40d Talk:Trading

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The talk page from Caravan, which wasn't merged properly at the time. The first archive of Talk:Trading.

Dead Wagons on Depot Deconstruct Exploit

You can take every item from a caravan by deconstructing a depot while the caravan is in it. The items aren't marked as stolen if you do this. But in the units screen, any wagons that were in the depot will appear as deceased. It's because the trader's wagon is a creature. Specifically, it's the center tile of the wagon. That's why the Depot Access view only shows where the center tile of the "wagon" can get to. I'd kind of like to point this out here, or perhaps on the page specifically about wagons, to identify the difference between the trade wagons and your starting wagon, which is a building.

Also, Dwarves still won't siege you, and this particular exploit can make the game ridiculously easy if you only deconstruct on the Dwarven caravan.--Kydo 02:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

That exploit is already discussed in this article. And the distinction between embark wagons and trade wagons has (also) already been made clear on the wagon page (which the key word most users would Search for, I'd think - and where I'd think we should be having this discussion?) If you want to put a footnote in that article, so long as it isn't adding more confusion than clarification (that is, it doesn't devolve into pointless detail and supposition), more info can't be a bad thing.--Albedo 15:03, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the wagon article seems to focus almost exclusively with the starting wagon, and only mentions the trade wagons once. In fact, reading over it again, it only mentions trade caravans. Nothing about the wagons therein, or the distinction. Still, I agree with you that this is more about the wagons than about that exploit, and the conversation should be over there, not here.--Kydo 02:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Culling on mandates

what's that? in the trade screen? me no be native speaker...--Koltom 21:56, 20 February 2008 (EST)

I think it means that it will hide things that are not allowed to be traded: "Mayor has put bans on certain exports". But I don't know if it hides an entire bin if one item in it is banned. Hex Decimal 14:29, 27 February 2008 (EST)

I am quite sure that "culling on mandates: on" hides all bins containing items which have active Noble Export Bans. Samyotix 09:16, 13 November 2008 (EST)

I made a "trading color cues" subsection. This should cover relevant info about mandates and other things. --Shurikane 22:07, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Trading flowchart

Suggested trading procedure
				Arrive at fortress location
Create goods								Build Trade Depot
								Check depot is accessible
								Wait for caravan
Set goods to be traded				Wait for caravan to arrive at depot and merchants to finish unloading				Wait for the diplomat (if any) to reach your leader
Wait for goods to be hauled								Turn your leader's labors off so they don't get distracted
								Conduct meetings with the diplomat
Request trader at depot
Turn your trader's labors off so they don't get distracted
		Trade
				Turn trader's and leader's labors back on
				Retrieve bins from depot to reuse

Given a number of questions on the forums, it may be a good idea to put together a flowchart of the steps involved in trading. I will draft something up here (at least partially so I can safely screw up my first attempt on this wiki)

Tasks are sequential top-to-bottom, but can be done in parallel left-to-right

Make or obtain goods to trade		Build Depot (b - D)
		Ensure Depot is accessible (D) Check green area reaches edge of map
Wait until a caravan arrives on the map "A--- caravan from --- has arrived."
Set goods to be traded (q - g)	Request a trader (q - r)	Wait for caravan to reach the depot "Merchants have arrived and are unloading their goods"
Wait for goods to be hauled	Wait for the trader to finish their other tasks and go to the depot	Wait for the rest of the caravan to reach the depot and be unloaded
Begin actual trading (q - t)

Hmm. Is there a better way to show this? It may not help much as is... Kaypy

Ask and ye shall receive (see right, editable at Trading/Flowchart). --juckto 08:46, 6 May 2008 (EDT)

Re: Adeptable's changes
I don't think the third branch is neccesary. For one, it makes it seem too wide, and secondary it implies that turning off the trader's labours all the time means that trading will happen faster - almost as if it will make merchants arrive more often. --juckto 23:36, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

I'd add retrieving empty bins to the bottom so that you don't end up with empty bins sitting at the depot. When stockpiles are crowded you'll need them to deal with the sudden influx of goods. (Never give away bins!) I bow to your wiki-fu, I simply could not edit your flowchart... --Corona688 14:15, 3 December 2008 (EST)

Yeah, it's a bit tricky I guess. It's all in the colspan :p. But, ahhh, how do you retreive them? I thought dwarves would automatically fetch empty bins from the depot if they needed them, just like fetching them from any other location. --juckto 18:31, 3 December 2008 (EST)

Ack, somehow didn't see this. Empty bins will still show up as Trading in the bring goods to depot menu, unmark them and your dwarves will haul them back to where they're needed. --Corona688 02:13, 7 January 2009 (EST)

Surely the bins' "Trading" status disappears after the Trader leaves? I mean, I've never noticed them as still being marked for "Trading" when the next caravan arrives next season. --juckto 22:08, 23 January 2009 (EST)

How many wagons?

