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v0.31:Stonegears/Caravans
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Sometime in late Template:L of your first year, the dwarven Template:L from your parent civilization will come to your fortress for Template:L, so you should have things set up for them before then.
Trade depot
To trade with a caravan you need a Template:L in a place that has a clear path to the edge of your site's map. To place a depot use b-D, press Enter when positioned properly, and choose three items of raw material to make it from. Building it will require a dwarf with the Template:L labor enabled, and then another dwarf with a labor appropriate for the material it's made from (Template:L for stone, Template:L for wood, and one of the four Template:L related labors for metal). A depot is a 5x5 tile square, so if placing it outside you might need to Template:L down some Template:Ls to make room for it.
Once the depot is placed you can use D to check if the depot is accessible to Template:Ls. However, since caravans don't yet use wagons, but instead use only pack animals, it will often falsely tell you that you depot is not accessible: a pack animal can go anywhere your dwarves can go, but a wagon needs a three tile wide path (since a wagon is three tiles wide) of Template:Ls, Template:Ls and Template:Ls (wagons can't use stairs), clear of obstructions like Template:Ls, Template:Ls and installed Template:L.
Do not have more than one depot at once, since this will confuse the caravans about which one to go to. If you're playing a mod where several different caravans can show up at once they'll all share the same depot without a problem.
Arrival of the caravan and liaison
At some point in late autumn the dwarven Template:L and Template:L will arrive, pausing the game, Template:L by:
Though they'll arrive at the same instant, they'll appear at different points along the edge of your site. The caravan will head straight for your Template:L, and the liaison will head straight for your Template:L. If you have no depot yet the caravan will wait at the edge of the site, in which case you build one to get them to come it. If they remain at the edge even if you have a depot it's because there's no open path from them to the depot, likely because of a locked Template:L or raised Template:L; opening up the path will let them come in.
Trading with the caravan
Note that you might have your meeting with the Template:L before you get to trade with the caravan. If that happens, skip to the meeting with the liason‡ section.
Getting a dwarf to the depot
You need to get one of your dwarves to the depot to be able to trade. By default, if you've appointed a dwarf to be the Template:L then s/he'll be the one to do the trading; this lets you control exactly who does the Template:L, so that a dwarf with the right skills will do it. Use n to go to the Template:L screen and appoint‡ your Template:L, since he'll have the highest Template:L skill, which is useful in trading.
Once you have a broker, go to the depot and use q to interact with it. This will tell you who your broker is, what job (if any) the broker currently has, and if he can access the depot. Use r to request that the broker go to the depot for trading. (If your broker is indisposed, or if you have no broker, you can use b to get any random dwarf to be the trader instead)
Finally, go to your expedition leader (probably via the units screen‡), use v-p-l to manipulate his Template:Ls, and turn them all off‡ to make sure that he goes to the depot, since going to the depot has a low priority compared to the other labors; when he's doing training you can turn his labors back on.
Moving trade goods to the depot
You can only sell items to the caravan if the items are in the depot. To move goods to the depot use q to interact with the depot, then g to enter "move trade goods" mode. Down the left side of the screen will be a list of item categories, while down the middle will be the list of available items, with the items closest to the depot being listed first. Rather than scrolling through the whole list, you can filter for only the items you want. Use s to enter the word you want to search for, type in "FINI" to search for "finished goods", and press Enter. This will cause all of the finished goods Template:Ls containing your rock Template:Ls to be listed (note that items inside of containers can't be individually listed/select for moving to the depot, so typing "MUG" won't show anything). Use ← or → to move from the left column to the middle column, ↑ and ↓ to highlight a particular bin, and Enter to select it to be moved to the depot. Once selected the far right column will show a [PENDING], indicating that it's been selected for trading at the depot but hasn't been moved there yet. When the item arrives at the depot it will change to [TRADING].
Press Esc twice to exit to the main menu and unpause to wait for the caravan to get to the depot and unload, and for your broker to get to the depot.
Actual trading
Once the caravan has reached the depot and unloaded its goods, and your broker is at the depot, you can enter the trading screen by interacting with the depot (q) and then pressing t. The trading screen will show you the caravan's goods on the left side and your good on the right. The Template:L of each item will be indicated by a number followed by Template:L, and the Template:L in kilograms by a number followed by Γ. You can switch which side you want to select from with ← or →, scroll with ↑ and ↓, and select an item for trading with Enter, which will cause a [T] to appear next to it. Marking a caravan item for trade means you're buying it from the caravan, and marking one of your items for trade means you're selling it to the caravan. If you mark a Template:L for trading then you'll buy/sell the bin and everything inside of it, which can be convenient if you want to buy/sell a lot of items at once, but can be bad if you want to sell a lot of stuff at once but keep the bin. If you want to sell many items in a bin without selling the bin itself, but don't want to tediously do ↓-Enter over and over, you can set up a Template:L to take care of the tedious typing.
In the far left bottom of the screen is one number indicating the Trader Profit for the proposed deal, and to it's right the total Value of everything that the caravan is selling for that proposed deal. To guarantee that the merchants accept your deal you should give them a 50% profit (for example, if the Value on the left is 1,000☼, then the Trader Profit should be 500☼). To get away with giving the merchants less profit on a deal, see Template:L.
Liasion
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