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[Sowelu]

I wonder what will happen to wealth in the entire world over time.  It makes sense that once (if?) the population stabilizes a bit, then if resources keep being produced over time, the world will become wealthier overall.

Which I guess makes things interesting if one civ attacks another to loot, instead of conquer.  You end up with a lot of wealth concentrated in one place.  Then if a site gets attacked by some power and destroyed, or taken over by some nasties that hold onto it for a while but aren't part of a proper civ (so the loot stays at that one site for a while)...  That makes adventuring a lot more interesting.

Still, I can imagine the world slowly advancing into an age of wealth, where people all eventually have solid gold chalices and silver doors.  Or alternately, the world very slowly becoming less wealthy as all the good ore deposits are mined out while the spoils are slowly lost beneath the sands of long-dead civilizations.  Suddenly, a single gold sarcophagus holds immeasurable value.

[NSQuote]

I like the idea of mines. Smaller than a full-blown fortress (in most cases), with less residents and a much more specialized nature, but generating a lot of dwarfbucks from exporting ore. Mines would be easier to invade/infiltrate than a fully staffed fortress, and prehaps they could hire mercenaries for defense.

And there is a big variety of quests that could be undertaken. A mine could breach the caverns and be invaded by a forgotten beast, or hit an underground river and need help recovering from the flood and fighting off giant sharks. Prehaps they might need a hand mining (leading to a fun takeover from inside), or someone brave enough to dig deeper. And of course, you could always opt to help an ally seize a rival mine, or take control of a mine for your own profit.

This could work for other trades as well (small specialized villages, a little outpost near a volcano selling obsidian), and once the army arc begins you could have little outposts for armies.

[Mechanoid]

Will the deep metal still be as common as it currently is? Will stuff like cave features along the lines of water, plants/trees, pits, magma pipes, cave creature civ sites, & other things homes (surface access or not) appear on the feature finder list?

Being able to setup the finder to find ALL* of the desired site features so you could just find the most-perfect-for-you fortress site would be wonderful, and really get the player to build a long and fun history filled with tragedy and laughter. Currently when you embark on a map you have no idea of how interesting and fun the map will be; it could be the most fun map in the entire world, or it could just be the most boring possible. Of course nothing should stop the player from choosing a (or the) boring map, it's just that currently there's no way to find the level of fun you want exactly (and i do like to have all the fun i can) so you're stuck meddling with generic things.

* i do mean everything; good, bad, ugly, and very ugly

[vogonpoet]

One thing that concerns me with trading becoming a more integral part of a stable fortress is my front gate.

If I lived in a dangerous goblin-filled world, and set off with 7 picks and some stupid peasants to make a mining camp, I would not expect to have to keep a 3 tile wide path to my fortress almost permanently open just in case some trade caravans arrive. They should at least knock dammit. Or come running towards my mighty gate screaming about the goblins hot on their heels, begging for entry.

Thus, upon arrival of the caravan on the fortress map, you get a message pop up ("A vile force of greed and corruption has arrived" perhaps ), the traders ask for entrance, and if you agree, you have an ingame day-long period to open your gates before they get pissed off and leave. The current "oh we saw your gates were shut from the other side of the valley yonder, so we didn't bother coming" situation does not make much sense IMO. Of course my gates were shut, that is what gates are for. Shutting.

With the new more important caravans, will we be able to keep our doors closed most of the year, and get a grace period for opening up when the caravans arrive on the edge of the map? This would allow more security whilst minimising lost trade opportunities.

[Psieye]

I envision some human or dwarf civ wanting to sell their ore to player forts now just to have them smelted because only player-controlled forts are stupid enough to dig right down to the magma and smelt for no fuel costs. Some poor civ that doesn't have any coal to dig up nor trees to cut down. Well, they could import fuel I guess. Unless some adventurer just went round and killed every furnace operator and set fire to every coal vein and tree in the vicinity.

[Akjosch]

"Oh, crap, a player controlled fortress was made. Alright, all metal forging has to stop so that we can ship our metal to them instead."

Now that doesn't make much sense now does it.

With better trade deals (which I hope will be coming with one of the new updates), it kinda does make sense. For example, I can easily imagine a human civilisation willing to sell you 120 iron bars ... for three full sets (helmet, breastplate, gaiters, two matching gauntlets and two boots) of superior-quality or better steel armour.

[Lord Shonus]

Traditionally, dwarven work is (among) the greatest in the world. Logically, it follows that groups will bring whatever they think will get them the most dwarven crafts in return. Thus, if the dwarves just shout METAL BARS over and over again during the negotiations, that's what the merchants bring. This leads to another question:


Will size ever matter for trading, and will you ever get the ability to make things sized for creatures larger/smaller than yourself? For example, would a human caravan refuse (or pay less for) dwarf-sized armor because it will be harder to sell? Will you be able to make human-sized armor for trade instead?