I don't think I've ever seen more than 8 wagons in a given caravan. Is that the limit? Has anyone ever seen more than 8?--Maximus 03:01, 9 November 2008 (EST)

I've never seen more than two at a time before flooding my fortress. I didn't realize they could send more than two at a time. Kydo 14:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Mass selection of goods to be moved

Question: Is there a way to designate multiple goods in one selection to be brought to the depot?

I'm getting really tired of indivually selecting goods to be moved to the depot when I have massive amounts of crafts, food, etc. So is anyone familiar with ways to select multiple goods at once? Maybe a "start" and "end" tags (for lack of a better name) and every good caught inbetween is designated to be moved to the depot? -- Dakira 14:47 10 November 2008 (PST)

Nope. About the best you can do is use the select (search) menu to get all the ones of the type you want, then enter-down-enter-down. You can flag about 200 a minute this way, though.--Maximus 19:17, 10 November 2008 (EST)

That's what I was doing previously. Are there any plans for a "mass selector" to be introduced? -- Dakira 16:50 10 November 2008 (PST)

Not that I know of. Make a feature request on the forums.--Maximus 20:05, 10 November 2008 (EST)

AFAIK, there is no good way to do this from the trade screen, which is why it's important to set up custom stockpiles and have plenty of bins. Man, I really wish you could make bins out of stone.

Auto Hotkey thingy. Heard it works wonders. Never tried it though.--Zchris13 15:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Merchant moods

My fortress hadn't been doing too well, but I didn't know it was so bad it could affect merchants... and their pack animals. As the last merchant was about to leave the map, he suddenly went berserk and was cut down by his bodyguard, who then fled the scene. Shortly thereafter, I recieved a message that the donkey had been stricken by melacholy. Has anyone else had this happen?

They usually eventually go nuts if they can't leave for some reason. Never heard of something like what you're describing.--Maximus 03:24, 12 November 2008 (EST)

No more dwarven caravan

So. The Dwarven caravan has not come in the past two years. I think, though I am not sure, that this corresponds with when I met the requirements for the Incoming King, though he has not yet seen fit to arrive. I believe I also capped the population sometime in there, but I think it was after the first year of no caravan. I don't recall in any way molesting previous caravans. I needs me some dolomite and steel bars, anyone know what's going on here? --Zombiejustice 02:10, 13 November 2008 (EST)

So. I upper the population cap to encourage some immigration, and after a few seasons, the King showed up with his retinue and the Hammerer, who had apparently died at some point. I re-capped the population, and the caravan came next autumn. Was it the incoming king or the dead hammerer? Did the population cap interfere with the king's arrival? The mystery remains. --Zombiejustice 14:59, 2 December 2008 (EST)

I'm on year 13 of my most recent fortress and the Dwarven caravan declined to show up this year, after 12 years of no problem. I still don't meet the requirements for the Incoming King. In a previous game I did meet those requirements, and that did not interfere with the caravan (though the liason stopped letting me place orders once the king arrived). Anyway, I don't think my current fort has anything in common with what you've described, other than a mysteriously missing caravan after not damaging previous ones. --Sev 00:52, 7 January 2009 (EST)

It appears my problem was caused by a brief goblin siege that occurred when the caravan was supposed to be showing up. --Sev 16:48, 26 January 2009 (EST)

A query from the deleted page Talk:Stealing

I've read many times that the traders count their total losses/profits when they leave the edge of the map, so as to make stealing of any sort impossible (to get away with, anyhow). Does this include what the guards are carrying (if they get killed or even just shoot off some bolts)? Or is the "total profit" concept true at all? --Maximus 17:07, 27 November 2008 (EST)

I'm pretty sure that the total profit concept is how it works. The value of everything the traders enter with is subtracted from the value of everything the traders leave with to calculate profit. There's probably something in there to account for the death of (a) trader(s). --Savok 21:42, 28 November 2008 (EST)

is this still true?
i was unwittingly stealing everything off the merchants via the stocks screen. i dont have any steel yet, as i've not found any flux or iron ore. but every now and again, i noticed i had a bunch of steel/iron weapons/bolts/armo(u)r, so designated it all for melting, etc, etc.. eventually, i chose to 'dump' everything to see where they were getting it, and they were stripping the merchants of all their goods/clothes/everything metal xD will they come and siege me anytime soon? my army's not ready yet! i do give good profit margins (20%+), but i'm sure the stuff i nick is much more valuable :/ --DJ Devil

