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[AzuredreamsXT]

I never pay attention to where neighboring civs are when i embark, but i've heard plenty of stories of elves bringing awesome tamed creatures to trade frequently from others on the forums. I've never been so lucky though. The best i've had is one giant desert scorpion in one fort, and a few giant cats in another. Over the entire duration of the forts...

[proxn_punkd]

I've had them bring me all sorts of neat things. Bears, giant badgers, giant felines, elephants... and of course plenty of wood for the wood furnaces furniture which is all made of metal. I also discovered the joy of the clothing industry with imported cloth before I started growing and weaving my own.

[Tiruin]

Important cloth [which I don't bother making], rare and deadly animals and the seasonal food and goods which I then turn to prepared meals to sell to the humans and make instant profit.

Also, they bring good sieges too, though I guess that was in the past versions as I'm currently on friendly terms with them everytime, intentionally.

[Mitchewawa]

The best i've had is one giant desert scorpion in one fort, and a few giant cats in another. Over the entire duration of the forts...

What?! You're only missing a Giant Eagle and you're at the pinnacle of elvish trader awesomeness! Scorpions and cats make better war animals then bears and badgers.

[King DZA]

Lovely varieties of above ground plant seeds, cloth, badass animals(I got two giraffes and a nice helping of feline friends last time they showed up), wood...so much wonderful wood, bags, buckets, and chests so I don't have to make all the crap myself, and some nifty food and drink. Not to mention they happily cart off all of my stockpile cluttering crap year after year without a single complaint.

The only real annoying thing about trading with them is their hypocritical no wood policy. But besides that, they're pretty awesome.

[ASCIt]

I get wood every time the elves show up. Take that as you will.

[Captain Xenon]

elves, very importantly, may sometimes bring sunberries. sunberries are from Good biomes, and make the best possible alcohol. aside from that, getting a breeding population of tame bears and wolves is nice, as they dont need to pasture so you can pen the breeders in a random stone room.

the rest is wood, cloth, and assorted elven crap that clogs up the stockpiles when they die horribly somewhere on the map. elven skull totems are fun however.

[Psieye]

Trade with the elves requires more than just the "don't give them wood, even in bins" knowledge. Having your wood log stocks be rock bottom will prompt them to bring lots of logs - even if you just forbid your stock of logs. If you've been steadily giving them a profit by buying their cloth year after year, that's all they'll start to bring as they know it sells. Getting them to bring lots of war animals (which are heavy for not much of a price tag) requires carefully conditioning them over the years - the favoured way usually being to pillage and slaughter them since that counts as "we made a loss this year" to them (and not "we must avenge our fallen").

[FearfulJesuit]

Cloth.

So much cloth. I wish there was a button to select everything in the caravan's stocks so I don't have to go through it manually.

[Sphalerite]

Delicious, delicious pandas.

[I am Leo]

It's where my wood comes from which becomes charcoal which becomes steel.

[Plutocrat]

I only get a brief glance at what the merchant has before i seize it all and merge it with my fortress stockpile.

Most annoyingly they bring "tame" bugs in cages that cant be released afterward, nor sold because it was stolen.

[acetech09]

elves, very importantly, may sometimes bring sunberries. sunberries are from Good biomes, and make the best possible alcohol.

Does this bug not apply to civs in worldgen? I've had plenty of good region elves never bring me good plants.

[Lemunde]

Cloth and animals are mostly all that's worth trading with them. If you're in an area that doesn't have many trees you may find yourself relying on them for wood. On rare occasions they'll bring sunberries so you'll want to snatch those up whenever possible.

One thing I haven't tried is trading for crafts. Get all their wood crafts and see if you can turn a profit with the next caravan. Sounds pretty hit and miss though.

[Quietust]

If you've been steadily giving them a profit by buying their cloth year after year, that's all they'll start to bring as they know it sells. Getting them to bring lots of war animals (which are heavy for not much of a price tag) requires carefully conditioning them over the years - the favoured way usually being to pillage and slaughter them since that counts as "we made a loss this year" to them (and not "we must avenge our fallen").

Wait, people still think that elves work that way?

Elves in 0.31.xx will never bring "only cloth" since in order to do so they'd have to bring enough bins to fully overload all of their pack animals (which, given their abnormally high trade capacity, would probably number in the hundreds). The only reason I've observed Elves bringing tons of cloth is because they figured you needed it, exactly the same as their logic for bringing wood logs - start a cloth industry and you may find the Elves no longer bringing as much cloth to trade.