[Desdichado]

Still, I can imagine the world slowly advancing into an age of wealth, where people all eventually have solid gold chalices and silver doors.

Regarding this, when will item decay and item damage make it in? Will decay hit even mundane objects like chalices and doors? And will decay exist in worldgen, too, in some abstract form?

[JimiD]

By co-incidence I just watched a BBC programme on the Bronze Age.  A ship was found by archaeologists in the Mediterranean containing various goods, including copper ingots, or bars.  So it would seem that historically metal bars would be traded, as well as finished goods.  This also applies to other metals such as tin, which as we all are now well aware, is critical to production of bronze.

I would love to see a general reduction in metals and resources generally.  A criticism at the moment is that within a year or two most forts can produce most items.  The only things I find myself ever needing from the caravans are flux stone and the odd metal like Bismuth to satisfy Noble demands, and as others have noted when you do ask for them, the traders never really bring that much of what you ask for.  Although it must also be said, I don’t pay a great deal of attention to what the liaison asks for either!  Hopefully after the next couple of versions they will get bored of my endless offerings of rock crafts and only pay peanuts for them.   And similarly hopefully I can stimulate enough demand to get them to bring wagon loads of flux.  Assuming there are places to buy that from.

[LoSboccacc]

the traders never really bring that much of what you ask for

in that regards, I hope a finer control over requests quantity will be added in (influencing prices, of course).

[Areyar]

Stands to reason though, that when you request a trader to bring tons of X, he/she will expect a premium price as well for it.

...with the demand/supply algorithms required for worldgen/adventurer-trader trade/prices, probably prices demanded by traders will be set by local/average region demand/supply in Fortressmode as well?

It might be handy, by the way, to be able to set up a draft agreement outside of the actual trade-talks, that will be imported as a default setting when talks actually begin. (I often completely forget what I wanted imported when agreeing on goods) having the previous trade agreement as default option would be nice too.

[Greiger]

I can see it now.  My fortresses often import tons and tons of meat.  So much that on the trade screen I have an enter, down macro in SDL that at full accelerated speed takes 30 seconds to buy every chunk of meat the caravan brings.  I often see a single caravan bring enough meat for a 300 member fortress for a year.

Abandon one day and play an adventurer and all the civilizations in the world are starving.  There's little to no food anywhere and a single slice of mule meat is more valuable than it's weight in gold.  Then cue my adventurer going to the abandoned fortress and finding salvageable food.  Coming back with a backpack full and becoming a millionaire instantly.

[Mel_Vixen]

As long we can take taxes! I want to block the critical pass, bridge or other choke-point to take massive taxes say for dye. In medieval Germany taxes were a viable income for all the small baronys etc. This also makes smuggling a nice and viable addition.

[Psieye]

the traders never really bring that much of what you ask for

in that regards, I hope a finer control over requests quantity will be added in (influencing prices, of course).

Alternatively, the ability to have this sort of conversation:

Urist McTrader: "We want unbelievable amounts of flux stone."
Kogan McMerchant: "We'll pack as much as we can onto our next visit with 5 pack animals."
Urist McTrader: "Can you make that 50 pack animals?"
Kogan McMerchant: "Let's discuss advance payment for the risk we'll be undertaking to move with such a huge load."
Urist McTrader: "We have 30 tonnes of stone mechanisms to pay you with."
Kogan McMerchant: "Are you kidding? We can't carry that much weight!"
Urist McTrader: "Ok then how about this steel serrated disc with every gem known to dwarfkind encrusted on it and further decorated with goblin bones, bands of gold and rings of electrum?"
Kogan McMerchant: "I'm not sure we can find a buyer for that back at Mountainhomes. The nobles are having a hard time financially at present."
Urist McTrader: "Alright, suggest something then."
Kogan McMerchant: "I happen to know the mining guild at Mountainhomes is short on picks. Can you arrange for 100 iron picks of fine quality or better to be made before we leave?"
Urist McTrader: "Why yes, our legendary weaponsmith can whip those up and our 20 smelters have already prepared the 100 iron bars this'll need."
Kogan McMerchant: "You got 13 days before we leave."

[Footkerchief]

Will the deep metal still be as common as it currently is? Will stuff like cave features along the lines of water, plants/trees, pits, magma pipes, cave creature civ sites, & other things homes (surface access or not) appear on the feature finder list?

Generally, if your question is "Did you implement feature X without mentioning it or hinting at it in the devlog," the answer is probably "no."