I've noticed that starving dwarves appear to be happy to steal food from merchants. I'm running 0.28.181.40d, and, being new to this, almost experienced fun due to lack of food. The dwarven caravan arrived in the nick of time, and rather to my surprise once they got close a clump of dwarves started hobbling their way over to the caravan. Once they got to it they started following it back to the depot (at full speed, not sure why), and then made off with a plump helmet each once the merchants started unpacking. Obviously food is rather less valuable than steel, but theoretically this too could tip the merchants into loss if you didn't buy much, assuming that profit/loss accounting is done this way. --Jenesis 19:01, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wagon movement

I'm pretty sure that wagons cannot move diagonally. --Savok 20:08, 11 December 2008 (EST)

They can, it just requires 7 tiles instead of 3 --Nightwind 04:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Arrival dates

Out of curiosity, has anybody given a closer look at the exact arrival dates of trade caravans? Do they always arrive at a fixed time, or does it hover inside a certain period during the month or season? --Shurikane 22:11, 29 December 2008 (EST)

I've kept track over about 5 years. The Dwarf caravans seem to arrive around the 15th or 16th of Limestone and leave about the same time in Sandstone. The Human caravans seem to arrive around the 12th to 14th of Hematite and leave in Malachite. I don't have any data yet for the Elves. Once I get some more data points, I'll edit the wiki to add this info. --Mithra 17:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Here I've got elves arriving the 11th of Granite. Timst 09:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

16th of hematite for humans here. 40d. Elves 11th too --Höhlenschreck 10:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

They're supposed to leave one month to the day after they arrive - that's the same day number, next month. For me, I've seen dwarf caravans arrive as early as the 10th, and as late as the 17th (but usually toward the first part of that, 10-12th). (Usually right after the first dogs whelp, but that's from the Growers Almanac.)--Albedo 11:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Wagons and magma

A dwarven trade caravan passing over a magma channel on its way to my trade depot recently caught fire. Naturally, this caused lots of fun, but I'm a bit perplexed by it. There was nothing flammable on the bridge - in fact, the magma beneath was 1/7 deep at best - but it looks like the wagons just spontaneously combusted as they passed over the stream. Can anyone confirm that it was the magma that caused this, or were the children just playing with matches again? Aosher 08:07, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Elven Caravan Wood Logs

I noticed there was a "verify" next to "carries more wood the less trees you cut down" under the Elven Caravans and am not sure if it is right or not. Can anyone confirm this? I have observed the stock of wood brought by the elves in two games as increasing significantly with time. In one of the games wood was scarce, in the other wood was plentiful but to dangerous to cut down and in both I would consistently buy out all of the wood logs from every caravan. So I had theorized the increase in the number of logs brought was related to demand conveyed by buying out the stock repeatedly for years. However, not cutting down trees and buying out all the wood logs would tend to go hand in hand. Also, to really see a significant increase in a specific item I would need to buy out all the wood stock from a caravan for close several years. It is possible that both the demand and level of "production" of wood determine how much is brought. If either is true for wood, then it might be true for other items that Elves bring. Also, did I format this thing right? --PencilinHand 8:47, 23 January 2009 (EST)

In my experience it's something more like - the more you have in stock, the less they bring. I was buying out all logs from them, and they brought ~120 logsevery year, and I chopped a lot of trees, but used them fast. Then I built some wooden machinery (axles, windmills), my stocks always showed about 100 logs in them after that, and elves began to bring only about 5 logs...--Dorten 04:48, 23 January 2009 (EST)

I did a series of experiments over a period of 3 years in my current fort and can confirm that Dorten is right and my previously stated theories are wrong. A forts stockpile of wood appears to be the biggest factor in determining how much wood is brought by the elven caravans. When I had a stockpile of 51 wood logs the elves brought no wood, when I had a stockpile of 0 wood logs they brought 43 wood logs, similar results were observed regardless of if I was cutting down trees during the year(though I did not test any clear cuts). The other caravans may have brought more wood as well, but further testing is needed before I am confident in that statement, as it may have been caused by offerings/gifts. --PencilinHand 17:10, 25 January 2009 (EST)

