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[Girlinhat]

Strange, I know, but I have this cougar, see, and I want a matching set.  What's a good way to encourage elves to bring me more stuff?  I can trade them my endless piles of goblinite, or just sieze goods/train soldiers.

[C0NNULL]

It is a shame that I just wandered by and saw this. I can offer no help. Some famous person might suggest (Well, I won't do it, but it rhymes with magma).

M'Lady you are so far out of character, I think you might have been hijacked.

Seriously, though, I don't know that I've read a way of encouraging hippies to bring you anything. But there is a lot to read, neh? And I am newish.

Best of luck on that.

[Girlinhat]

All accusations against me are merely laughed off.  My dwarves are drunk on strawberry wine and bathe in the light of the daystar.  In their tainted ways they cleave apart nature not as an act of malice, but as a force of habit.  Trees, plants, animals and the air itself succumbs to the dark surface dwarf expansion.  Razor like towers into the sky, craters in the ground where they thought it would be a cool idea to make a swimming pool, the blood of ten thousand goblins leeching to the crimson earth.  The open air and the heights befit them, not for clean lungs and room to stand as tall as they may, but rather to thrust spires to the heavens and promptly crash them down, the screams of their occupants echoing through the open air like a symphony of misery.  They shun the caverns and the pits.  What is there but dirt and stone and the silence of the grave?  No...  Much more fitting, the noise and chaos of the surface, exposed to the dangers of the world and exposing the world to the dangers of a dwarf insane enough to live in a tower.

These are true dwarves.  Well, perhaps they are no longer truly dwarven, but whatever they have become is raw terror beholden to those who's lives are short.

[Specter513]

You want to attract hippies that live in the woods? Make them a couple of pots.

[Tevish Szat]

I'm decently sure that if given a good profit (Especially if "ecstatic with the trading") they are more likely to come with more stuff the following year.  They also might bring more to bigger fortresses. 

All I know is that after buying all their logs for a few years and making them at LEAST very pleased each time, the humans now bring near to 200 to my desert-glass-pyramid-making fort annually, when they brought under 50 the first year, and it still seems to be going up (They bring more of everything, but I only notice and count my logs).  I suspect the elves would do the same if the world had any elves (I dried it out so badly to get my ideal sand desert that no forests were generated).

Don;t do things that annoy the traders, and send them home with an unreasonable profit margin: they'll do their best to cash in.  As a side note, the size of shipments went up VERY quickly at first, then started to curve off despite giving the same sort of profit margin: it still goes up, but only by a few logs/pages of cloth and leather rather than nearly doubling like it did between the first and second years of trade.

[Sir E Brum]

I've found that keeping the profit margin as low as possible gets me better goodies from our long eared friends. Every time I gave them unreasonable quantities of *Serrated Green Glass Discs* they mostly brought cloth and wood. Not that I mind, it's just that grizzlies and tigers are better.

[acetech09]

I'll only tell you if you then use the cougars to tear up the elven caravans after you bought it.

[Girlinhat]

Hey, what do I look like?  Some sort of cougar lord?  The cougars kill the elves, that's not my problem.  Kill some haulers, eh, there will be more migrants.  I don't question the far-reaching claw of the large cats.  Now if these were foxes, well I am some sort of fox lord, but there's no luck with that.

[Lordofd511]

I have heard, though it could only be rumour, that if traders (though most noticable with elves) have large profit margins, then they start brining loads of stuff that is worth large amounts of money in comparison to it's weight. Like cloth. However, if they experience low margins (say, because you always just seize their goods) they start brining lots of stuff that is not worth a lot in comparison to it weight. Like caged animals.

[BigFatStupidHead]

I have heard that if you have a thriving cloth economy, traders are less apt to bring cloth goods. Of course, the more you trade, the larger and more varied the caravan.

[Tevish Szat]

I have heard, though it could only be rumour, that if traders (though most noticable with elves) have large profit margins, then they start brining loads of stuff that is worth large amounts of money in comparison to it's weight. Like cloth. However, if they experience low margins (say, because you always just seize their goods) they start brining lots of stuff that is not worth a lot in comparison to it weight. Like caged animals.

Does not bear out with my observations: logs are cheap as dirt and weigh a ton.

However, it's possible this effect is happening on the side, as the humans are ALSO bringing endless pages of cloth, but that they ALSO bring more of any category you specifically buy

to be safe, probably best to buy out all their exotic pets and just do with the useless ones what you do with every other living thing of little value while living (Which varies from fort to fort, but usually involves pit fights, magma, or the butcher's shop -- but probably not all 3)

[Girlinhat]

I've also heard that cloth and logs are based on the stock menu.  If your stock menu shows no logs, or otherwise very few, then traders will bring some even if you don't request it.  Similar with cloth.  This does mean a wooden fort stops wood import unless you specifically ask, but also means that wood blocks encourage wood import.

I'll try upping my cloth industry and see if that changes things.

[Tevish Szat]

Run four forts, two with each of the conditions.

Fort 1: Trades generously, makes lots of cloth
Fort 2: Trades generously, no cloth industry
Fort 3: Seizes, makes lots of cloth
Fort 4: Seizes, no cloth industry

This tests our other possible variable.

[Girlinhat]

Another pair of forts testing what happens when you buy and seize cloth, may tell a lot as well.

1: Buy animals
2: Steal animals
3: Buy cloth
4: Steal cloth

[Tevish Szat]

I'm almost hoping the answer is to buy all their animals for a truly insane sum, then steal all their cloth, leaving them with profit but bad thoughts about cloth.  Training elves may yet be possible!  ‼Science‼ required!

On that note, they should probably always be allowed to leave the map and report back.  doing otherwise might mar results... or simply be another test.