40d:Trade depot

Building a trade depot will allow you the opportunity to trade with caravans that arrive at your fortress. Trade depots require three stones or logs to build, and the architecture skill along with either masonry or carpentry.

Each of the three friendly races will send a caravan once per year, however they will not arrive unless your region is marked as accessible by them. Dwarves will always arrive regardless of location, however. Since trading caravans arrive from the direction of their civilization, it is currently preferable to build the depot as close to the middle of the map as possible if the civilizations are in different directions. This reduces the chance of the caravan traveling across the whole map then turning around because it is time to leave.

A broker is not required but is preferable for getting better deals. To toggle whether anyone can trade or just the broker is done with b. requesting a trader at the trade depot will queue a job on the traders list. A higher level of brokerage will give you greater returns, so if you're dependent on trade it's recommended to keep one dwarf as broker and level up his appraisal skill as high as possible.

Trader Mood

If your trader has Novice or better Judge of Intent skill, there will be a line added below the traders' dialogue describing the traders' attitude. Their attitude rises with successful trades (especially if they get lots of profit) and falls when you propose deals they don't like.

• (trader) seems ecstatic with the trading
• (trader) seems very happy about the trading
• (trader) seems pleased with the trading
• (trader) seems willing to trade (Default, at least for humans)
• (trader) seems to be rapidly losing patience
• (trader) is not going to take much more of this
• (trader) is unwilling to trade

Happy merchants seem more likely to take your deals, although the exact mechanics of trader happiness and negotiation are unknown. If the traders reach the lowest level (unwilling to trade) as a result of repeated failed deals, they will immediately pack up and no further trade will be possible. Since traders who are annoyed with you are more likely to reject deals, you should tread cautiously in initial negotiations; the more times you fail to make a deal, the less happy they'll be and the less inclined they'll be to accept further deals. Skilled negotiators seem to be more likely to get traders to accept offers that include little or no profit for them, and less likely to offend traders with unsuccessful deals.

Dwarves

The liason will meet with your merchant and discuss what you would like to buy next year, as well as suggest things to sell. You may buy from the dwarves pretty much anything you could have brought with you during setup, except for pets.

Humans

Human wagons pulled by regular mules will arrive if there is a path from your fort to a map edge that they can fit through. The wagons take up 3 spaces in width, so if your path ever narrows to 2-wide or narrower, the wagons will avoid it. You do not need to have an actual road, but you will need to designate smoothing and tree-cutting to clear the path. Use D to verify that there is a wagon accessible path to the depot.

Often, on maps that don't have cliffs (and so usually have ramps between the z-levels), a path will exist with no effort required.

However, if the wagons don't have a easy route to your trade depot, they may not arrive in time for you to trade - the merchants are perfectly capable of packing their belongings and going away, before they even unpack.

Elves

For more detailed information, see Elf.

Elves bring you wood and plant items, as well as caged tame pets. Elves do not condone trading anything that has been created using a living creature, which includes trees, bones, skulls and shells. Though they will of course sell you the corpse of an animal which was in their cages before it died.

Clothing that might otherwise be acceptable to Elves will be rejected it if it has blood on it, for example from a slain enemy.

Seizing Goods

When trading with Elves and Humans, it is possible to seize goods from the caravan. This will cause them to respond with the message "Take what you want. I can't stop you." and they will leave immediately, leaving you with the seized goods. You cannot seize goods from the Dwarven caravan.