I've done some of my own testing and have found that all caravans follow this behavior - the less wood you have, the more caravans will bring. The trick is that with the human and dwarven caravans, the excess can be limited or eliminated outright if you've requested them to bring enough specific goods to reach their weight limit - if you go a year without making any requests, they'll bring tons of wood logs. An interesting way of manipulating this further is to simply forbid all of the logs in your fortress before the caravan arrives - doing this, I've made the elves bring nothing but wood when they would otherwise bring their typical goods (tested with save backups as well). Incidentally, actually requesting wood logs via the liaison doesn't really help much, since a maxed out request only makes them bring 4 logs of each type (which is near useless with the dwarves). --Quietust 05:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Trade Depot Color

I know this doesn't have anything to do with trading, but it is interesting. Since Trade Depots are made out of 3 stones (or logs etc etc), if you combine stones of various colors, what do you get? I tried combining Orthoclase (yellow), Kimberlite (blue) and Olivine (green), and I got a green depot. Then I tried Gabbro (black) and 2 Orthoclase, and the depot was yellow. Kimberlite, Petrified Wood (red) and Olivine, the depot was green. Does anyone know how the color is selected?

As far as I understand is the last stone for the color (or was it the first one?) --NobbZ 10:50, 23 February 2009 (EST)

I'll have to fire up the game again when I get home, but I could have sworn that I've occasionally wound up with two-tone depots when I've used different stones. The main part was one color while the corners were another. But maybe I'm just imagining things. -Fuzzy 09:49, 5 March 2009 (EST)

I just built a trade depot out of 3 Orthoclase (yellow) and it turned out where about half of it was yellow and half was white. Not like a two tone either, just blotches of yellow and blotches of white... Shardok 04:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like that might be a screen (or eye) problem. Arkenstone 16:43, 19 August 2009

No... It's nothing like that. It's where different "block" of the Trade Depot appeared different colors. So, like some parts would have yellow blocks in it, where other parts would have white blocks. So... like...

WWWYW
WWYYY
WWWYY
WWWWY

But not exactly that, I can't remember the exact design of it. Shardok 01:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

stealing animals

One of the objects I happened to cheat the game of was a nickel cage with a dog in it. on the units page, the dog was still shown to belong to the traders. Is there any way to change this? (or at least any fun to be had from this?)

What happens when you train it into a war dog? or, for that matter, does the game recognize it as an animal that can be tamed? --FJH 15:15, 25 March 2009 (EST)

Buggy behavior with sieges

In my current game the dwarven caravan arrived, followed immediately by a goblin siege. I crushed the siege but a couple caravan guards and a pack animal were killed. A handful of merchants, guards and animals got stuck at the edge of the map, and I never got to trade, even though all the wagons made it safely into the depot. I was however able to make the usual arrangements with the liason. Then I got the message that the caravan was leaving but they didn't actually go. Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Any way to fix it? --FunkyWaltDogg 23:43, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

In case something like this happens to anyone else, I found that digging out the area under the stuck merchants and collapsing it fixed the problem. The survivors started moving off the map and the wagons immediately pulled out of the depot. --FunkyWaltDogg 05:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Limited Caravan Accessiblity

Contrary to the comments in the section on wagons, I do not believe you can force a caravan to enter the map at a specific point. Running 0.28.181.40d, I build a wall so that there is only one entrance to the map that is accessible to the depot. Humans arrived from another point of the map, and I got the message "Their wagons have bypassed your inaccessible site." I do see 'Depot accessible' on D. --Sfogarty 05:49, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

As for my experience, game first chooses the side of the map for traders, and then checks if wagons can reach depot. I had to chop trees yearly to keep fortress accessible before I've build a road. However, it can be not side but embarking tile that is chosen before accessibility check, but I haven't done any experiments to validate if it is the case. --Denspb 10:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

lazy dwarves

I just had a Human Caravan.

None of my dwarves did anything. Not a single mug or gem or meal was moved to the depot. I had to disable my broker's labours- ALL of his labours- to get him to speak with the diplomat following him about like a lost puppy.

Now, I see a 'priority' setting function in the Manager. Would this be practical or even usable to set Depot requests high?

Attacked caravan slowed down - bug?

All right, I was in my third or so year. Autumn came and the dwarven caravan showed up - along with a Goblin ambush. Naturally the two fought in front of my fortress (with some strategic ranged support from my marksdwarves). Of the three wagons, one was destroyed (phat lewt!). Thing is, once the Goblins were taken out of the pricture one of the wagons moved *very* slowly - slow enough, in fact, that it didn't even get into the trading depot before I got the message that the caravan was going to leave soon. The wagon froze at the edge of the depot, two steps shy of getting into position, and then they both just sat there - I never even got the option to trade with them :-/ Has anyone else encountered a similar issue or did my game just have a bout of cranial flatulence?

