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[DFboy]

After many fortresses and many trades, I've yet to get really cool animals from the elves (aside from the odd random giant leopard or black bear). Is there a way to increase the chances of getting more and varied animals from the elves?

[Witty]

You could give the elves a huge profit margin, so they bring more goods next time they come to trade. That should increase the number of animals they bring.

You could also give the elves a noble with the ESTABLISH_COLONY_TRADE_AGREEMENTS responsibility. In theory, they should send that noble to your fort once you've gotten a landholder noble (baron, etc.) to make trade agreements. The list they provide should give you a full list of all the animals the elves have available, and allow you to prioritize which one you'd like to purchase. This does require a new world however.

[Albedo]

That only increases the number, or the reliability of filling a request ~if~ they have access to that animal, it does nothing to change the available variety.

Just like what determines which foods/stones are available if you "Prepare Carefully" at Embark depends on the biomes where your Dwarf Civ is located, that all depends on the diversity of the biomes where their civilization is located, so... not sure how you would mod to that end.

[Salmeuk]

As Albedo stated, the variety of animals brought by the elven traders depends entirely which climates or regions the elves live in. This sort of limits you down to forest-dwelling creatures of both normal and giant varieties, but luckily the forests are pretty diverse places.

I wonder if elephants are possible to trade for?

I recently got a breeding pair of giant wolverines so I'm pretty happy. Good genetics, too - firm muscles and whatnot. If I ever get attacked by anything other than thirsty mountain gnomes, I might find out just how effective they are at fighting.

[DFboy]

Thanks for the replies, guys!
So I get that variety is fixed at embark, but to get more of whatever animals are already available, should I buy something and give them a huge profit or just outright "offer" them free stuff. The wiki is vague/uncertain about what "offer" does with other civilizations.

[SimRobert2001]

Thanks for the replies, guys!
So I get that variety is fixed at embark, but to get more of whatever animals are already available, should I buy something and give them a huge profit or just outright "offer" them free stuff. The wiki is vague/uncertain about what "offer" does with other civilizations.

I'd say you're better off giving them a huge profit margin. The thing is we're not sure what offer does to other civilizations anyway.

[PatrikLundell]

I am only guessing here, but I don't think giving away stuff to other civs helps with caravan availability, while huge profits (bring those xsocksx!) does. The greater the profits the larger the caravans coming to reap those profits are. A speculation is that giving away stuff might defuse a tense situation, such that a war could be avoided (although you'd have to work hard to get a war in the first place), but I have no substance behind that guess.

@Salmeuk:
Yes, you can buy elephants from elves. I've done it (0.40.13?), trained them for war, and then suddenly the buggers decided to desert their pasture and roam the fortress, with no jobs to haul them back generated (the first one had kept to the pasture for several years). One starved to death before I could butcher it (I discovered it was starving at too late a stage). The second one was butchered when it started to starve. My guess is that they suddenly decided to follow their trainer, whoever that was (I always set trainer to 'any'). As a result of that incident I've decided not to war (or hunt) train grazers again.
The two elephants weren't a breeding pair, BTW.

[§k]

Elves bring more valuable goods when they have made profit. Without wagon, they can't carry much, so their choice is light but expensive goods - clothing.

When they were robbed or attacked the last year, however, they bring heavy but relatively cheap goods - usually clay boulders, sometimes elephant and bear.

Given the same weight, a pile of clothing is much more expensive than a bear.