Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aquillion]

Now that the world is a lot more dynamic, it's a bit odd that players still get a Dwarf Caravan, a Human Caravan, and an Elf Caravan.

I think it would be more interesting if the caravans that arrived were based on nearby settlements (which could each have their own focuses) rather than the races.

More importantly, I think it'd be interesting if non-civilization individuals or groups could trade.  In particular, it'd be interesting if friendly necromancers would occasionally come to trade with you (using undead to haul their goods, of course, which could be crude things they had their undead fashion, or stuff they looted elsewhere.)  Eventually there could occasionally be friendly (or at least less omnicidal) night creatures and megabeasts that may occasionally want to trade.  Such creatures could make weird demands, and necromancers might even offer undead "pets."

Ultimately such things might demand tribute in the form of human (or dwarven, or captive goblin) sacrifices, too, or offer trades for corpses or body parts.

Naturally this might also have to tie into your civilization's values (not every civilization is going to be willing to trade with them, and it would be interesting if a player had to think about how their dwarves might react to offering tributes to a dragon, etc.)

[golemgunk]

I think there's already a thing about megabeast diplomacy on the dev list, but agreements with necromancers and such should happen too.
You could supply arms to a bandit group, tell them to rob a nearby caravan and split the loot with them.
Maybe some necromancers could demand tribute in exchange for leaving your fort in peace, or some might even be willing to attack your enemies for a greater price.
I don't know what kind of things they'd need to trade for though... maybe materials for their books or something.

[Aquillion]

What Necromancers would need is obvious -- corpses, skeletons, etc!  Plus living things.

As well as, perhaps, small amounts of food, and maybe certain plants or materials to use as spell components.  Gemstones, jewels, and valuable metals retain their worth for everyone, too.  Really, hard details would have to wait on the magic arc -- I would assume that magical research and spellcasting benefits from certain materials; they might also want eg. masterwork silver blades for enchanting.

(Not that masterwork would be required like in D&D or anything, but if you're going to take the time and effort to enchant something via whatever method they use, you probably want it to be flawless.  And perhaps I could see the amount of work and talent behind something lending it some additional supernatural heft -- a perfectly-formed blade made by one of the greatest living smiths is likely going to appeal more to spirits or whatever magic involves than a crude, common thing.)

[therahedwig]

Or, you know, Necromancers just need blocks for their towers.

(Cue mental image of a necromancer with an army of hundreds of zombies, patiently coming in every season at a fort to trade some fisher berries for a rockblock, until he has all the thousand stones he needs for his tower )

[Niddhoger]

I always thought it weird that it was just "ELVEN CARAVAN" even when you were in range of 3-4 elven "towns." Towers are individually tracked (I once saw an embark site with 31 distinct towers in range!), but its like the embark screen sees one human village and goes "eh, they're all the same."  So... does only one of those settlements come to trade with you? Are they taking turns but your dwarves think they "all look the same?" Different dwarven civilizations have access to different materials, so it'd be nifty if you could be visited by more than one human caravan (each one bringing different metals).

Its also a bit odd that you are only ever in contact with your own dwarven civilization.  You can embark right flush with the gates of another civilizations mountainhome... but they'll never once swing by.  Elves and humans will swing by, but not other dwarves? You can even make a -very- quick change to the .ini file to get goblin and kobold caravans to come by (They're already scripted to swing by in winter).  Perhaps we can get a random caravan (from a different dwarven/elven/human civ in range of your fort) during the winter.

[Adrian]

I agree.
Instead of a single caravan from each race, i would rather have a trade caravan from nearby entities and sites.

[Crinkles]

I think this sort of reform is very logical and would tie in wonderfully with economic changes slated to go with the caravan arc. After all, human town A is going to have different supply and demand than human town B, even if they're of the same civilization (let alone the same race).

In the case of dwarf settlements, it offers an interesting tie-in to politics. Perhaps you could "steal" the allegiance of a nearby rival fort's hill dwarves with generous trading? If they belong to a different civilization, it could be cause for dwarf-on-dwarf war.

[Niddhoger]

Causing war with other dwarves? Now THAT would make sieges more interesting! Who better to serve as "sapper" enemies than other dwarves? They might even construct their own traps and set up ballistae of their own!

I would like to at least have the option for peace with Goblins.  What about after killing enough of them they send an envoy for peace? I know we can edit the raws and remove their "child stealing/stealing" tags to allow peace/trade in winter, but this isn't actually apart of the game.  I always liked the idea of making troll-fur clothing, I think the goblin caravan is supposed to bring large amounts of it.

Another way to make trading be more interesting, is to have events happen that cause prices of various items to increase/decrease.  Say that human civ is now at war with the elves, so one (or both) come to you offering double price for weapons/armor.  Or perhaps a fire/blight hit some crops/killed off livestock, so they ask for more food.  Perhaps THEIR king wants to beautify his mansion and asks for finely dwarf-crafted statues... lots of room to work here.

[MightyEvilPunk]

I like your suggestion. I think generally system can be like this.

1) Certain races specialises on certain materials and goods. Gnomes bring mostly rocks and ores, elves - wood and exotic animals/plants, humans - grains, fishes. Goblins however can concentrate on trapped evil creatures, caught in their areas.

2) All the traders initially prefer to sell you most finished goods at relatively high prices rather than cheap raw material. Like ancient chinese, who sold their silk to all the world, but never sold silkworms. So if you want to get llama, you need to make merchant like you first, bying his goods (100 llama wool socks for example) for some period.

3) Generally set the scale of relations with other settlements from 1 to 5 where
  3 - initial value, you can trade with caravans, but they will sell you ordinary finished goods at relatively high prices. You cannot order anything special.
  4 - you can order special things from merchants. (Animals to create your own source of their products, ore, instead of expensive metal goods, seeds, instead of prepared food/drink)
  5 - everything mentioned in section 4, but you also can receive military aid if besieged.
  2 - settlment stops to trade with you
  1 - settlment sends their troops to conquer you

4) How your rating moves between 1 and 5?
  Trading, fulfilling trade requests, trading with settlment allies will increase your rating.
  Trading with enemies, killing merchants will decrease your rating.
  Trading with "evil" races like goblins/necromants/cobolds will decrease rating for humans/elves/dwarves and vica versa.

5) Adding to Niddhoger proposal, not even world situation affects merchants requests, but also how you fulfill them affects the world. So if you will not sell food to merchants, their settlment can partially or completely die from starvation. And in situation with weapons, the side, that you will support, will have better chances to win.