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[FearfulJesuit]

Depending on when you retired or abandoned your last fortress, it's possible to set up a new fortress so that it begins in summer or even autumn. This would be fine, except that it means that by the time the first caravan arrives, you don't have anything to trade it. Maybe it would be more realistic, and better on the player, to have the first caravan arrive relative to the embark date? For example, I've just started a fortress that embarked in early summer. Maybe the dwarven caravan would arrive in winter (and, by proxy, the elves in summer and the humans in fall?) After all, merchants will make money whenever they can make money.

[Dirst]

Depending on when you retired or abandoned your last fortress, it's possible to set up a new fortress so that it begins in summer or even autumn. This would be fine, except that it means that by the time the first caravan arrives, you don't have anything to trade it. Maybe it would be more realistic, and better on the player, to have the first caravan arrive relative to the embark date? For example, I've just started a fortress that embarked in early summer. Maybe the dwarven caravan would arrive in winter (and, by proxy, the elves in summer and the humans in fall?) After all, merchants will make money whenever they can make money.

It is hinted that the active season is the civ's most active season, not its only active season.  Though I don't know about delaying the first four seasons' worth of caravans, it seems perfectly reasonable to delay the initial caravan from one's own civ.

"We come from the Mountainhome to trade!"
"We just got here."
"And this is your opportunity to trade the wealth you've accumulated thus far."
"No, I mean you were on our heels the whole bloody trip out here.  Most nights we even shared a campfire."
"Pfft.  If you have nothing to show for your efforts to date, I'll just have to report that back to the Mountainhome."
"There were like ten minutes between us parking the wagon and you shouting about trade."

When different civs based on the same entity actually vary, I wonder if we'll start getting more than one caravan per race.

[FearfulJesuit]

Depending on when you retired or abandoned your last fortress, it's possible to set up a new fortress so that it begins in summer or even autumn. This would be fine, except that it means that by the time the first caravan arrives, you don't have anything to trade it. Maybe it would be more realistic, and better on the player, to have the first caravan arrive relative to the embark date? For example, I've just started a fortress that embarked in early summer. Maybe the dwarven caravan would arrive in winter (and, by proxy, the elves in summer and the humans in fall?) After all, merchants will make money whenever they can make money.

It is hinted that the active season is the civ's most active season, not its only active season.  Though I don't know about delaying the first four seasons' worth of caravans, it seems perfectly reasonable to delay the initial caravan from one's own civ.

"We come from the Mountainhome to trade!"
"We just got here."
"And this is your opportunity to trade the wealth you've accumulated thus far."
"No, I mean you were on our heels the whole bloody trip out here.  Most nights we even shared a campfire."
"Pfft.  If you have nothing to show for your efforts to date, I'll just have to report that back to the Mountainhome."
"There were like ten minutes between us parking the wagon and you shouting about trade."

When different civs based on the same entity actually vary, I wonder if we'll start getting more than one caravan per race.

Well, with Toady about to embark on the inns and taverns update, followed a ways down the road with starting scenarios, I wonder if the current caravan system won't be replaced by something a bit more complex.

[Timeless Bob]

I'm surprised the current caravan system is so hard-coded to happen on a specific month anywhere in the world.  In Legends mode, there's a map-producing variable that shows the trading connections between specific places, so that's already calculated in the game (or at least its already able to be calculated).  It would be easy to just set up a "Fortress Liaison" to arrive with the group of seven dwarves and get that list of caravan needs from the Expedition Leader before exiting the map.  When the Liaison exiting the map triggers is a calculation of how long it will take that guy to get to the nearest trading hub (adventurer mode quick-travel times that are based on variable agility stats could be used, for instance - which would make the liaison who is highly agile get to his/her destination in a shorter time than one who is not nearly so agile.)  This could be done quite simply by finding the length of the line from the Fortress to the nearest trading hub (or even more simply all the way to the current Mountain-home and dividing it by the liaison's agility rating.  The schedule for sending out a caravan would take the date that the caravan is scheduled to be sent out and add however many days it would take to have the slowest pack-beast to traverse that distance to the site of the current fort to it, to make the appearance of the caravan be a dynamic rather than static schedule.  The Liaison would stick around for awhile after the caravan leaves until he/she gets the meeting to determine what the Fortress wants in the next caravan and upon exiting, the whole process starts all over again.

Slightly more complex, would be to have the liaison traverse a return path where each simulated day he or she would have a chance to be set upon by bandits/wildlife/enemies just as an adventurer might which could affect how long it takes to bring the Fortresses trade agreement back to the Mountainhome.  Likewise, the caravans could be scheduled on a pre-calculated circular path that uses as many trade-hubs as it's able while also avoiding dangerous areas like Titan shrines or war zones, and have the nearest trade hub be where the liaison heads, to wait for the caravan to come by on its circuit before presenting the Fortresses trade agreement.

