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[Rexfelum]

Hello, new forum member here.  I've been playing for a couple of months now and I've developed some questions about (hang on let me check the subject line) elves.

They've finally started demanding lumber limits.  (They demand this to my Mayor, not to any higher noble such as a Baron, because I don't have one despite my 25,000,000 created wealth 400,000 exported wealth and 200 dwarves, but that's another issue.)  First question: the wiki entry for a previous version implied that "If you don't cut any trees he will actually be happy with you (a happy hippie - impossible)."  Is this just explaining elf psychology, or was there an actual in-game effect like different dialogue?  To experiment, I managed to cut/acquire 0 trees for a whole year, but nothing interesting happened.

Second question: what are the effects of going over the lumber limit?  Again, I did this in game (by about 40 trees), but nothing interesting happened.

Thanks for any help.  From what I've seen on this forum, you people are remarkably patient with dumb questions.

--Rexfelum

[smokingwreckage]

As I understand it, going over the tree limit will eventually provoke the elves into declaring war. Going under it gains no additional advantage.

[existent]

Firstly, Barons are bugged.

Secondly, after a time, Elves will begin to request that you cap tree genocide:
"We hate to lose even a single tree, but we'd like you to limit it to 100" (something like that)
which you have the option of agreeing to or declining. Go over to many times, they come attack you.

I've never heard of cutting no trees having an impact.

[C4lv1n]

Cutting down trees (especially over a limit that you've agreed on) pisses off elves.

This is good.

Elves that are in a good mood only bring along cloth and other such things to trade because they think that these things are most valuable. Sometimes they bring animals but usually normal ones (Dogs, cats, cows, goats).

Elves that are getting more annoyed tend to bring the real cool stuff, Giant Eagles, Bears, Cougars, and other Giant or otherwise cool animals.

Elves that are really pissed off go to war with you, and since they only use wooden weapons, they will loose horribly, as long as you have a nice set of traps ready, or a competent military and have them armed and armored, even in copper, they will own the elves. Sometimes almost never one gets a lucky shot with a bow and a dwarf will need some health care, but they'll be ok in the end.

You may not be aware, but it's normal for many members of the forum (including me) to just take everything the elves bring until they get mad enough to bring the cool stuff. Yeah you'll need to make a few copper weapons and sets of armor, but you don't even need to train your dorfs to fight, the first time the elves went to war with me I just had my woodcutter and 3 friends go and pickup the gear and they owned the elves, they had some bruises but they were fine.

Two last things:

1. Traps (like I said up there^) are pretty good for taking out elves, and cage traps are a good idea if you want to capture the elves, my current fort has 24 captured elves that I use to fight in my arena.

2. I apologize if you already know all this stuff, but I figured, I may as well share.

[Rexfelum]

Bwa ha, I like it.  Well . . . I'd like it more if there were complex dialogue with the elves over the deep cultural significance of your charcoal industry, but whatever.  I had read a hint that elves bring more cool animals when annoyed, but you seem to be saying it's really a fact.  And, importantly: you're saying that elves from the elf civilization are pushovers, even though elves I've seen leading goblin squads seem tougher?

--Rexfelum

[existent]

I had read a hint that elves bring more cool animals when annoyed, but you seem to be saying it's really a fact.

Here's basically what happens:
1. Cloth is low weight, and relatively high value
2. Animals are high weight, relatively low value
3. You rip off the elves repeatedly
4. They think, "Fuck those dwarves, man. From now on, we're not bringing the awesome, lightweight shit anymore. Roll out the heavy garbage!"
5. The thing is, in this case the heavy garbage is animals, which have a much higher practical value than their in-game number represents.
6. The elven caravan starts bringing lots of caged animals.
7. ?
8. Profit!

[andfhe]

I had read a hint that elves bring more cool animals when annoyed, but you seem to be saying it's really a fact.

Here's basically what happens:
1. Cloth is low weight, and relatively high value
2. Animals are high weight, relatively low value
3. You rip off the elves repeatedly
4. They think, "Fuck those dwarves, man. From now on, we're not bringing the awesome, lightweight shit anymore. Roll out the heavy garbage!"
5. The thing is, in this case the heavy garbage is animals, which have a much higher practical value than their in-game number represents.
6. The elven caravan starts bringing lots of caged animals.
7. ?
8. Profit!

