Maximizing value

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Value is important for trade with caravans, ensuring your dwarves happiness, attracting migrants, and luring in visitors. One reliable way to increase value is creating items. Not all items are equal, or even close to equal, in value, however. The tables below are ordered by value, to help you select optimum furniture and trade goods to maximize your fortress's value.

It is also vital to consider the material, which acts as a multiplier to the base values listed here; see the table on Item value for details. For example: iron has value 10, so iron cap has value 10 * 10 = 100, and iron anvil has value 10 * 10 = 100. Note, that value of material is not the same as value of material item. For example, 'bar' item has multiplier 5, so iron has value 10, but iron bar has value 50.

The quality of an item then affects the value by multiplying this number by a quality modifier, then adding bonus value to the item. For stacks of items, this bonus is added for each item. This means that for skilled dwarves, it is sometimes better to create items with lower value if they come in a stack. For example, while a wooden minecart is worth twice a stack of bolts when neither has a quality modifier (50 vs. 25), a masterful minecart is worth much less than masterful bolts (130 vs. 800).

Metal

Weapon-grade metals

Item	Value	Bars	Value/Bar	Notes
Mechanisms	30	1	30	(lever, trap)
Ammo (stack of 25)	25	1	25
Spiked Ball	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Large Serrated Disc	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Menacing Spike	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Giant Axe Blade	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Enormous Corkscrew	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Battle axe	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Shield	10	1	10
High boot (2)	10	1	10
Leggings	10	1	10
Pick	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Gauntlet (2)	10	1	10
Spear	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Low boot (2)	10	1	10
Mace	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Short sword	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Buckler	10	1	10
Helm	10	1	10
Crossbow	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
War hammer	10	1	10	(weapon trap)
Cap	10	1	10
Bar	5	1	5	base bar value. Anything lower is cheaper than the metal from which it is smelted.
Greaves	10	2	5
Mail shirt	10	2	5
Breastplate	10	3	3.3
Anvil	10	3	3.3	(forge)

For weapon-grade metals, bolts or goblets (see below) are more valuable than any other products.

All metals

Item	Value	Bars	Value/Bar	Notes
Flask, Goblet (3)	30	1	30	trade goods
Traction bench	~150	5	~30	now made from table, mechanism and chain. Not very good choice for craft for trade.
Minecart	50	2	25
Wheelbarrow	50	2	25
Trade Goods (1-3)	~20	1	~20	variable
Chain	10	1	10	(restraint)
Nest box	10	1	10
Hive	10	1	10
Bucket	10	1	10	(well)
Jug	10	1	10
Pot	10	1	10
Animal trap	10	1	10
Statue	25	3	8.3
Pedestal	10	2	5
Bar	5	1	5	base bar value. Anything lower is cheaper than the metal from which it is smelted.
Armor stand	10	3	3.3
Barrel	10	3	3.3	(dyer's shop)
Bin	10	3	3.3
Cabinet	10	3	3.3
Cage	10	3	3.3
Chair	10	3	3.3
Chest	10	3	3.3
Coffin	10	3	3.3
Crutch	10	3	3.3
Door	10	3	3.3
Floodgate	10	3	3.3
Grate	10	3	3.3
Hatch cover	10	3	3.3
Pipe section	10	3	3.3
Splint	10	3	3.3
Table	10	3	3.3
Weapon rack	10	3	3.3
Blocks	5	1	5	no quality
Glaze	50	1	50	Tin only, requires glazeable item

For all non-weapon-grade metals, flasks and goblets are the optimum trade goods. The best choice for furniture is probably a chain--they can be decorated as "finished goods" and installed in restraints and wells, both of which can be admired by passing dwarves. Lower-quality chains can be melted without loss of material.

Tin can be used to glaze certain stone and ceramic items. While the glaze is quite valuable, more value is generated if you combine the tin with copper to make bronze goblets, mechanisms, or trade goods. The sole exception is if your primary copper source is tetrahedrite and you have easy access to gold, in which case smelting electrum alloy to make goblets and using the tin as glaze is slightly more valuable (5-8% on net, assuming all products are equal quality).

Stone

Item	Value	Notes
Mechanisms	30	(lever, trap)
Short sword	30	(weapon trap) need rare obsidian
Mug (3)	30	trade goods
Statue	25
Trade Goods (1-3)	~20	variable
Traction bench	20
Armor stand	10
Cabinet	10
Throne	10
Coffer	10
Coffin	10
Door	10
Floodgate	10
Grate	10
Hatch cover	10
Table	10
Weapon rack	10
Quern/Millstone	10	(quern/mill)
Nest box	10
Hive	10
Jug	10
Pot	10
Blocks (4)	20	no quality

For stone, mugs are the optimum trade goods. The best choice for furniture is statues. It can be decorated and, when built, admired by passing dwarves. Thanks to the 4x bar multiplier, metal ores are always more valuable when smelted to bars than when worked as stone (assuming equivalent quality).