The beauty of such an arrangement would be that in adventure mode, one of the quests might be to be hired by a caravan as a trade liaison to some new hamlet or fortress, or even to travel with the caravan for a bit, visiting markets and fortresses as a caravan guard or even eventually a caravan master.  (I can see a mercantile mini-game easily become part of the DF experience)

[Niddhoger]

I'm surprised the current caravan system is so hard-coded to happen on a specific month anywhere in the world.  In Legends mode, there's a map-producing variable that shows the trading connections between specific places, so that's already calculated in the game (or at least its already able to be calculated).  It would be easy to just set up a "Fortress Liaison" to arrive with the group of seven dwarves and get that list of caravan needs from the Expedition Leader before exiting the map.  When the Liaison exiting the map triggers is a calculation of how long it will take that guy to get to the nearest trading hub (adventurer mode quick-travel times that are based on variable agility stats could be used, for instance - which would make the liaison who is highly agile get to his/her destination in a shorter time than one who is not nearly so agile.)  This could be done quite simply by finding the length of the line from the Fortress to the nearest trading hub (or even more simply all the way to the current Mountain-home and dividing it by the liaison's agility rating.  The schedule for sending out a caravan would take the date that the caravan is scheduled to be sent out and add however many days it would take to have the slowest pack-beast to traverse that distance to the site of the current fort to it, to make the appearance of the caravan be a dynamic rather than static schedule.  The Liaison would stick around for awhile after the caravan leaves until he/she gets the meeting to determine what the Fortress wants in the next caravan and upon exiting, the whole process starts all over again.

Slightly more complex, would be to have the liaison traverse a return path where each simulated day he or she would have a chance to be set upon by bandits/wildlife/enemies just as an adventurer might which could affect how long it takes to bring the Fortresses trade agreement back to the Mountainhome.  Likewise, the caravans could be scheduled on a pre-calculated circular path that uses as many trade-hubs as it's able while also avoiding dangerous areas like Titan shrines or war zones, and have the nearest trade hub be where the liaison heads, to wait for the caravan to come by on its circuit before presenting the Fortresses trade agreement.

The beauty of such an arrangement would be that in adventure mode, one of the quests might be to be hired by a caravan as a trade liaison to some new hamlet or fortress, or even to travel with the caravan for a bit, visiting markets and fortresses as a caravan guard or even eventually a caravan master.  (I can see a mercantile mini-game easily become part of the DF experience)

What about people that decide to embark on terrifying glaciers in the far corner of the world? At the very least, embarkations that are on an island/different continent from the host civ/extreme distance away may never get a single caravan.  This sounds like it would only properly work in a well-populated area with several different nearby towns (of various sizes and races).

[Taffer]

From the Development page:

• Realize trade/tribute relationships with actual caravans moving on the map
  ...
• Replace dwarf mode generated caravans with actual caravans

What about people that decide to embark on terrifying glaciers in the far corner of the world? At the very least, embarkations that are on an island/different continent from the host civ/extreme distance away may never get a single caravan.  This sounds like it would only properly work in a well-populated area with several different nearby towns (of various sizes and races).

Which would be a good thing. Even ignoring the lack of ships in Dwarf Fortress, why would anyone travel all the way to a terrifying glacier on the opposite end of the world just for some stone crafts? Why should that fort even get any migrants, for that matter? (Unless your home civilization has fallen). Toady is moving in a direction that eliminates hard coded, invented migrants to your fort (which would logically mean that nobody can migrate if they can't actually reach you), and seems to be moving in a similar direction for caravans. Embarking in a location that gives trade caravans a 50/50 chance of reaching your fort alive would realistically have a dramatic effect on trade, don't you think? As would embarking somewhere that requires years of travel time for your home civilization.

[Pyrite]

From what I've heard, once your population gets large enough you'll be able to take advantage of an indigenous population of hill dwarves for trade.

It would also be interesting, if you embark in the hellish glacier style places, to only get occasional adventurers in your tavern, who are most interested in trading in their treasures for food, drink, and a few months of luxury.

[Niddhoger]

Yeah... but this would effectively kill "interesting" embarks if you were capped at 7 dwarves+ 14 year wait on procreation.  Some people consider this "fun" I find it a tedious disaster of micro-management.  You can't even build a single full squad with those #s!

If nothing else we'd need starting scenarios that would justify the mountain-homes investment (in migrants and trade routes) in your hell-fort.  Perhaps you are a prison-colony and can set some of the prisoners to work in chain gangs or a work-release program.  Perhaps you are not simply trading dinky crafts but are procuring metals for the motherland.  In which case you would HAVE to trade so much of a given item the liason requests.  Maybe you are a fort to act as a buffer against the goblins living in hte tundra. 

Also, if we couldn't trade across oceans, then entire landmasses that start without a dwarven civilization (or whose dorfs have gone extinct) would be unplayable.  It would just feel like it takes too much out of hte game.

If nothing else, these remote/desolate places (and forts from dead civ's) should be able to take in refuges from any nearby civ, including other races.  Perhaps they could even take in migrants from hill dwarves/outcast camps they have established good (trade) relations with.  Maybe you could even "conquer" and enslave/assimilate nearby camps.  SOMETHING needs to be done to not entirely cut off and doom a fort to only 7 dorfs if they settle too far away/across the sea.