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[dwarfhoplite]

I suggest to make merchants more intelligent making them not buy everything. instead they go through a list of items you offer them and choose what they need. The rest won't be traded. A better broker will sell them items they didn't know they needed. This way trading agreements would have more meaning.

[Montague]

Could work.

Another idea might be that traders will offer a list of production order, or mandates so to speak of the amount and type of goods they want. Something like a work order or contract you could fulfill "We would like you to make us 30 short swords and have them ready by next autumn."

This shouldn't be the whole of trading though. They might decide to buy up that bin of over-priced dolomite mugs anyways, if they think they can find a buyer somewhere, at some point in order to make a future profit.

[AutomataKittay]

I'd prefer then to just have less than 100% value, just as you can get to... 300% I believe? so they can go low, maybe somewhere around 25% or 10% at lowest. That way you have a choice of what to give them, caravans does have weight limits, after all! And if you just can't offload the 'junk' well enough, you'd have to retort to either dumping it into magma or try the next caravan 

As is, trade agreement is 100% or above value, nothing lower, which honestly make trade agreements feels a bit unbalanced on my side. What if I don't want any of those 'junks' they brings so much of (all those toys, cloth and leather )? The dwarven liasons does pretty much gives a 'work order' or 'contract', whichever term you'd like, by suggesting they'd buy such and such for higher price! It'd have to either be much better bonus price, or a special exchange beyond what's normally brought (ie. you request, what, a dozen aluminium ores in exchange for a hundred bronze shortswords ).

[Montague]

Yeah come to think of it the "work order" thing seems kind of forced

I think the trade agreements as they are could just be improved by making the value spread more extreme in certain cases and most importantly, having the cost go up or down depending on how things are being supplied, rather then at complete random.

I'm not sure how to handle the crap the traders bring you, since its not sure what they are doing. The humans could be bringing all those manly-sized armor pieces and crappy wooden trinkets hoping to peddle them to some human town down the road after they visit you.

Or if you should beable to tell them "Don't bother bringing anything but logs next time, I can't get enough." or "stop bringing me 3000 urists worth of stone blocks I will never ever buy"

It works ok the way it is, although I think the values of the items seem a bit of wack. Quality steel serrated blades are worth absurd amounts of money, but, who the hell needs something like that? While leather, wool, wood and infinitely useful things are almost worthless in terms of trade value.

[AutomataKittay]

It works ok the way it is, although I think the values of the items seem a bit of wack. Quality steel serrated blades are worth absurd amounts of money, but, who the hell needs something like that? While leather, wool, wood and infinitely useful things are almost worthless in terms of trade value.

A stronghold out on edge of empire facing too many enemies and in bad location for production and actively deforesting and hunting things down?

They're almost worthless precisely because they're raw materials for other industrial processes, with value added on as it get more processed. Caravans does need improvement in what they brings over. A thought is possibly less than 100% brings nothing, unless it's from a civ that's trying to get rid of something (Hey, there're that darned mug you made coming back to mock you! ). Trade agreement being able to go low, even to 10% when desired things are up at 300, 400% seems plenty extreme, though 1,000% would give proper inverse ( and the difference between that mug being worth 1 urist and that log worth 30 for someone starved for wood ).

It seems to be pretty complex, though, to tie it down in greater economical system, since most goods don't 'decay' like clothings does. Maybe there'll be an external 'use decay' for other civs so someday that worthless mug you tried to get rid of a decade ago is now worth it's weight in gold 

[Dsarker]

It works ok the way it is, although I think the values of the items seem a bit of wack. Quality steel serrated blades are worth absurd amounts of money, but, who the hell needs something like that? While leather, wool, wood and infinitely useful things are almost worthless in terms of trade value.

A stronghold out on edge of empire facing too many enemies and in bad location for production and actively deforesting and hunting things down?

They're almost worthless precisely because they're raw materials for other industrial processes, with value added on as it get more processed. Caravans does need improvement in what they brings over. A thought is possibly less than 100% brings nothing, unless it's from a civ that's trying to get rid of something (Hey, there're that darned mug you made coming back to mock you! ). Trade agreement being able to go low, even to 10% when desired things are up at 300, 400% seems plenty extreme, though 1,000% would give proper inverse ( and the difference between that mug being worth 1 urist and that log worth 30 for someone starved for wood ).

