Spindle wrote:South Africa, would you be willing/able to trade direwolves for munitions? Because I kinda want to get my raider squads on them...
Unfortunately no. The direwolves are not items to be traded. They are animals inseparable with their riders, raised from pups, trained with a rider. Direwolves are unlike horses and cannot simply be ridden by most. Trust is built over years, and it took centuries if not millennia of close contact between forest goblins and the direwolves for that to be developed in the first place. The smaller size and weight of goblins also makes it easier for them to ride on the wolves, whereas a larger human, especially on in armour, may be too heavy for them and would instead require a horse.
An alliance, to fight with the Direwolf riders alongside you in your war in return for honouring the call to fight alongside them in their wars, will probably be the best option of wielding a sufficient number of them.
The only other option would be sending young goblins (usually selected around age of 13) from the nation to Wolf Forest, having them trained and then, if they are deemed worthy by the wolf keepers, having them select direwolf pups to feed, train and live with until the reach the size and trained level to be ridden effectively (usually around the age of 3 for a direwolf). Direwolves and riders are also only considered "war ready" by the time the wolf reaches 5 years old (with the rider usually 18 by this stage). This would require years of waiting to produce some riders (possibly). An alliance is the best choice to fielding them in significant numbers.