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[MantisMan]

My fortress is in it's second or third year so far, and it's doing pretty well overall. I've got three squads of military dwarves that have 7,8, and 8 members. Other than a few pieces of metal armour, they're almost all using leather and bone armour. I've got several silver warhammers scattered in there, two speardwarves, some swordsdwarves, a couple of macedwarves, and even a dwarf who wanted to use a large dagger to round it all out.

I want to know whether I have enough military power to seize the goods from the next trade caravan that comes by(say, the elves). What are the possible consequences of doing this? I've heard that if the elves get ticked off at you, then they'll bring more interesting caged creatures, and I wouldn't mind having a few war tigers accompanying my squad leaders into a fight.

[celem]

As far as I know the link between elvish relations and the tendancy to bring cool animals has never been definitely proven.  I've always felt it has some effect though.

Stealing from the caravan ought to piss em off anyway, it might take a few years of such thefts before they actually seige.  Murdering the traders is generally easier and I've always felt does more damage to relations than just nicking goods. (You take the stuff after they are dead anyway)

When it comes to if you are ready i'd say 'not quite'.  Bone is a pretty horrible material to make armor from, leather is slightly better but may as well be cloth if struck by a metal blade (even copper).  The elves like to bring archers on their seiges and utilise the ambush mechanics (hidden until close to a unit).

It all rather depends on your fort design, if you have interesting traps then you could probably roll the elves provided you dont go out to meet them.

Alternatively deck your warriors out even in basic iron and you are on a whole 'nother level since the elves generally have wooden armor/weapons.

(While i said drop leather for metal there are a few exceptions.  all military dwarves should have a leather hood and cloak.  these two pieces cover body areas that cannot be armored by any other means.  i.e. throat, toes, cheeks)

[mrtspence]

You have nothing to fear from elven warriors. Even a basic shirt will blunt a wooden arrow, reducing the foolish elves to little more than pests. I recently began a campaign of looting their caravans, then killing all but one to incite war. My 40 steel-clad and deadly warriors eagerly await the day the elves come.

[MantisMan]

You have nothing to fear from elven warriors. Even a basic shirt will blunt a wooden arrow, reducing the foolish elves to little more than pests. I recently began a campaign of looting their caravans, then killing all but one to incite war. My 40 steel-clad and deadly warriors eagerly await the day the elves come.

Hold on, they just let you take the stuff from them? I thought they'd immediately try to kill any dwarf who approached them while getting their stuff out of the way as fast as possible. How's that working out for you so far?

I've put the plan to steal things on the backburner. Not too long ago, I lost about half my dorf military in a mishandled goblin seige, so I'm going to need to wait until the military is built up again.

I think I'm just going to request nothing but steel bars and bituminous coal from the dwarven caravan next time, so that I can armour my military properly. Will the steel bars be too heavy for the caravan to bring more than a handful of?

[Fishbulb]

It's been ages since I actually traded with the elves. My standard procedure is to build my trade depot near a water source, and equip it with two pumps: one in, one out. When the elves show up, I pull lever 1 (the "seal the doors" lever) and then lever 2 (the "start the pump" lever), wait a bit, then pull lever 3 (the "drain the depot" lever) and collect the leavings.

I have yet to be on the receiving end of an elf siege, presumably because my forts rarely last longer than five or six years before ennui sets in. I always get painted into a corner, and tell myself, "Of COURSE! That's what I should've done differently!" And so I start over.

[ZachUSAman]

when you seize goods from a caravan, all they say is "well take what you want, I cant stop you" then after your done stealing they depart; so steal everything you need in the first run.

[twilightdusk]

One trick to steal things easy is to deconstruct the depot when the caravan is done loading up. The items will all count as yours and the caravan will leave. The game still registers that they left your place with nothing, so it's possible for the civ. to get angry at you. Also, tame animals get buggy with this method, you might want to trade legitimately for those first.