v0.31 Talk:Trading

Colors of Containers

Question regarding the coloring of the items being traded, It says that items in white are are created by a source other then your fortress, while brown is fortress created goods. In my first trade with the dwarven caravan two goods I know I created, a barrel holding donkey cheese and a barrel with cow's milk were colored in white. I mean, it's not exactly an issue, but is this because they an animal derived source or what? --AdmiralDread 05:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe for liquids in barrels it looks at whether you made the barrel, not the contents. Perhaps for all barrel items, I'm not sure. I personally don't trade food or drinks --Todestool 14:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

The color of a container is based on what it's made of. Anything made from tower cap will be white. Normal wood is brown. --Strangething 02:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No Dwarves

It seems to be possible in DF2010 to have no trade from the dwarves. If their civilization is too small to have any leaders of note, then there will be no caravans.

Vermin in caravans?

I wanted to release the bought warthogs out of their cages, tame bats and fluffy wamblers were in my list. I haven´t caught any vermin yet, so I put them in that cage, too. When I looked at the (elven) caravan they "stole" the vermin from them. Anyone has seen this, too?

I can confirm that elven caravans offer cages containing vermin. This vermin isn't shown in thr trade screen list, unless you view these cages separately. This vermin is not shown in your animal list of the status screen (hit z and then return to get there). It is, however, shown in the list of creatures assignable to a cage. (hit q, select a cage, hit a, and there they are.) --Doub 17:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The cages are not labeled as anything but normal cages. However, if you view the item in the trade depot screen ({k|v} when highlighting the "empty" cage) the vermin will be shown as a content.--Kwieland 16:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

No Wagons with Caravans

I never had wagons with DF2010. Is it just me or is there something needed except a 3wide path to one edge? Its always there and there is never a caravan with wagons, only with traders!--Niggy 20:32, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I've not had wagons in this current fort either. Think it may be because I'm in a mountain biome...--Nimblewright 10:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Wagons are out for now. This is most likely a bug as the access check screen is still in. Hm..or not? --Birthright 20:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They're still in the raws - see creature_equipment.txt. --Quietust 21:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It still checks if a wagon could make it to the dapot, but for me a caravan (Without wagons obviously) went through a two-wide tunnelGiantTiger11 08:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Late caravan

The caravan used to arrive for me at exactly mid-autumn. I got my caravan in the new version at just a few days before autumn ended. Is this the case with everyone? Greep 03:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

can confirm, caravans now always come late. --Confused 14:08, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

maybe this is intentional as a "delay" from where they travel from? --Eroing 17:41, 17 April 2010 (CET)

It's my first Mid-Winter the spring of the year after embarking now and i haven't seen just a wheel. Should I begin to worry? --Gnarker 11:37, 30 May 2010 (CEST)

Merchants going underground.

I just had a dwarven caravan leave the fortress through an underground edge of the map. Spawned from the top though.--Droid 04:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

In my fortress even an elven caravan took the way through the caverns! --Doub 07:57, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed. Humans entered from the top, and left through the first cavern. Killed an Serpent man tribe on the way out. 05:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Multiple Trade Depots

Has there been any change for this?

Traders go insane and starve

"If a caravan has arrived at your trade depot and is unable to leave for about six months after they arrived, the merchants and animals will go insane. This can result in a bunch of merchants attacking your dwarves, or just standing around moping until they starve to death." Is this correct? Traders can starve? Or do they only gain the ability to starve when insane?

I've only had this happen once. They went crazy after a while, and then starved. I don't know if it was exactly six months, but probably similar time scale. Experiment. Try locking the caravan on your map. Find out if it is really 6 months, if they go crazy, stave, and what happens!--Kwieland 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Verified (in .13.12), caravan (and their pack animals) went insane, they could not handle 1-tile wide bridges over our river. Probably expected 3-6 tiles wide bridges! Looks like they drop their items upon going insane.--TomiTapio 23:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

First Caravan Brings Nothing?

I've had this happen twice, where the dwarven caravan brings a whole lot of nothing. Is this to be expected? I generaqlly give them something nyways, in hope that the next year will be better.

No Dwarven Caravan

I'm in mid-summer of my third year and the only caravans I have been getting have been elven ones once a year. I Still haven't had a dwarven caravan show up ever. In the Civ screen it says that there are no important people in the civ.

My first year I got 7 migrants in total and haven't got any since. Does this mean my parent civ has been eradicated? --Flying Dwarves Hurt 14:13, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The same thing happened to me. My fortress is in a "small region"-sized world-- I'm beginning to wish I'd paid more attention while the world was created; maybe there just aren't any other dwarves inside it?

