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[HungryHobo]

I pretty quickly reach the point where I'm only interested in the iron the caravans bring... and well an army tends to bring more.
stick my trade depot in a room with a pump, drown every elf and human who comes to visit. when the humans send armies they tend to be wearing more iron than the caravans will bring.

[nightwhips]

Masterwork. Iron. Bolts.

Sells for 3000 db for every 25 bolts.

If you're going this route, may as well decorate them with bone or gems. Ups the value even more.

[blake77]

Try using a more skilled broker.

[Dave1004]

candy spears. in at least one fort I had, I had tons of candy. huge underground spire of the stuff. so I would make equipment for all my fighters, then a few decorations, and then Id churn out 5 or 6 spears. the spears when they we masterwork go for about... 105,000 DB you can trade for everything a caravan has for a single candy spear. by the end of that forts lifetime, the dwarves were all decked out in foreign jewels and they were using elven crafts to fuel their hearths. every child had golden trinkets brought from the mountainhomes, every wife had silver and platinum finery, and every husband could enjoy a mug of the finest booze from all over after a hard days work, putting his feet up on a nether-cap footstool and whiling away the hours thinking on subjects such as art, literature, and !!SCIENCE!!. unfortunately, I got worried about the spire I was digging from and decided to move to another one. a single strike of the pick, and the circus came to town, they brought all the jugglers, clowns, the bearded lady, and the dog faced boy. ah, good times... anyways, what Im trying to get at is, always have a few spare candy spears on hand.

0.0 hey what are 'candy spears'?

SPOILER: MAY RUIN A NEWBIES DWARF FORTRESS EXPERIENCE, PROCEED WITH BOOZE AND MAGMA.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Candy" stands for Adamantine, the most precious metal found in spires underground. It's worth a bagazillion, and makes amazing bladed weapons and armor (But not blunt weapons, being light and all.) If you dig too deep though, you'll breach hell and let the demons out. People call Adamantine Candy for some reason, and Demons "Clowns". I think they're all crazy.

[DS]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

candy spears. in at least one fort I had, I had tons of candy. huge underground spire of the stuff. so I would make equipment for all my fighters, then a few decorations, and then Id churn out 5 or 6 spears. the spears when they we masterwork go for about... 105,000 DB you can trade for everything a caravan has for a single candy spear. by the end of that forts lifetime, the dwarves were all decked out in foreign jewels and they were using elven crafts to fuel their hearths. every child had golden trinkets brought from the mountainhomes, every wife had silver and platinum finery, and every husband could enjoy a mug of the finest booze from all over after a hard days work, putting his feet up on a nether-cap footstool and whiling away the hours thinking on subjects such as art, literature, and !!SCIENCE!!. unfortunately, I got worried about the spire I was digging from and decided to move to another one. a single strike of the pick, and the circus came to town, they brought all the jugglers, clowns, the bearded lady, and the dog faced boy. ah, good times... anyways, what Im trying to get at is, always have a few spare candy spears on hand.

0.0 hey what are 'candy spears'?

"Candy" stands for Adamantine, the most precious metal found in spires underground. It's worth a bagazillion, and makes amazing bladed weapons and armor (But not blunt weapons, being light and all.) If you dig too deep though, you'll breach hell and let the demons out. People call Adamantine Candy for some reason, and Demons "Clowns". I think they're all crazy.

Usually we do that because part of the fun of what you mentioned is, in fact, what you mentioned. I'd mention it in greater detail, but, uh, you already mentioned it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In other words, you're possibly depriving someone of the fun of discovering the HFS for the first time. This thread is generally considered to be a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.

[Itnetlolor]

I tend to go with trade and profit margins according to percents rather than absolute values.

A good range to work with is maybe a 20-40% margin (if 2000☼ profit margin, then you'd better be trading in at least 5000☼-10000☼) depending on how much you're taking in return; they'll be guaranteed ecstatic (or at least more willing to trade next time with better goods. Consider it a courtesy visit fee as well. Basically, give in return how much you think they deserve for their effort. Screw them over if they don't appease you, and then apply Necro-sis on them liberally.

I mean, play some Recettear, and try to pull a fast one on a customer. They won't like that either, even if some of them are a bit foolish at times.

EDIT:
Botched my math a tad.

Fix'd.

At least start with 40% to guarantee the next visit being good stuff, and then ease it down to 20% slowly.

[melphel]

One embark I got lucky and struck platinum within the first month.  I made a couple crafts out of them and figured it was enough to buy out the entire first caravan.  I had more than enough to do so, in fact I had more than the value of that caravan.  I didn't want to just give away all the platinum crafts right at the start, so I only put up enough to buy what I wanted and gave him about a 3000☼ profit.  The merchant didn't seem to agree with it, and kept renegotiating the trade deal to get all the other crafts I had brought.  My inexperienced broker was unable to get a reasonable trade.  I kept revising the trade till the merchant got pissy and no longer wanted to trade.  That was the last thing he ever did.  I conscripted all my dorfs and smeared his smug face across the walls.  Caused a loyalty cascade and everyone died, but it was worth it.  Then I save scummed and just deconstructed the depot on him.

