I think it would be a cool idea if when trading with a merchant, you could barder with him to raise or lower the price, like if you clicked to buy something that was 50 gold, there would be a button that says “Barder to lower price” then it would open up different things to say to the merchant, and each thing would would make him keep the price the same, lower the price, or raise it. You would be able to do the same thing for selling items so you would get more gold! I think adding this would make the world seem more alive.
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love the idea of haggling/bartering with the merchant, but what “skill” would that be based on? perhaps we need a merchant unit type now… 
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A merchant unit would be a good idea, I’d like to see a way we could automatically tell others looking to buy / sell either what we’re looking for or to sell. Don’t know why but I just picture a hearthling standing at a cash register waiting for customers. Maybe if there was ever a Merchant unit there could be a stock pile that the unit would control and keep up with. And if he was in control of the stock pile it wouldn’t notify you of them arriving only if they buy / sell things. I also like the idea of a negotiation type of thing where they could higher / lower prices. Maybe if this was to ever be a thing it could be based on the merchant’s mood 
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Alternatively, having craftable “Market” set pieces could raise your sell price and lower your buy price… So if you place them where the caravan passes through to make a small market / market district, it would get those prices where you want 'em!
At the very least, its an interesting mod idea for when we get physical merchants or caravans passing through our towns
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I would really like to see a trader/merchant as well. I can think of 2 games with ideas I think are worth considering.
Banished - I haven’t played this one for some time, but there is a trading dock in Banished that I really liked. After defining what you wish to sell, workers spend time moving goods to and from inventory piles to the dock to execute your orders. You also set up some auto-transactions to occur.
The auto-trade stockpile feature in the lazy newb pack for Dwarf Fortress - For those of you who play DF with the lazy newb pack, there is a stockpile feature where you can automatically flag all items in it to be traded. The current stockpile system isn’t complex enough to support that as is, but I can tell you that having the ability to create a special stockpile for all craft goods to automatically sell when the caravan comes to town helps with all the stuff management.
I would love to see a trader ‘workshop’ screen where you can specify a minimum/maximum count of each item desired. (I.E. I always want least 20 stone but not more than 50 stone. Buy or sell to keep me in that range as needed. Don’t let me keep more than 3 worker outfits, ect.) Then let us order the buy/sell priority. The trader would then watch the inventories and move extra inventory to his “shop” to see when a trader comes to town. When he is makes purchases he moves the inventory out. As he levels up he gets better prices to buy and sell and gets access to better materials and goods.
As your town grows and matures, your trader could get quite busy moving goods to the store and back.
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this thread is sorta the same as this one,
as i said in that one, it would be interesting if they did it in a somewhat skyrimish way. merchants having limited gold, prices lowering after youve made a certain amount of sales, and only being able to trade certain items to certain types of merchants (I.e you can only sell fur pelts to the guy who sells that kinda stuff.)
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I have plans for an extended trading system that includes various factors such as demand/offer, reputation, events/scenarios and maybe a tiny bit of cheating.
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This is something I would really like to see as well. I just started playing the game a month ago and a now interested in working on some mods. I will post here again once I figure out if/when the mod will be feasible.
Did you ever get anywhere with this?
I’d be interested to see how this would be made believable. I trade with the merchant a lot, and it’d be odd to hear the same responses every time, or to know exactly what to press to get a deal on a certain item. It’s definitely an interesting idea, but I’m not sure how it would be executed…
Techncially, Frostfeast did have some sort of reputation with changing encounters based on said reputation.
Maybe not a new type or class but a specialization of some sort to be chosen.
Workers could specialize in trading, carrying more items or walking/ mining speed. Crafters might specialize in making fine items or even multiple items at once, and Archers can specialize in attack speed… You name it.
BUT… once chosen, the hearthling can’t change its job anymore. That way it might not be usefull to give every hearthling a specialization.
What are your thoughts on this?