What's the best material to trade?

[Azure ☾ ⋆]

I have a lot of food in stock as well as lots of medicine. But I'm not sure if items have a value. Like rarity or something.

[some moron]

Generally, you can only trade food and medicine for food. If you want seeds you'll need to trade something such as iron, or iron tool, or logs or firewood.
The base game doesn't have a very valuable item. Some mods have gold and gems.

[dixiechow]

In the vanilla game I usually trade with firewood. It's easy to accumulate and is worth 4. When I'm using mods I dig clay, build a potter and use pottery. Pottery is worth 25!

[ebrumby]

I've never been good at accumulating a lot of firewood so I trade Ale. The only problem with that is that some traders won't accept it so I try to have clothing or something else too.

[axhed]

trade mushrooms, they have more weight and take up extra space.
traders that accept them are pretty rare, though.

[coyohti]

(referring to the vanilla game)

I try to get hunters bringing in enough leather to create a good stockpile of hide coats to trade while still keeping everyone set for clothing. One of the first things I try to trade for are sheep which I put in 12x16 pastures. That size pasture contains up to 12 sheep and needs only one herdsman. That way you can let the excess be killed for mutton if you like or split into another 12x16 pasture to begin to increase your wool yield. This pasture size lets you upsize and downsize easily as well.

From here you can trade wool and maybe get some cattle which will provide beef and more leather. If your hunters are bringing in enough leather you could wait on this and start your tailor in on producing Warm Coats. Unless the situation is dire I usually skip Wool Coats. Warm Coats allow your citizens to stay outside longer which is great when you start sending them out to stockpile resources from further out on the map.

Wool, leather, and the items that can be made from them are good trade items because if you pace yourself and manage your herds well they can produce enough for you to buy pretty much anything you want. I try not to trade anything that is in limited supply, even if I feel like I have a lot of it, like stone, iron, and coal. Considering those resources are limited on the ground and in mines/quarries plus cause citizens to burn through tools to acquire I don't see it as cost effective in the long run.

Of course all of this flies out the window if something disastrous happens!

[. -.-. .-.. .. .--. ... .]

Firewood hands down. It's super easy to produce and i stack my Trading Posts with 2500 each. That allows me to trade for 10000 worth of Goods (4 Seeds at once for example).
When i get later in the Game and i produce too much clothing i will trade it aswell.
Normally i will have 10-12 Trading Posts on a map. I trade always in Coal, Stone and Iron and sometimes some food or Seeds.

[maiden4meldin]

First on my list is Mushrooms, as above mentioned. they weigh more and just use up all my storage barn space. I build One trading post, and set the Mushrooms to max 9999 Put in three Traders, and go to Auto Trading. Pick out Grains, place it at the top of the order queue, and ask for 3000. Then Fruit, at 3999, and finally Veg at 3000. Then I will put in Herbs, or Firewood, and stock about 2000 and put Meat on order, for 2000 as last in the order queue.

I hit auto trade when merchant arrives.
Then when the food merchant comes, I order foods I want. For instance, if I am growing Corn, I only order Wheat from the trader. If I have an abundance of deer meat, I order beef, etc.. As for fruits, I order usually only three different types, same with veg.

I do this with the general trader same way.

Once I have all my orders done. I never bother to look at the trading post again. lol. Be sure to place a few extra Barns near this trading post so the Traders have somewhere to dump the purchases, and they can get back to restocking it quickly.

For my regular trading posts, I don't stock mushrooms. I don't auto trade. I do stock Firewood. Herbs if I am building them. About 3000 Firewood is my usual goto. About 500 herbs. Then as I always only plant one type of veg and grain. I Order from the merchants what I am not building. As my supply of farmed veg rises, I will take them from time to time and trade for other veg I am not farming.

Later on, I will trade off tools, assuming I have a constant surplus over 1000, same with clothing. I don't usually build too many pastures, as barn space gets glutted with it quickly. I usually top up my leather and wool with the sales of tools/clothing lol.

[WAND3R3R_R33C3]

Firewood is the popular choice, but clothing and tools can also be sold to anyone for a profit.

[Harry Willy]

Firewood has always been my staple, almost every trader takes it and its easy to accrue. I always have at least 1 trader whos only job is to automatically buy all logs possible, trading for firewood. Then you simply have nearby woodcutters turn the logs into firewood and sell it back to the traders. 100% profit.

Of course then you can just stock your other traders with the firewood you've made, and buy useful mats like iron, stone, coal etc.

Using this method I consistently break the game by having so many resources that life is meaningless

[red-ketchup]

the best items to sell are : furnitures, armors and weapons, jewelries... potteries, perfume, potions..... tons of things.
so sad to see people still selling his firewood/brick/glass/etc in 2019.

[some moron]

They are probably using vanilla so there is no such thing as "armor weapons jewelries"
I find vanilla to be more difficult, so I respect anyone who plays it. But I find the mods more interesting.

[. -.-. .-.. .. .--. ... .]

Originally posted by some moron:

They are probably using vanilla so there is no such thing as "armor weapons jewelries"
I find vanilla to be more difficult, so I respect anyone who plays it. But I find the mods more interesting.

Pretty sure that Red Ketchup was kinda joking.

[Numenor]

In vanilla Banished, Sheep Farming is probably the most game breaking thing you can do.

Gives you wool which can be made into wool jackets that trade for a good amount to get basically anything that is expensive. Then horde all the mutton in the market place and trade it for all fish, fruit, and nuts... basically free and easy way to tripling your food.

In Colonial Charter, I trade tinned meats, tinned fruits, mess kits, hardtack, and ale mainly. Once you get a few tin mines and forges up and running... for tinneries you can easily triple your food supply. Also buying flour and making a bunch or bakeries is and just mass producing hardtack is pretty broken... I produce something like 320,000 hardtack a year... so my people will never starve, and I trade it for fish and peaches which I turn into tinned meats and ale. I produce something like 500,000+ trade value each year, which I attempt to convert into jade and marble statues, native artifacts, and domesticated animals since I am always running out of storage space.

[Azure ☾ ⋆]

Originally posted by Numenor:

In vanilla Banished, Sheep Farming is probably the most game breaking thing you can do.

Gives you wool which can be made into wool jackets that trade for a good amount to get basically anything that is expensive. Then horde all the mutton in the market place and trade it for all fish, fruit, and nuts... basically free and easy way to tripling your food.

In Colonial Charter, I trade tinned meats, tinned fruits, mess kits, hardtack, and ale mainly. Once you get a few tin mines and forges up and running... for tinneries you can easily triple your food supply. Also buying flour and making a bunch or bakeries is and just mass producing hardtack is pretty broken... I produce something like 320,000 hardtack a year... so my people will never starve, and I trade it for fish and peaches which I turn into tinned meats and ale. I produce something like 500,000+ trade value each year, which I attempt to convert into jade and marble statues, native artifacts, and domesticated animals since I am always running out of storage space.

So I should make a bunch of wool jackets to trade? I think I could do that...