It seems to be pretty complex, though, to tie it down in greater economical system, since most goods don't 'decay' like clothings does. Maybe there'll be an external 'use decay' for other civs so someday that worthless mug you tried to get rid of a decade ago is now worth it's weight in gold 

Then we get into the idea of antiques.

"You sure you don't want to buy this authentic Urist McStonecrafter mug? Only 500 dorfbucks!"

[Montague]

I guess it would need to model supply and demand, even though I shudder to think how either awfully complex or terribly broken it could be... It would need to be simple and safe... say that civ has x number of every profession or groups of professions each with their own demands and produce and would compare it to their trade partners of other civs and their population... So many their empire is so vast they can literally never get enough dolomite mugs, or its some minor backwater group full of peasants and all they ever want to pay full price for are millstones.

[Fearless Son]

I'm not sure how to handle the crap the traders bring you, since its not sure what they are doing. The humans could be bringing all those manly-sized armor pieces and crappy wooden trinkets hoping to peddle them to some human town down the road after they visit you.

Or if you should beable to tell them "Don't bother bringing anything but logs next time, I can't get enough." or "stop bringing me 3000 urists worth of stone blocks I will never ever buy"

I recall in earlier versions that human caravans would bring a trade guild represenative with them, who would function similarly to your Mountainhomes liaison, where you could request them to bring certain things and who would tell you what they were offering for particularly high-demand items. 

Not sure why that was taken out. 

[Neonivek]

Here is an idea

Maybe we should increase the value of everything by 10 or even 100 times.

That way we can actually have something "Low value" that is low value.

[harborpirate]

First, I'll acknowledge that something along these lines has come up a time or twenty before. Some people seem to care about that; I'm not among them.

The main missing ingredients that will be needed to fix trading are categorization of replacement objects and better demands.

When an incoming trader needs a gem encrusted gold goblet to fulfill a specific mandate of his king, there might not be too many adequate replacements for that. Example required attributes: Container, high quality, luxury.

When that same trader needs to fill a demand for lots of cheap cupware, those 300 rock mugs you have laying around will be perfectly fine, thank you very much. Example required attributes: Container.

Example text in describing trader wants:
I'm interested in obtaining a large number of drinking vessels at a low price.
I'd like to acquire one very fine drinking vessel, exquisitely decorated.
I have a need for at least a dozen well made steel melee combat weapons.
If you have beeswax candles, I'd be happy to buy some as long as the cost is not too high.

[612DwarfAvenue]

They'll buy my 100+ =Rock Mugs= and like it, damnit!

Still, this sounds like a good idea, as long as you can turn it on or off .

[Draco18s]

Not sure why that was taken out.

Technically speaking, they weren't.  They just have a bad habit of dying in world gen and not being replaced.
Or did, and they were removed as to avoid larger issues until a later date, or still are.  I haven't exactly been keeping up to date on all of the code.

[harborpirate]

612dwarfavenue makes an interesting point there. This would be a great start for difficulty settings: an easier setting could have lenient traders that had needs for almost everything, whereas harder settings could have traders that came in with fewer "bulk" needs, but lots more specific needs.

[AutomataKittay]

Not sure why that was taken out.

Technically speaking, they weren't.  They just have a bad habit of dying in world gen and not being replaced.
Or did, and they were removed as to avoid larger issues until a later date, or still are.  I haven't exactly been keeping up to date on all of the code.

I kinda suspect that they still controls prices, since I keep seeing odd price variation in human and elves caravans. Not really that often, and could be related to something more subtle (I remember hearing about how some races won't value certain type of decoration and such ).

[Draco18s]

Not sure why that was taken out.

Technically speaking, they weren't.  They just have a bad habit of dying in world gen and not being replaced.
Or did, and they were removed as to avoid larger issues until a later date, or still are.  I haven't exactly been keeping up to date on all of the code.

I kinda suspect that they still controls prices, since I keep seeing odd price variation in human and elves caravans. Not really that often, and could be related to something more subtle (I remember hearing about how some races won't value certain type of decoration and such ).

Obviously something is still concurring, what exactly, that is, I don't know.