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Author Topic: Prevent merchants dying and leaving?  (Read 388 times)

Xheia

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Prevent merchants dying and leaving?
« on: May 19, 2012, 12:58:14 am »

I started a similar thread on this topic, so I guess I'm just ventilating my frustration at this point:

Is there any way to keep merchants from leaving after one of their people gets killed? Do sieges have to be right during the time when a caravan first comes? Are we expected to act as complete protectors over the caravans, or what?

Extra details:
(This particular caravan was a human one, with 6ish wagons and 5 or so guards. I'm on version ~.07 still. I overlooked one speargoblin squadron which killed a human lasher, merchant, and wagon. I ended up losing only two relatively expendable marksdwarves (it was 30 military vs. 50 enemies), so I was pretty happy about that.)
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Dorfimedes

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Re: Prevent merchants dying and leaving?
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2012, 01:11:56 am »

Ambushers tend to show up a little after the caravan, which should buy you some time. I usually have the depot sealed up as soon as they make it inside. If you're very paranoid it bears reminding that paved roads can influence what side the caravan comes from and the path it takes, particularly if you have blocked off other routes of access. Once that's done, you can work on fortifying it, although how you go about that is up to you. Another way is to build a little castle for the depot towards the edge of the map and dig access tunnels from the main fort so your broker can safely trade there without bumbling headlong into a ten-strong squad of goblin bowmen.
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