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[mik]

I want to force all the caravans into one path from spawn to depot. The wiki makes it seem that all I have to do is connect a channel from my depot to the edge of the map, and then block the rest of the map edges with floors. When I check with Shift+D the floors have no effect on depot access, and are marked as passable along the boundary. I thought maybe the wiki just had a typo and actually meant walls, but of course I can't even build walls within 10 tiles of the map edge.

So how exactly do I go about doing this? Is simply channeling a 3 wide ditch from the map edge to my depot and removing the ramps enough to force all caravans to spawn there and take only that route? How exactly do I accomplish this?

[Brewster]

I've never done this, but the only thing you can really build on the EDGE of your land are bridges, and they can be retracted. So, if you build a bridge and retract it upwards, that might work.

[Drawde]

Drawbridges, not retractable bridges.  One tile wide bridges set to raise in their short dimension (---- raises up or down for example), built on the edge of the map and connected to a lever.  There MIGHT be a limit to how many bridges to a single lever and still work, but not certain.  Block off the entire edge of the map, except for a three-tile area for wagons to get through.

Once raised only fliers can spawn anywhere other than the gap.  You can also bridge and wall off a path straight to your fort.  This sends raiders and wild animals straight into your kill or capture zone.

[mik]

Ugh, really bridges are the only way? I guess it's not THAT much more work but still. I was really hopin I just wasn't understanding how to use the floors.

[Blue_Dwarf]

All you have to do is dig a channel on each side of a three-tile path, and remove some of the ramps. No walls or bridges are necessary.

If you do that to the edge of the map, the caravans will spawn on that path.

Also, where is the article you've been reading?

[mik]

Oh, phew. I thought I should maybe try digging the actual channel before posting but I'd already quit playing for the night and wanted to know for tomorrow.

It's a subsection in the Defense article on the wiki that says floors need to be built along the map edge. Maybe it's just worded poorly and I don't understand what they're actually saying. http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Defense#Trade_depot_.26_caravans

[Brewster]

Drawbridges

Correct, sorry that's what I meant.

[Kon]

I use walls -- cut all trees in a 5-tile wide path with walls on either side. The walls can't extend to within 5 tiles of the edge, so it helps if you have trees around the edge. If necessary, on the 6th tile column (or row) build a one-tile wall every 3 tiles until you get to a tree near the edge that blocks off passage. Apparently, some people seem to prefer ditches to marble walls. To each his own. When I have time, I pave the road so trees won't grow. Typically takes a few years to get the road paved. Actually, I usually have roads passing around 3 of the 4 fortress walls, but only one path that caravans can take. And, if I have an excess of something nice, like gold, I'll pave the roads with that. Nice roads give happy thoughts.

__T__
_____W
_____
_____
_____W
_____
_____
_____WWWWWWW
_____
_____
_____ To depot =>
_____
_____
_____WWWWWWW
_____
_____
_____W
__T__

W - wall
_ - space
T - tree

[AutomataKittay]

I usually clearcut to edge of map, then build road out there and not bother to cut the wood on edge. However, I tend to play in fairly rainy areas so wood pops up all poppingly.

Using channels, raising bridges or statues ( I can't remember if this one works, though ) will block off the path where you can't put up walls, you can put them up or punch channels every three tiles since caravans relies on having three wide to haul wagons in. If you don't want walls, channels and statues will work fine!

I normally build three wide roads, but I've had occasional jamming with early arriving caravans meeting late-loading ones so maybe four or five wide will work?

Boulders and pebbles in ground will block the way, which's why I build road all the way, and as of current version ( 34.09 for me ) you can't set up trap in the way, so I'd use raising bridge to block off a special route for caravans. I've build a few fortresses with trading depot all the way on one edge for fast caravan turnaround

ed: Re-reading the OP, yes, caravan will only come in along any edges marked in green with shift-d. However, ramps three or wider will let it come in that way, channeling makes ramps, so you might've not deramped most of them?

[Quietust]

One other thing to remember is that caravan arrival points are "restricted" based on the location of the source civilization and any map features present in your embark region - for example, if there is a river flowing through your embark region, caravans from a particular civilization may only be able to arrive on one side of the river, and trying to force them to arrive on the other side (using the above described methods) will make them think there are no wagon-accessible tiles and simply arrive at a random appropriate edge tile.

[Bloodyharbinger]

I always see where the caravan arrives from and then build a path to that general area. Along the path I channel down the sides or build walls which forces the caravan to come in from only one direction and adds protection by forcing enemies to follow behind them.

In order to ensure that they arrive on the same spot or around there, I floor off an area about 9x3 wide right up against the edge of the map. This prevents trees from growing and allows for a consistent spawn for the caravan.

As an added measure, you can channel all the way up to the last block at the edge of the map. If you do this it prevents a caravan from spawning at that area as it is no long 3x3. This helps in controlling the location. Just be mindful that you find out which side they are coming in from as has been mention, you don't want to force them to 'Bypass your blocked depot' and end up somewhere unexpected.

[Sutremaine]

Channels naturally have ramps, which are traversable by wagons. It used to be that channels wouldn't create ramps, but that hasn't been the case for a long time. To make a channel that wagons can't pass, there are a lot of things you can do. The quickest is to dig the channel and remove every third ramp so there's no wagon path. You can also remove all ramps not needed to allow the miner out, dig out some wall tiles to render the ramps unuseable, dig out a 2-wide channel and remove the ramps on one edge to create a haha... There are a bunch of things you can do, it's up to your aesthetic sense.

You could also construct some track tiles, which block wagon access and can be placed right up to the edge of the map.

[mik]

Yeah I ended up doing just what I'd planned on doing all along, minus the apparently unnecessary step of building something around the whole map to block trader paths there. I've just got a 5-wide paved ditch leading from the edge to my trader entrance, and I've removed all ramps so it's not accessible at all from anywhere but the map edge and inside the fort. I also built two bridges on either side of the map entrance to block entry up to point where the channel handles that. Since I've also built a floor/ceiling the next level up they've got their own private little tunnel that's completely secure unless any fliers show up and find their way to the only 3 ramp tiles that'll let them into the tunnel at the edge.

I've got a tiny little side door for any dwarves who need to leave, but I eventually plan on locking down the fortress anyway and only opening the interior gates to allow the broker access when necessary. Otherwise the only open entrance will be far away with my defenses built on it. So all in all it worked out perfectly. Thanks for the tips to everyone!