Lets get this back on topic shall we?
Right now artifacts are worth an amount of dwarfbux that is simply so large it's practically worthless. You can trade it for an entire wagon of supplies if you feel like getting .01% of it's value or you can just let it sit around gathering dust and making dwarfs sully their pants with joy. In the future, as the caravan and army arcs pick up, will artifacts see some some sort of expanded use, such as buying armies of soldiers from neighboring civs, causing armies to invade for the express purpose of stealing the artifact etc.?
I think part of the goal of the Caravan Arc will be to balance out those kinds of trade imbalances. If you want to trade away a pile of artifacts, you should be able to make arrangements with the liaisons. And should their civ be willing, and capable of affording your Planepacked, they will load their caravans with the appropriate quantity and value of goods. I imagine the Liaison interface getting a little more in depth, and specific trades could be made ahead of time. 20 full sets of exceptional steel arms and equipments from the neighboring mountainhome for an artifact flute and two bins of dyed and decorated giant spider silk socks.
Big ticket purchases always involve some middle men and even today can involve years of planning and negotiation.
Though fix prices are reportedly on the way out, <speculation> so I guess one civilizations valuation of your socks might be quite different from another's. And hopefully they'll both value them as socks primarily, and might have no current need for a large import of luxury hosiery. The same could apply to artifacts, with one civ willing to pay anything for that flute, but another perhaps less musically inclined civ would have no interest in a flute, be it a gemstone artifact or schist. </speculation>
Some more broad applications of wealth would be awesome too, the buying of peace or of war. Hiring a company of elite Troll hammerers. Shopping for the perfect artifact battle axe for your favorite champion, once the rest of the world starts getting in on the artifact game that is. I love the idea of carpentering up a caravan, loading it full of gem encrusted platinum jewelry and chests of coins, assigning some trustworthy guardsmen and dispatching it in exchange for some world altering purchase. How would you spend your 10 million dwarfmids?