[Mapleguy555]

candy spears. in at least one fort I had, I had tons of candy. huge underground spire of the stuff. so I would make equipment for all my fighters, then a few decorations, and then Id churn out 5 or 6 spears. the spears when they we masterwork go for about... 105,000 DB you can trade for everything a caravan has for a single candy spear. by the end of that forts lifetime, the dwarves were all decked out in foreign jewels and they were using elven crafts to fuel their hearths. every child had golden trinkets brought from the mountainhomes, every wife had silver and platinum finery, and every husband could enjoy a mug of the finest booze from all over after a hard days work, putting his feet up on a nether-cap footstool and whiling away the hours thinking on subjects such as art, literature, and !!SCIENCE!!. unfortunately, I got worried about the spire I was digging from and decided to move to another one. a single strike of the pick, and the circus came to town, they brought all the jugglers, clowns, the bearded lady, and the dog faced boy. ah, good times... anyways, what Im trying to get at is, always have a few spare candy spears on hand.

0.0 hey what are 'candy spears'?

"Candy" stands for Adamantine, the most precious metal found in spires underground. It's worth a bagazillion, and makes amazing bladed weapons and armor (But not blunt weapons, being light and all.) If you dig too deep though, you'll breach hell and let the demons out. People call Adamantine Candy for some reason, and Demons "Clowns". I think they're all crazy.

When in discussion of HFS, please refer it as "the Circus" or "HFS". When referring to ze Clowns...
use "Clowns." Also, Adamantine is referred to as Candy as anti-spoiler, as well.

[Dave1004]

candy spears. in at least one fort I had, I had tons of candy. huge underground spire of the stuff. so I would make equipment for all my fighters, then a few decorations, and then Id churn out 5 or 6 spears. the spears when they we masterwork go for about... 105,000 DB you can trade for everything a caravan has for a single candy spear. by the end of that forts lifetime, the dwarves were all decked out in foreign jewels and they were using elven crafts to fuel their hearths. every child had golden trinkets brought from the mountainhomes, every wife had silver and platinum finery, and every husband could enjoy a mug of the finest booze from all over after a hard days work, putting his feet up on a nether-cap footstool and whiling away the hours thinking on subjects such as art, literature, and !!SCIENCE!!. unfortunately, I got worried about the spire I was digging from and decided to move to another one. a single strike of the pick, and the circus came to town, they brought all the jugglers, clowns, the bearded lady, and the dog faced boy. ah, good times... anyways, what Im trying to get at is, always have a few spare candy spears on hand.

0.0 hey what are 'candy spears'?

"Candy" stands for Adamantine, the most precious metal found in spires underground. It's worth a bagazillion, and makes amazing bladed weapons and armor (But not blunt weapons, being light and all.) If you dig too deep though, you'll breach hell and let the demons out. People call Adamantine Candy for some reason, and Demons "Clowns". I think they're all crazy.

When in discussion of HFS, please refer it as "the Circus" or "HFS". When referring to ze Clowns...
use "Clowns." Also, Adamantine is referred to as Candy as anti-spoiler, as well.

When in discussion of DF, please refer it as "the Pony" or "TP". When referring to ze Ponies...Use "Ponies." Also, Bay12 is referred to as Marmalade as anti-spoiler, as well.

Please use these terms from now on, due to the fact you're spoiling DF and Bay12 for me. Thanks!

On topic, these humans just won't enter the depot. What the heck? The bridge is down, perfect pathing (I sent my military to them and back), yet they just...sit outside my fort? Huh?

@Itnetlolor: Oh my gosh! I absolutely ADORE Recettear. Awesome picture!

[Eric Blank]

On topic, these humans just won't enter the depot. What the heck? The bridge is down, perfect pathing (I sent my military to them and back), yet they just...sit outside my fort? Huh?

They saw your distasteful, sarcastic mockery and sour rebuttal to another forumite's well-intentioned, if poorly planned, request and are standing speechless, with their jaws on the ground. Please, that was just rude. Avoiding spoiling any of the FUN for the new players is preferred. Answering questions cryptically and only mentioning adamantine and the various benefits it has, none of the drawbacks, is the best response, and if you simply can't NOT be an asshole, then just outright lie to them about it. I speak from experience when I tell you that having it spoiled ruins ALL the fun of finding adamantine for the first time. You aren't willing to praise the miners and dig in if you KNOW it will kill you! Even being tricked, you can laugh it off and prove your dwarfhood.

I have no idea what could be wrong with your human merchants. Sometimes the game just likes to spawn creatures with nary a brain cell in their skull. Try sealing the fortress to ensure you break their pathing, then open it up again. Not sure about that either, honestly. If not, try threatening them by sending the militia after them, then call them off before they actually start fighting. Might scare them out of whatever dead-brain zone they're stuck in.


