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[Ancalagon_TB]

"Just give the traders more junk than they leave behind and it won't cause clutter. They're great for xXTrousersXx."

Incidentally... how the heck do you deal with old clothes efficiently?  Every time I trade, I have to haul all the clothing bins over, and then painfully go through them to find the used clothes.  I tried the "w" search feature to search for x but no luck.  It's doable, but it's a pain.

[utunnels]

I always atomsmash the junks in stead of waiting for months.

d-b-d their cabinets (which I always build in lines) periodically.

[Aslandus]

"Just give the traders more junk than they leave behind and it won't cause clutter. They're great for xXTrousersXx."

Incidentally... how the heck do you deal with old clothes efficiently?  Every time I trade, I have to haul all the clothing bins over, and then painfully go through them to find the used clothes.  I tried the "w" search feature to search for x but no luck.  It's doable, but it's a pain.

I just don't stockpile clothes, the dwarves know where the clothier's shop is if they need new trousers, and it's easier to sell the rotting stuff when it's just lying around the fortress than when it's stuffed in a bin

Play on a map which lacks of certain resources you'll know how important they are.
Or sometimes when I'm too lazy to produce certain goods I just buy them from caravans.

I guess it will be better if food industry is not that overpowered. It is like cheating currently. Basically I can buy what ever I want if I have some food barrels.

Hey man, dwarves gotta eat

[utunnels]

Hey man, dwarves gotta eat

Larvish meals are extremely expensive. A barrel full of of such is usually worth a lots of money (10000-20000, if you have a decent cook).
So you buy raw foods form them and turn them into larvish meals and sell them back.

[dwarf_reform]

I think lethality (or partial or potentially unintended coddling "fairness", bahaha..) is part of what devalues trading, besides being useless to an established fort or abusing those overpriced items.. If non-preserved food rotted at a realistic rate (and preserving it was a time consuming process), if drought or pestilence befell you (or other parts of the world), if an unjust and cruel nearby ruler or civ demanded unreasonably large tithes of food or metal, if each race had true 'specialty' merchandise beyond what they have currently (and asked an absurd price for them), then I think trading would have some value..

For now its nice when you do have a fort in desperate need of non-local material or food, and for completing mating pairs of animals, and for "challenge"/RP playthroughs (rely only on caravans for a certain resource, or murder/trap every caravan, or do no digging and rely on melting merchant goods for metals.. Maybe even a playthrough where you rely on the wagons for EVERYTHING, outside of producing high-value non-food/non-equipment trade goods..)

[Thisfox]

"Just give the traders more junk than they leave behind and it won't cause clutter. They're great for xXTrousersXx."

Incidentally... how the heck do you deal with old clothes efficiently?  Every time I trade, I have to haul all the clothing bins over, and then painfully go through them to find the used clothes.  I tried the "w" search feature to search for x but no luck.  It's doable, but it's a pain.

I just don't stockpile clothes, the dwarves know where the clothier's shop is if they need new trousers, and it's easier to sell the rotting stuff when it's just lying around the fortress than when it's stuffed in a bin

I make a four or six tile stockpile next to the trade depot for "finished Goods" Then I hit "q" and turn off all stone, metal, and etc materials. I then turn on leather, and cloth, and other things that make clothing. The bins fill with clothing throughout the year, then I take them to the depot when the traders arrive, and just sell the damaged clothing. The rest stay in the bins, and the bins go back to the finished goods stockpile. Dwarves who really like having new clothes will go there and undress, and so their discarded clothing is near those bins, and gets packed into them every now and again by someone helpful. Cycle continues.

It's a nuisance going through the bins to sell only the damaged stuff to the traders, but otherwise, it's easy. And I can tell which clothes are more popular and are needed more of, as they're all in the same bins.

[Skuggen]

In the previous version, traders were also a nice early warning system.

«Oh, the traders are here. Better order everyone inside to prepare for the ambush.»

[taptap]

For a more realistic conduct people could try only selling no-quality raw products (quality levels in general have way too much impact on trade values otherwise) and maybe set yourself additional taxes of local produce (offer the caravan), suddenly it makes more sense. For a challenge only trade raw products mountainhome does not have (offer).

[Illogical_Blox]

Well, I use it for:

1) animals, from elves and others, particuarly animals too expensive for embark or cool lemurs/bears/etc.
2) food & new types of booze
3) epicly decorated shields/armour that I give to important militia members
4) renewable metals - I always buy pig iron, iron & steel even if I have lots just in case.

[gunpowdertea]

Yup, the prices of some things are ridiculously broken (and I don't trade that stuff). I like the variety of food and booze the merchants bring, especially the non-dwarven, above-ground plants. The animals I mostly trade for are alpacas or llamas, they are efficient if you want to keep the pastures small. In my current fort I lost all animals to a zombie siege. The zombies left (with only one dwarf walled in somewhere) and some immigrants arrived, the whole fort is slowly starting to regenerate, except for the werefox curse that lies upon half of my population. I guess the other half will be dead soon...

[Urist McVoyager]

Or they'll be foxes too.

The only reason I use trade is to fill in stuff I don't have. And to keep my migrant count up.

[Loud Whispers]

In the previous version, traders were also a nice early warning system.

«Oh, the traders are here. Better order everyone inside to prepare for the ambush.»

Indeed. Trading caravans are also always a great source of sentries, if you devise a knock-out or webbed cave trap system that excludes the main caravans you can effectively harvest the civilizations for friendly human/dwarf sentries that don't need food, water, sleep or sanity.

[VarrgieCaelai]

Trading is extremely useful, especially if you have an efficient military. I usually just lure them in, whether they're elven or dwarven, let them come close to my fort... Then send my military in to slaughter them all. No survivors means another caravan will eventually turn up... And the process begins again. I've made a huge amount of revenue with this method.

[Aslandus]

Trading is extremely useful, especially if you have an efficient military. I usually just lure them in, whether they're elven or dwarven, let them come close to my fort... Then send my military in to slaughter them all. No survivors means another caravan will eventually turn up... And the process begins again. I've made a huge amount of revenue with this method.

Revenue for what? If you slaughter all the caravans, who's going to tell the mountainhome that you've got tons of stuff?

[wierd]

the amount of stuff the caravans bring is dependent upon how much of a trade surplus you keep with them. this means that if you do the 5 finger discount  every year, you wont get nearly as much stuff as  if you do trade.

i just wish i could get better control over what they bring.