Profit? You don't make money, you just get war animals, so when they do attack you, You win even easier.

[Akivara]

How do you piss off elves, other than breaking lumber limits?  And how do you know when to stop, so they bring you nice animals but never end up attacking you?

[VoidPointer]

Profit? You don't make money, you just get war animals, so when they do attack you, You win even easier.

Money is worth only the things it affords you, and slain elves are the greatest of coin. Trained giant eagles come close behind.

If you need more of the normal kind, just order more ROCK MUGs.

[Psieye]

How do you piss off elves, other than breaking lumber limits?

There is a 'Seize' option in trade. You can't do it with dwarven caravans, but other caravans can have their goods seized - effectively this means stealing from them. Alternatively, kill the elves who visit - I think the kill order understands this now, but otherwise set up an elaborate engineering project to creatively kill them (drowning chambers are popular).

[gtmattz]

How do you piss off elves, other than breaking lumber limits?  And how do you know when to stop, so they bring you nice animals but never end up attacking you?

I have my trade depot built inside a spiffy drowning chamber, every time they visit everyone dies.

I never bother with stopping, as the eventual sieges are fun.

[Drawde]

There's CURRENTLY no benefit to cooperating other than no sieges from them.  Not even the dialog changes, though I think that's due to there being no other dialog in the raws.  But I'm pretty sure there are plans to change this, somewhere down the line...

Not to mention that the day after the elves start sieging you, there will be an update that buffs up the elves   

[Quietust]

I had read a hint that elves bring more cool animals when annoyed, but you seem to be saying it's really a fact.

Here's basically what happens:
1. Cloth is low weight, and relatively high value
2. Animals are high weight, relatively low value
3. You rip off the elves repeatedly
4. They think, "Fuck those dwarves, man. From now on, we're not bringing the awesome, lightweight shit anymore. Roll out the heavy garbage!"
5. The thing is, in this case the heavy garbage is animals, which have a much higher practical value than their in-game number represents.
6. The elven caravan starts bringing lots of caged animals.
7. ?
8. Profit!

I've corrected this numerous times in other posts, but it looks like I'll have to correct it yet again here:
* Elves do not think cloth is more valuable than other goods.
* All merchants (of any race) think that goods stored in bins must be loaded onto the caravan first.

The effect of this is that when the Elves decide to bring one hundred of every single trade good (which would normally require dozens of wagons), they end up running out of room on their mules before they finish loading up their cloth. This was easy to prove back in 40d - if you boosted the trade capacity of their pack animals to some really high amount, then they'd end up bringing just as many animals, barrels of booze, and stacks of plants (and all of their other crap like weapons, armor, crafts, and barrels of Gnomeblight) as bins of cloth.

[existent]

I've corrected this numerous times in other posts, but it looks like I'll have to correct it yet again here:
* Elves do not think cloth is more valuable than other goods.
* All merchants (of any race) think that goods stored in bins must be loaded onto the caravan first.

The effect of this is that when the Elves decide to bring one hundred of every single trade good (which would normally require dozens of wagons), they end up running out of room on their mules before they finish loading up their cloth. This was easy to prove back in 40d - if you boosted the trade capacity of their pack animals to some really high amount, then they'd end up bringing just as many animals, barrels of booze, and stacks of plants (and all of their other crap like weapons, armor, crafts, and barrels of Gnomeblight) as bins of cloth.

Eh, I've never traded with the elves at all. I wouldn't know.

[minozake]

I just find their cloth useful, especially when I'm too lazy to start or keep a clothing industry going.  Recently, I've also run out of rope, and my woodcutters decided to slack off, so I basically bought all their wood off of their caravan.

That got my charcoal industry going again.

I don't piss them off too much.  It irks me, though, that they keep calling me a butcher, as if that's going to change my habits.  I think elves need to be less abrasive ^_^)b  Buffing up wooden weapons might be an option, though.  Especially the harder woods.

Here's a challenge: Make elves likable.