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[kierkkadon]

I'm making a fort with very specific limitations on myself to make it more fun, and one of the limitations means I have no reliable way to produce trade goods (as in items with no use other than to make and sell). What are some good high-ish value things I can create to sell easily?

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

I tend to make statues. They weigh a lot, but are fairly valuable, especially if decorated.

[twwolfe]

find some ore and make mechanisms out of it

[kierkkadon]

What about if I'm not using stone as a building material?

[Lokii]

... Lavish Meals?

[The Doctor]

Goblin body parts/clothing.

[Urist Imiknorris]

I want to get a dwarven caravan and a goblin ambush or three, and offer the severed body parts to the caravan.

[Argonnek]

You could make crafts out of wood, it's infinitely replenishable. Or roasts, those work too.

[kierkkadon]

You could make crafts out of wood, it's infinitely replenishable. Or roasts, those work too.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. What does the "Decorate with Bone" option do?

[o_O[WTFace]]

Steel platemail?  Steel gives you a huge boost in value and platemail turns 3 bars into one hauling job instead of 3.  Also you can wear it and stuff. 

And spatter gems on everything, of course. 

[Randy Gnoman]

You could make crafts out of wood, it's infinitely replenishable. Or roasts, those work too.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. What does the "Decorate with Bone" option do?

Takes bone from refuse stockpiles (or wherever), and adds it to the item. Raises the value, without increasing the weight- it's a good thing.  If your trash is outside, make sure your dwarves are set to pick it up- hit "o" to see orders, "r" for refuse orders, and make sure they're not ignoring refuse from outside.  If you're doing a wood-only fortress, though, you're going to find that you run out of wood for your crafts fairly quickly- skull totems are easy to manufacture, relatively light, and are made from a material (skulls) which has absolutely no other use.  Make totems, decorate them with bone, and if you're playing 2010 don't forget to also use the "decorate with horn" option to use up your hoofs.  You might also have other miscellaneous materials to toss on.

You can also manufacture anything that traders bring you raw materials for- clothing, for example.  Buy some cloth, have a clothier turn the cloth into gloves, or socks, and the value-added will be sufficient to trade for more cloth plus tons of other crap even if your clothier isn't that good.  Leatherworking is also an option, or if you have a very skilled cook, you can make crazy profit from buying lots of high-value raw ingredients (like cheese, and expensive meats), and turning them into high-value roasts.  Trading for gems can even be a way to increase trade revenue in following years, if you encrust your finished goods with them.  There are lots of options for profitable industry, without local raw materials production- just make enough <<cat skull totems>> or **cat meat roasts** to buy your initial stock of raw materials, and you should usually be able to get a self-sustaining industry rolling.

[Dave Mongoose]

Clothing is good (especially when you dye it):

They're not as valuable as silk, but pig tail or rope reed works well - rope reed can be grown all year round as well.

You do need quite a lot of bags to hold seeds, dyes, etc. but since you're churning out cloth, that shouldn't be hard .

Items that come in pairs (gloves, socks, shoes) give you two items per job so they're the best choice.

[Greep]

I'm with steel platemail, that's what I sell even with tradegoods.  There's so much iron ore lying around in the new version it's hard to run out anyways.

One thing you're gonna have to watch out for is the no wagons anymore.  So caravans can carry less.  This means gold statues would prolly be a bad idea.

Edit: Also, I'm not sure if the values are the same for the new version, but elephant roasts are EXTREMELY valueable.

[Hyperturtle]

Hey, steel chainmail is worth more.  Check it out for yourself.

Anyway yeah all those rock mugs pile up pretty fast.

I find that a loom, dyer and clothing shop can crank out some kick butt articles of clothing, even starting with simple pig tail and dimple cups.  Start sewing cloth or silk images on them and you're good.  to increase the volume of output, trade for bins of cloth, or farm rope reed as well.  Once you get into the cavern, create a few looms and have one collect the webs and the other work on weaving.  If you have just one loom, it can be a loooong time between weaving sessions, as the caverns are usually pretty far away from a workshop area... its a long way to walk to collect a single web.

Prepared meals, as someone suggested, can end up worth lots.  Buy the expensive foods (50 dwarfbucks per item) on trade and try to cook with those.

I totally disagree that caravans tend to carry less.  With my last trade with the dwarfs an exception, I end up spending 10k on booze from the elves.  My fort has over 10,000 drinks available now.  I don't think I'll need to use my still for a LONG time.

Also, if you have galena ore, smelt as much of it as you can, then set a metal crafter to stud items with lead.  That in itself is not worth much, but his skill as a metal crafter will increase, so that you can effectively apply the silver and any other valuable ores you have.

The guy will stud anything nearby--furniture, chains, statues, flasks.  Set the craftsdwarf shop next to a jeweler, and before too long you'll have a flask that costs $12k.

[Psieye]

Currently, Elves bring nuclear Warthogs which are bugged with ridiculous carrying power.