Also, I can often get away with far less than 5-10% profit margins from the traders. a ~100 dorfbuck margin on a 1000-2000 dorfbuck purchase, sometimes better. It can fail though if you try to buy up an individual item that is very expensive like decorated, exceptionally made steel gear.
The first, best way to get away with it is to only bring a few goods at a time, and not too expensive ones. They're far, far less likely to refuse a poor trade if you don't wave your masterwork jewels and spears in their face and say you don't want to include them in the deal, so just don't show off too many of your goods at once. The AI is stupid like that, and if you act cheap the first year it'll take a while for them to start expecting more. Having a good broker helps, of course.

[Mapleguy555]

Edit: "Mapleguy555 deletes post: wrong area."

[Urist Da Vinci]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You didn't have to read this, but you were curious? Or did you think I was using it to collapse a wall-of-text or quote?

CODE WORDS DO NOT WORK. They end up inheriting the same meaning of the words that they originally disguised. They are not a proper substitute to forcing someone to click the spoiler button. Putting SPOILER in the thread title also gives the OP license to write directly about spoilers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill

Mind you, my opinion means that we'd need a way of letting people make walls of text fit into a smaller space without using the spoiler button.

Back on topic,

Perhaps caravans look at the relative profit, so they expect a certain % profit rather than a flat rate? I usually give them 50-100% more than the value of the goods that I purchase, and they always seem happy. I never tested this much since the trading system is broken right now.

[ASCIt]

candy spears. in at least one fort I had, I had tons of candy. huge underground spire of the stuff. so I would make equipment for all my fighters, then a few decorations, and then Id churn out 5 or 6 spears. the spears when they we masterwork go for about... 105,000 DB you can trade for everything a caravan has for a single candy spear. by the end of that forts lifetime, the dwarves were all decked out in foreign jewels and they were using elven crafts to fuel their hearths. every child had golden trinkets brought from the mountainhomes, every wife had silver and platinum finery, and every husband could enjoy a mug of the finest booze from all over after a hard days work, putting his feet up on a nether-cap footstool and whiling away the hours thinking on subjects such as art, literature, and !!SCIENCE!!. unfortunately, I got worried about the spire I was digging from and decided to move to another one. a single strike of the pick, and the circus came to town, they brought all the jugglers, clowns, the bearded lady, and the dog faced boy. ah, good times... anyways, what Im trying to get at is, always have a few spare candy spears on hand.

0.0 hey what are 'candy spears'?

"Candy" stands for Adamantine, the most precious metal found in spires underground. It's worth a bagazillion, and makes amazing bladed weapons and armor (But not blunt weapons, being light and all.) If you dig too deep though, you'll breach hell and let the demons out. People call Adamantine Candy for some reason, and Demons "Clowns". I think they're all crazy.

When in discussion of HFS, please refer it as "the Circus" or "HFS". When referring to ze Clowns...
use "Clowns." Also, Adamantine is referred to as Candy as anti-spoiler, as well.

When in discussion of DF, please refer it as "the Pony" or "TP". When referring to ze Ponies...Use "Ponies." Also, Bay12 is referred to as Marmalade as anti-spoiler, as well.

Please use these terms from now on, due to the fact you're spoiling DF and Bay12 for me. Thanks!

On topic, these humans just won't enter the depot. What the heck? The bridge is down, perfect pathing (I sent my military to them and back), yet they just...sit outside my fort? Huh?

@Itnetlolor: Oh my gosh! I absolutely ADORE Recettear. Awesome picture!

Such a good game! I still need to finish the Obsidian Tower, myself...

[Nyxalinth]

I feel like it's only certain goods that I have trouble like that with. For instance I have that trouble with prepared meals, but never crafts, even rock crafts.

I had this happen with masterwork bone crafts recently.  So irritating.    I started just robbing the elves and humans whenever they gave me an attitude.

[Dave1004]

On topic, these humans just won't enter the depot. What the heck? The bridge is down, perfect pathing (I sent my military to them and back), yet they just...sit outside my fort? Huh?

I have no idea what could be wrong with your human merchants. Sometimes the game just likes to spawn creatures with nary a brain cell in their skull. Try sealing the fortress to ensure you break their pathing, then open it up again. Not sure about that either, honestly. If not, try threatening them by sending the militia after them, then call them off before they actually start fighting. Might scare them out of whatever dead-brain zone they're stuck in.

Hmm, thanks. It's strange, they haven't moved in over six months. Like, at all, not even shifting position. Maybe if I get a siege they will. It's kinda like they just...froze there. Also, I added a spoiler to my previous post, you're right. I was kinda a dick, but I freakin' hate clowns, and I hate any mentioning of them. Please forgive my impromptu un-dwarfiness.