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[The Dog Delusion]

Is there any way to encourage the Elven caravans to bring useful stuff, like animals? For example, will regularly buying all of their cages and animals cause them to focus on bringing more of them in future years? Or is it always entirely random whether I get Giant Jaguars or 3 cloth bins?

I just want those hippie jerks to be useful for once.

[twwolfe]

when you trade with them, give them the lowest profit possible. also, destroy their caravan every third year or so. this will make them think your fort isn't a valuable investment, so instead of "valuable" cloth, they bring the less valuable animals and beiiries and such

[Kza]

Believe it or not, they value cloth over animals. Giving them a huge profit will make them bring more. Scam them, seize them, kill them, do what you have to do to make them HATE you.

[CrossBolt]

I've been wondering this too, I remember when I got 2 cougers and a jaguar from one elven caravan in the first year (and a rheseus maraque but their pretty pointless).

Maybe I just won't trade with them for a year or 2 and see if they bring stuff like that again

[Ieb]

Some experience with elves have led me to believe that they only bring tons of cloth when your fort doesn't have tons of cloth. Now I can't remember though whether it was imported, or home-made cloth that fort had, but it seemed every time I was low on it, the elves showed up with tons of bins full of the stuff.

You could try that. I recall same system also impacts the amount of food traders bring, if you have lots of it, they won't have as much.

[Kipi]

Some experience with elves have led me to believe that they only bring tons of cloth when your fort doesn't have tons of cloth. Now I can't remember though whether it was imported, or home-made cloth that fort had, but it seemed every time I was low on it, the elves showed up with tons of bins full of the stuff.

You could try that. I recall same system also impacts the amount of food traders bring, if you have lots of it, they won't have as much.

Doesn't the same apply to wood as well?
I have seen several times that caravan brings lots of wood (all three races) when I'm very low or has none of it.

[Grimlocke]

Yeah, that is correct. They respond in some way to your stocks. Its very useful on maps with little wood, but I havnt found it to work with animals. I once even had the opposite effect by having a huge pile of animals and still getting a breeding pair of unicorns and some other animals in 1 year.

I decided not to give them a run of the magmatrap that year

[bmaczero]

To me it seems to be based on profit.  In Matchshield my trader is good enough to give them 0 profit every year, which I do, and I think we're in Year 22 and I have never seen a single bin of cloth from the elves.  I do have breeding pairs of Cougars, Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, Wolves, and Deer, though .

[Rafal99]

I am sure they bring wood if you are low on wood. Last year I cut all the remaining trees, and had no more wood logs for production of barrels etc. On Spring the elven diplomat came saying something like "You abused the trees, but we expected that from your race. Stop that or you will face the consequences", then left, without any question about tree cutting limit or anything. Then after several days the elven caravan came with 6 pack animals full of wood, and only 2x Prickle Berries[5] except that.
This year I was low on wood again, but didn't cut many trees, mostly because there is nothing left to cut atm, and the diplomat came asking for tree cutting limit, and caravan is again full of wood.
But I am sure this doesn't apply to cloth for example, earlier the caravans were bringing me 12 bins full of Rope reed cloth every yeah, even if I had my stockpiles full of it.

[Repulsion]

  I think the Elves think animals only sleep, eat, and shit, while cloth makes you look extravagant. Apparently they don't notice that sitting on your pet cougar, riding your pet Giant Eagle into battle and then jumping off onto your pet Giant Cave Spider in the middle of a Orc siege isn't extravagant.

[kotekzot]

Rope reed most certainly does not make you look extravagant. GCS silk is where it's all at.

[Don Blake]

There does seem to be some truth to the whole "Take their stuff and they'll bring better stuff."  I've been seizing their caravans for the last couple years, and they've finally brought me a grizzly bear instead of just cloth.

[Shinziril]

From what I recall, it turns out that happy elves will actually bring you more of everything.  The problem with this is that their pack animals can only hold so much, and they load the bins of cloth first, and then just stop once they run out of room - hence the caravan consisting entirely of bins of rope reed cloth.  This was discovered (as I recall) by someone modding the elven pack animals to have wagon-like carrying capacity, whereupon they did indeed bring more of everything, including booze, berries, and exotic animals. 

But yeah, if you don't feel like modding, the "don't make 'em too happy" approach should work reasonably well. 

[ungulateman]

Hey, it's fun playing on a knife's edge with siegeing, good trading and no trading at all. Elf Bowmen tend to make pincushions out of everything, unless you've got champs with legendary shield user.

[Don Blake]

On a related note, if I kill the elven diplomat, will I get another, assuming I don't necessarily want to be at war forever?