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[Quietust]

It's fairly well known that Elves like to bring lots of cloth to trade along with their usual assortment of trade goods, and that said bins of cloth are always loaded first (to the point that the pack animals back in 40d would be easily overloaded, preventing any other trade goods from being brought). Of course, this has yet to be a problem in version 0.31.xx due to the disproportionately high trade capacities of pack animals. However, something very strange just happened in my 0.31.16 fortress...

For as long as I can remember, the Elves have been bringing lots of bins of cloth - anywhere from 10 to 20 bins in each caravan. I normally keep my cloth stockpiles fairly low (since cloth will wear out over time, even just sitting in bins), so I never bought any. Last Autumn, great fortune led a giant cave spider from the caverns into one of my cage traps and I set up a silk farm which has thus far been very productive, filling my stockpiles with over two hundred pieces of giant cave spider silk cloth. When the Elven caravan arrived the following Spring, I was in for quite a surprise: they brought enough trade goods to load up 5 horses, but out of those trade goods there were zero bins of cloth.

Maybe they were only bringing cloth in the first place because I wasn't producing any of my own? Maybe they brought it as emergency supplies similar to how caravans bring wood logs when you don't have any? Once, as an experiment, I forbade every single item in my fortress just before the Elven caravan arrived, and they managed to bring over 50 bins of cloth along with massive piles of food and wood - for all I know, the tendency for elves to bring cloth may be solely due to most fortresses never bothering to start a cloth industry and only keeping a few bins on hand in case of strange moods.

More research is definitely in order.

[JoRo]

I'll start planting pig-tails immediately.  I'm curious to see how it turns out.

[They Got Leader]

How bizarre!

Truly, ‼science‼ needs to be administered.

[Halnoth]

Yes, I was fortunate to read this post at the end of winter. I immediately started making cloth from the few thousand rope reed I have laying around. The Elves indeed brought 0 bins of cloth. This is quite the fortunate find as it could free up alot of space on the dwarven caravan that is usually taken up by cloth. I will expand this !!SCIENCE!! to include leather. I'll test it on the human caravan.

[Halnoth]

and yes this seems to apply to leather as well.

[Uzu Bash]

Ah, that explains a lot. I was buying it up just to get the bins, but when I had more than I was producing with, no one was bringing me those bins. After opening new shops and cranking out a lot of uniforms, I saw cloth again.

[Max White]

Wouldn't that demonstraight that elves have a physic capasity, most likely from eating the brains of those they kill in combat...

[They Got Leader]

Wouldn't that demonstrate that elves have a psychic capacity, most likely from eating the brains of those they kill in combat...

Yes. Yes, it would. And it appears to affect humans as well.

[Halnoth]

Wouldn't that demonstrate that elves have a psychic capacity, most likely from eating the brains of those they kill in combat...

Yes. Yes, it would. And it appears to affect humans as well.

Well they are often allies afterall. Haven't you ever been sieged by humans because you pissed off the elves?

[Max White]

Well now we know how they know how many trees we have killed recycled.

[Quietust]

Wouldn't that demonstraight that elves have a physic capasity, most likely from eating the brains of those they kill in combat...

They're already psychic with regards to other trade goods - why do you think they only bring wood logs when you don't have very many?

[Max White]

Well, normaly when I don't have any it is because I'm in the desert or on a glacier, otherwise my stocks are full. If I were selling to somebody in the desert, my major trade goods would be wood, water and sand repellant.

[Halnoth]

Well to be fair, their diplomat visits your fortress and while he is there he would presumably speak with your dwarves. Given that, it isn't a stretch to then say he used his own intuition to summize that you would indeed need more wood by next spring.

[They Got Leader]

Well to be fair, their diplomat visits your fortress and while he is there he would presumably speak with your dwarves. Given that, it isn't a stretch to then say he used his own intuition to summize that you would indeed need more wood by next spring.

Also true.

[SkyRender]

 Cloth degrades when sitting unused in bins, wot?  I've never seen this happen before.  Are you sure?  Because the Elves never bring me cloth after I buy them out of the stuff for 2 years running, even in forts that last a good decade or more.  And the cloth I have just sits in bins that whole time.  Am I missing something here?