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[AngryAboutElves]

I recently built a new fortress in an area close to a "friendly" (for the time being) elf civilisation. I've already received 3 caravans from their lands and the only thing of worth they have to offer me is timber - of which I already have plenty considering I embarked on half a forest biome.

Has anyone discovered an use for elvish traders? In this particular fortress I mostly produce a large amount of gold bars, which seem to sell rather well to anyone, but I'd prefer to trade them with the humans and the mountainhome in return for more usefull goods.

I first thought about using their elf-halal wood for finished products and then selling it back to them, but that seems like a rather useless procedure cosnidering they generally just don't have anything I want... I can't really see any use for their products other than filling up for a potential wood shortage if when I have cut down all the trees and have used the area for large-scale mining. The elves also seem to be in possession of literary artifacts of dwarven origin that I'm planning on retrieving anytime soon, so I don't really feel like keeping my raiding plans on hold for a decade or more just so that elf wood could be put to use.

[daggaz]

They often have all kinds of cool animals in cages, build a zoo. 

[Deus Machina]

Jaguars and tigers make pretty good guard animals.
Aside from that, I mostly just use wood weapons for dodge-this traps, clothing because I never seem to get a textile industry up, and the wood armor they bring for the militia trainees.

[wierd]

When they live in savage biomes, they bring really cool GIANT creatures for sale.

[Gigaz]

The best exotic animals from elves are turtles and tortoises. Sometimes dwarfs want a shell for a mood, with a breeding pair you have endless supply.

Elves also bring wood if you don't have much.

[TheEqualsE]

If you way over pay them several times they bring more stuff, up to 3 times what they usually do - so still not that much.  But, they might bring giant animals.  I've had a giant war bear that was really agressive, a family of giant elephants, even a breeding pair of giant tigers in my most recent fort.

[Superdorf]

Sometimes a caravan might bring some instrument or other made of divine cloth-- useless, sure, but very shiny.

Also, like everyone else is saying... war beasts. Wonderful, wonderful war beasts. I've seen elves bring giant elephants for trading.

[PatrikLundell]

Apart from the animals mentioned, elves also bring fruit (which can be converted into booze to satisfy some drink needs as well as food needs if you use DFHackery to get booze cooking working). They're also a source of dorf sized underwear, which is always in short supply (goblins deliver some too). Forget about seeds that can be planted, though as they only bring tree provided fruit/nuts, never shrub based ones. Nuts can satisfy some food needs.

[Naryar]

Elves do bring useful stuff. Granted, as far as general caravan usefulness I'll take a dwarven one over an elf one anytime, but still.

Logs, exotic fruits, barrels, bags, buckets, clothing and exotic beasts are some of the more useful stuff they bring.

Exotic beasts, arguably their best export, is very hit or miss though. Usually you get pointless animals.

Also they are also good for trash disposal, aka, sell them the shitty damaged clothes/goblinite your fort produces. It's a pain to check if everything is wood kasher though.

[anewaname]

Besides buying their food and animals, I buy some of their cheap clothing too (not shoes/sandals, not loincloths/veils, and not robes since some of these might conflict with how I do military dwarf equipment and I also do not want dwarfs wearing clothing that will rot off because the dwarf cannot replace it easily). This ensures there is spare clothing, since a clothing industry is never a priority in my fort. Also, elves might bring a type of cloth that my fort cannot produce and that a dwarf might prefer.

[Arcvasti]

Before trees became multi-tile, buying tons of logs from the elves was super convenient. Even now buying big cloth bins can save a fair bit of hassle.

[Deus Machina]

I have yet to see elves bring logs or cloth.
Then again, whenever I have trees, I still make sure to get them a nice paved road from their path in.
Wood blocks are great for that.

[PatrikLundell]

Elves (and other caravans) bring logs only when your stocks are very small (I think it's some relation to the number of members of your fortress), so a desert or mountain map would probably allow you to see it. I believe "stocks" include ones locked up in buildings, though.

I don't think elves bring cloth, only clothes, while humies and dorfs can bring cloth.

I've completely failed to see the use of wood blocks (except in pumps, where a block of some kind is required), as you spend a lot of effort to haul a log to the carpenter shop, spend effort to cut it down to a single block (stone blocks at least turn one stone into several blocks). True, a block is lighter than a log, but if you were to build a road (which can burn, as opposed to a floor) on the surface, the total log hauling distance is probably longer if you first make the logs into blocks than if you were to build the road out of logs directly.
Role playing trumps efficiency, though...

[Deus Machina]

Well, it started out as efficiency (at first I forgot logs only yielded 1 block instead of stones' 4, but building and hauling goes faster than logs, and roads are more material-efficient than floors), but once the extra hauling went into effect it became RP reasons.
After all, it's one thing to insult the elves by forcing them to walk across wood roads, but it's dwarfy to cut them up, make them smooth and pretty and distinctly non-organic, and thus create waste material in the process.

[Starver]

I've long valued (FCVO...) the Elven caravan for the food/cookables/brewables and the caged animals. One can never have enough raw food (even if one is currently well stocked) and even if the creatures are not 'exotic enough' to try to keep until you can get a matching pair or similar they usually can add to both the other stock of 'walking meat' and provide a cage.

On top of that, having taken note of liaison-mediated trading 'deals' for amulets or ammo or armour, the elven versions of the required subtypes are usefully stockpiled away as a mass of lower-value trade-goods that don't require time and effort to produce locally, and not use up local ores (though rock versions, of those that have rock versions, of some suitably profligate scrap-rock, are probably my main trade-away stock regardless). So I tend to accept whichever of those specific grown-wood things they bring, and send them back with whatever non-deal rock crafts I have (mugs, the 'wrong' types of craft, statues that don't fit with my current aesthetic desire).


Nothing really revelatory in all that, I'm sure, but it's what *I* do.