I have seen my caravan ambushed by goblins (killing the ambush) and then retreat... No trade this season. I guess this kind of behaviour should go in the main page MathFox 17:43, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems that when you request a large amount of heavy (literally) goods, the wagon (which actually counts as a creature that hauls items) might become encumbered and move very slowly. It might even be unable to reach the trade depot before the merchants leave, especially if the map forces it to move along a long path between trees. I might wrong, this needs testing. Mateusz 16:19, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

(Moved from bug main article by --Albedo 18:11, 5 September 2009 (UTC))

requested items

Any time I request specific items... the next caravan turns up with exactly 1 of each item and nothing else.

So I get caravans turning up with a total of say 6 items.

Any suggestions?GarrieIrons

Not sure. Maybe it depends on the actual availability of said items? In one game where I played in a pretty barren area and I asked my dwarven traders to bring lots of wood and they brought like 60 something of it the next season. When asking for meat, they bring plenty of it as well. What are you trying to request though? I requested some flux stone once and only got 6 flux stone rocks.--Smjjames 12:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

example: various types of leather - I got 1 of some of the types.

I think maybe I didn't send out enough value last time and I may have just made the same mistake. I'm trying too hard to get "value".GarrieIrons 06:32, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I also suspect it has to do with the avialability at the mountainhome - i get huge loads of requested wood, meat and specific types of leather, but bit coal, lignite, pig iron, steel bars and charcoal always only come in small amounts like, 6, though still more than when i do not request them (zero :( ) --Höhlenschreck 20:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It is of course also limited by the total capacity of the caravan. In the first two years its easy to "push out" all the crap they normally bring with requests. Later they will bring everything, and more of, what you request, but still not necessarily "much".. --Birthright 15:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Merchant turned friendly

Bug or feature? A macedwarf that came with the caravan lagged a bit behind when leaving and stopped 2 tiles from the border. When i checked with 'u' he had turned friendly. Now he's standing there guarding.. --Höhlenschreck 20:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This happens whenever the merchants have all left and soldiers are left over. He will leave eventually. --Birthright 15:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Forbidden Items?

I've never had green glass items refused by Elves, on my current or any other map. My main export to everyone is green glass goblets on any map that supports cheap glass. I don't need wood for them but then, I didn't think the trading system(or the elves, for that matter) was sophisticated enough to tell. --Corona688 19:21, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Error

I just had my first time ever true crash of DF - right on arrival of human caravan i got a message smth like "fatal error: nemesis failed to load unit". What does this mean and how do i find out if this is a known bug and where do i report it if not? --Confused 12:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, google was my friend. For some odd reason all the files accompanying world.sav were gone, that causes this error. --Confused 16:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

C - you're on the forums - you haven't ever heard of this? See Nemesis Errour--Albedo 18:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Self-Deconstructing Wagon?

I had a human caravan enter my map, and right where they entered was a group of bonobos. I was accustomed to the caravans plowing right through animals with no consequences, but this time, the wagon exploded as it touched the bonobo. The wagon was nowhere to be seen afterward, just all the trade goods it was carrying (in addition to one kapok log, which I suspect the wagon was built from). The rest of the caravan promptly ran away. The only thing I had built there was a rock block road. Has anyone else had anything like this happen, and if so, under what circumstances? --King of the Internet 00:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That happens when a wagon is killed, all of the goods fly out, the Bonobo probably attacked it, and the rest of the traders always run away if a caravan is destroyed.--CrazyMcfobo 01:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I had this happen to me too. A caravan arrive just as a bunch of Orcs did. I wasn't watching, but they must have toasted one wagon and the caravan fled off the map. It was frustrating for two reasons. First, being on the very edge of the map, the clean up was terrible, and second, all the items dropped were marked as stolen.Kwieland 15:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

So should it be noted on the page that normally-passive animals can attack the caravan, sending everyone back home? --King of the Internet 21:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

D hotkey removed in .40d?

I tried to see which paths the caravan could take using D: nothing came up, and it's not on the hotkey menu.

Edit: Nevermind, it's back. Don't know where it went. @_@

You need a trade depot so you can use the command. As soon as you'll order to build a trade depot, you can use it. It'll be all red, until the trade depot is constructed. --Karl 12:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Offering to the Elves

In an attempt to piss off the Elves, I offered them a piece of raw clear glass and they happily accepted it. Last I checked, they dislike clear glass because of the pearlash used in its construction. Attempting to trade them tower-cap logs, however, was successful in getting them angry, as was simply seizing their 30 bins of cloth. --Quietust 00:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)