Caravan leaving through cave

I just had a caravan leave through a cave. I had a clear path to a ground exit from my trade depot, even for wagons. This was not the case for the cave level, as it was only reachable by stairs. I don't know if this is a bug or not. Strange, anyhow. /Josj 06:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Probably not a bug, as such. Firstly, because caravans don't currently use wagons, but only pack animals, they can path up and down stairs. Secondly... they probably picked the shortest path to an exit, and that just happened to be the cave level. Was the ground exit on the other side of the screen, or temporarily blocked by a drawbridge or something? --DeMatt 18:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The ground exit was quite close--about a screen away from the depot. It could've been temporarily blocked by a barrage of haulers or something. I don't quite remember. But it would have had to be blocked as they went down some fifty levels or so. Even if the caravan used my traffic designations (which I don't believe they do) that wouldn't have been a closer route. It makes me wonder if it's possible for the caravans to appear in the caves. /Josj 19:00, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Forbidden Depots

I used the ' d:b:f ' command to forbid all items on my depot so that they would not have to haul all the stuff back, subsequently forbidding the 3 pieces mahogany that made up the depot itself. When the human caravan showed up, the game gave me a message that said they need a depot to trade at. I used the ' t ' command to unforbid each piece, and they instantly started to move to it. This might be worth mentioning as a troubleshooter, or something, if I can get confirmation on it. --Bungler 03:45, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I can confirm that behavior. I used it all the time in 40d.--Kwieland 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

I had traders go insane, probably because the depot was bulk-forbidden. --TomiTapio 20:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Traders taking forever to load up

The other lifesaver I found on this wiki somewhere relates to when you are trading a large number of items. I had the problem where caravans would take months and months to load up and get out. Once this lead to two caravans being on the map at the same time, (humans and dwarfs, I think) trying to load/unload at the same time and it was a mess (FPS suffered, too) However, there is way to prevent this. Pause the game after you get the "caravan has embarked" message, then go do d-t to designate trees (or mining, or whatever) and then hold down the mouse button. Watch the depot at the same time and you'll see the items dance as they get loaded up while the game is paused. Once the depot stops blinking, they're done and you can let go of the mouse. It took my traders 1.5 minutes real life to load up. But, then they take off on their merry way.--Kwieland 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Accessible and Inaccessible Depots

Im very new to the game and have been having trouble with making my depot wagon-accessible.

In the wiki it says that a 3-square wide corridor is needed to fit a trade wagon through(XWX in the D overlay). My problem is that Ive made a corridor 3 squares wide to my depot, but with the D command it still says my depot is inaccessible.

In the D overlay should there be 3 W makers side by side(XWWWX) for the depot to be accessible? If this is the case then the hall needs to be 5 squares wide...

Whatever the fix is, its not clear/helpful on the wiki. – unsigned comment by 173.217.232.2

The D overlay only requires a path of Ws one tile wide, but it must be continuous and orthogonal (i.e. no diagonal-only gaps). Trace it out from the depot to find what's blocking the rest of the way (probably a boulder or a tree outside). --Quietust 01:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

You might need to smooth some boulders, cut down some trees, or add some ramps.--Kwieland 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Experience

From the article: Several small trades, exiting the trade window each time, will increase the Broker's relevant skills during the early game. This isn't true for 40d. The experience was based solely on the number and value of the items brought by the trade caravan once a single trade was completed. Has this changed for 31.xx?--Kwieland 18:10, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. But the biggest thing was that it seemed like if you made that first trade for exactly 30%, your trader could get immense experience, even legendary. But it didn't seem to work when I tried it in .12 of late. Dorf and Dumb 05:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Random breaking of "Trader Requested at Depot"?

I have the Broker's labors all turned off barring cleaning and the default health care entries. When a caravan arrives, he'll happily ignore my initial switching of the Depot status requesting his presence and continue to haul items to the depot (despite having all hauling labors off). I have to toggle it back to not requested and then back to requested and he's fine, he'll sit and trade...for a while. Then if he goes to get a drink, eat, or sleep, his action when he gets up will be to haul items again. Anyone else having this issue? Chronin 18:46, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Never have "only broker" set. It slows things down, and the benefit is, you don't get more than one dorf trained with appraiser skill (which means if the broker dies, you don't even see a price on anything). And the other benefit is, you can drive a harder bargain with the traders and therefore not get as much stuff brought in next time. What's the point? Dorf and Dumb 05:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

almost all dwarves "bring items to depot", I guess it's part of the non-toggleable jobs. --TomiTapio 21:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)