will dwindle to 0-1 per caravan (no profit in carrying unwanted goods). The liaison trade agreement would still be useful for requesting odd items that the caravan doesn't normally carry, but you'd no longer need to remind him to bring the same items year after year.

Quality can tie in as well: if your fortress is purchasing up every weapon, the merchants will start to bring higher-quality specimens more frequently (naturally motivated by the increased profit margin).

Finally, merchants should be smart enough not to offer unusable items (large clothes), and pay less for items that aren't usable by their own civilization (small clothes).

[TV4Fun]

If you're going to go into that level of detail, then you should just model production and supply and demand for each civilization. In the short term, a surge in demand for a good will raise the price, but in the long term, the civilization will start producing more of it to compensate for this. Of course, this will also be affected by the supply of raw materials for the good. Especially metals and such, where a mineral source might be used up over time. It seems like as a civilization produces more of something over time, that their workers would become more experienced and produce higher quality goods (though I presume non-dwarven civilizations could just never match the awesomeness of dwarf craftsdwarfship). At the same time, if the demand for a good has suddenly surged, then I imagine a lot of inexperienced producers would have come into the market, producing initially lower quality goods. This could be modeled as a gradually shifting macro-economy over several years. Personally I would like to see more fluctuating price over the largely static pricing system we have now. Also, when I sell a barrel of food or drink or some such, I would really like to see a quality indicator for the food, not the barrel containing it. Also, I would like to be able to tell what is inside a vial without having to view its description. Also, I would like to be able to tell if an object has been decorated with wood or contains wooden bolts or some such to avoid offending the elves. Also, I would like the trade screen to have a shortcut to the lever to flood the trade depot with magma for when the previous suggestion does not work.

[Loci]

If you're going to go into that level of detail, then you should just model production and supply and demand for each civilization.

The game already tracks "demand" for trade goods; just currently the "demand" is only input by the player in the form of the liaison trade agreement. Extending that tracking to items purchased (and purchase price) is a much smaller change than modeling production and supply for the whole world.

In the short term, a surge in demand for a good will raise the price, but in the long term, the civilization will start producing more of it to compensate for this.

Basic economic theory might work well in a large open market, but it fails miserably in limited and restricted markets. Put simply, monopolists don't compete on price. As long as there is strong demand, the traders will sell at an increased price, even if they are mass-producing a good at a reduced cost.

Personally I would like to see more fluctuating price over the largely static pricing system we have now.

Oh certainly. But that is a rather large change already planned for some nebulous point in the future.

[zmud]

Link stockpile to Trade Deposit would be amazing for putting trade goods of specific quality and/or type and/or material up for trade automatically.

I totally agree. I would go further in that I would like to be able to press "T" when I'm looking at an item to flag that item like dump to go to the trade depot automatically.

[crossmr]

I'd personally like to see the focus shift away from the liaison trade agreement. Instead, have merchants bring trade goods based on previous transactions and profitability. For example, if your fortress purchases all the steel bars the caravan brings, they'll bring a larger number next year (and raise the price, too). If you trade goods equivalent to several times the value for those bars then the merchants will bring many more (and raise the price accordingly). Eventually the supplies and prices should reach an equilibrium. If your fortress stops buying steel bars the number offered will steadily decrease over a few years back to the default. If your fortress never purchases an item (ropes, for instance) over several years the number offered for trade will dwindle to 0-1 per caravan (no profit in carrying unwanted goods). The liaison trade agreement would still be useful for requesting odd items that the caravan doesn't normally carry, but you'd no longer need to remind him to bring the same items year after year.

This doesn't work if the merchant doesn't have the item in the first place. The stuff these caravans carry is random and some things will never show up just on their own. Stone for example is basically never carried.

[Shazbot]

As I understand it, the merchants operate on a weight-to-value system. This is why they're so happy to supply you with wagons of cloth but never trade bulky ores in any decent amount.

[Loci]

I'd personally like to see the focus shift away from the liaison trade agreement. Instead, have merchants bring trade goods based on previous transactions and profitability. For example, if your fortress purchases all the steel bars the caravan brings, they'll bring a larger number next year (and raise the price, too). If you trade goods equivalent to several times the value for those bars then the merchants will bring many more (and raise the price accordingly). Eventually the supplies and prices should reach an equilibrium. If your fortress stops buying steel bars the number offered will steadily decrease over a few years back to the default. If your fortress never purchases an item (ropes, for instance) over several years the number offered for trade will dwindle to 0-1 per caravan (no profit in carrying unwanted goods). The liaison trade agreement would still be useful for requesting odd items that the caravan doesn't normally carry, but you'd no longer need to remind him to bring the same items year after year.

This doesn't work if the merchant doesn't have the item in the first place. The stuff these caravans carry is random and some things will never show up just on their own. Stone for example is basically never carried.

[SixOfSpades]

. . . have merchants bring trade goods based on previous transactions and profitability. For example, if your fortress purchases all the steel bars the caravan brings, they'll bring a larger number next year (and raise the price, too). If you trade goods equivalent to several times the value for those bars then the merchants will bring many more (and raise the price accordingly). Eventually the supplies and prices should reach an equilibrium.

Can I get a AMEN! I've always felt that caravans should be a realistic approximation of supply & demand, with other civilizations realizing how much money there is to be made in bringing you the stuff you want . . . but always with a small side order of some of the stuff that they don't want, because hey, humans produce pewter goblets too, and they've gotta flog 'em somewhere. When you tell the liaison that your demand for limestone couldn't be any higher, you don't mean "Please bring us precisely 4 lumps of limestone, I'm having a dining-room set made," you mean "OMG bring us ALL the limestone you possibly can we can pay you SO MUCH MONEY FOR IT OMFGGGGG"

If your fortress never purchases an item (ropes, for instance) over several years the number offered for trade will dwindle to 0-1 per caravan (no profit in carrying unwanted goods).

Slight alteration: Every Mountainhome caravan should always include a "Disaster Kit", no matter what. This kit would be the bare necessities to essentially re-embark on your own map: A anvil, pick, axe, a magma-safe stone, some charcoal, 2 shoes & a pair of pants, a splint, a crutch, a bag of plaster, a rope, a bucket, a couple of mechanisms, a barrel of food, and 2 barrels of booze. With this, even if the fort's sole survivor is a 12-year-old Peasant locked away in a panic room, he can still save the fort, just by accessing the trade depot.

More Radical Suggestion: Prices on caravan goods should reflect the distance and/or dangers in ferrying the goods from their homeland(s) all the way to your fortress. Players who embark on the other side of the world from your Mountainhome, take note.

Even More Radical Suggestion: You have more than 3 neighbors. Why do you get only 3 caravans? Provided your fortress has amassed enough wealth/industry to attract their notice, you should be visited by merchants of every nearby settlement who think that such a venture would be worth their while.