The base value of common stone is quite low (a mere 1), but most fortresses end up with such vast amounts of it that consuming it to produce value or trade goods is seen as an upside. Flux stone has a slightly higher value of 2, but you may want to use it for steel production instead. Obsidian has the highest value of all non-ore stones and can be mass-produced, making it ideal if you want to produce large amounts of value over the long term.

Glass

Item	Value	Notes
Goblet/Vial (3)	30	trade goods
Statue	25
Window	25
Trade Goods (1-3)	~20	variable
Raw glass (after cutting)	6 (20)
Spiked Ball	10	(weapon trap)
Large Serrated Disc	10	(weapon trap)
Menacing Spike	10	(weapon trap)
Giant Axe Blade	10	(weapon trap)
Enormous Corkscrew	10	(weapon trap)
Armor stand	10
Cabinet	10
Throne	10
Box	10
Coffin	10
Portal	10
Floodgate	10
Grate	10
Hatch cover	10
Table	10
Terrarium	10
Weapon rack	10
Tube	10	(screw pump)
Nest box	10
Hive	10
Jug	10
Pot	10
Blocks	5	no quality

For glass, goblets top the list again. The best furniture is probably a statue, since it seems to be admired more often than a window.

Glass has the added advantage that (provided you have a Magma glass furnace and a source of sand) green glass can be easily and cheaply produced in massive quantities without consuming any meaningful resources. Clear glass can as well, but it consumes wood, which may be available in more limited supply and needed for other things; additionally, due to the required wood, it cannot be sold to elves. Crystal glass is more valuable still, but available in finite supply.

Wood

Item	Value	Notes
Minecart	50
Wheelbarrow	50
Stepladder	50
Cup (3)	30
Ammo (stack of 25)	25
Crafts (1-3)	~20	variable
Spiked Ball	10	(weapon trap)
Menacing Spike	10	(weapon trap)
Enormous Corkscrew	10	(weapon trap)
Training axe	10	(weapon trap)
Shield	10
Buckler	10
Armor stand	10
Bed	10
Cabinet	10
Chair	10
Chest	10
Casket	10
Door	10
Floodgate	10
Grate	10
Hatch cover	10
Table	10
Cage	10
Weapon rack	10
Pipe section	10	(screw pump)
Nest box	10
Hive	10
Crossbow	10	(weapon trap)
Bucket	10	(well)
Barrel	10	(dyer's shop)
Jug	10
Pot	10
Training spear	10	(weapon trap)
Training sword	10	(weapon trap)
Blocks (4)	20	no quality
Ash	5	no quality
Potash	15	no quality
Pearlash	20	no quality
Ash glaze	50	Requires glazeable item

Mine carts, stepladders and wheelbarrows have the highest base value of any item made from wood, while bolts have the highest stack size. All the furniture has similar value. If your fortress has plenty of fuel, glazed stone or ceramic items can be quite valuable.

Wood is available in unlimited supply, but the rate at which you can produce it is often limited; given its many other uses, many players avoid using it for trading. Another drawback is that as a material, all wood has the same low base value of 1.

Pottery

Item	Value	Notes
Statue	25
Crafts (1-3)	~20	variable
Hive	10
Jug	10
Pot	10
Bricks	5	no quality

For pottery, the options are quite limited. Statues are the most valuable furniture, though a set of three crafts can be more valuable overall.

Cloth

The value of cloth items is complicated. For most purposes, the dye, cloth and thread components add a constant amount to the value of cloth products, but goods that are produced in pairs get this value added to each item, making them worthwhile when using high-quality dyed cloth.

Item	Value	Notes
Crafts (1-3)	~20	variable
Shoe (2)	16.6
Mitten (2)	16.6
Glove (2)	16.6
Sock (2)	16.6
Robe	10
Dress	10
Cloak	10
Trousers	10
Bag	10
Rope	10	(restraint)
Hood	10
Vest	10
Cap	10

Food

The value of a well-prepared meal made from the proper ingredients is so high that some players consider trading them to be an exploit. One advantage to relying on them to trade or amass value is that you don't have to split your production between feeding your dwarves and producing trade goods; another advantage is that the workflow that leads to a cooked meal can accept materials from a wide variety of sources indiscriminately, including crops, meat, fish, random gathered plants, and even many liquids (provided the meal has at least one solid base.) On the other hand, food rots when left outside of a food stockpile, which can make it tricky to manage, and higher-value ingredients (such as flour) generally require long production chains to turn them into food.

The final value of a meal is complicated and depends primarily on the number of ingredients, which acts as a multiplier to the final total after summing up the value of each individual ingredient; therefore, the low value of each individual crop is misleading (although some, like flour, are already fairly high.) See Cook for details and the material multipliers on item value to get a sense of the relative value of plants and meats.