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[sirdave79]

Id like to suggest 2 low level but hopefully very useful and relatively easy to implement idea.

1) Play instrument at a gate to summon caravan.

2) Caravan indicates which direction it wishes to leave the map by.

My experience of various depot/caravan approach setups effectively suggests that keeping caravans safe, minimising exposure and working with early dwarves is very difficult.

Once a caravan "lands" on your site it seems to me that they frequently dont pick the best route to your trade depot. If you have 3 gates open and you close the one theyve picked and keep another open the wagons seem to path to the closed gate.

My suggestion is that an instrument (Im imagining a trumpet or a booming drum) could be played at/on/near a gate to herald/summon/force a repath of the caravan to that gate and then on to the depot.

Once the caravan is inside and the gates are closed there is no need for the reverse process to take place, one simply opens the gate one would like the caravan leave by. However sometimes theyll path a long way round my fortress if I open the wrong gate (they want to go west and I open east).

So I would like also for the caravans to indicate someway/somewhere which direction they wish to leave the map by so their departure can be better planned and executed effectively by the "defenders".



Cheers

[Bumber]

Caravans just need better pathing. If there are roads that lead from the edge of the map to the depot then they should prioritize one of those that best match the direction they are coming from.

Do you really trust Urist McHerald to not go on break at the exact moment the caravan decides to show up?

[neblime]

I assume once better morale and organisation in the military comes in instruments might be related to marching rhythm or the like, and certainly music will play a part in tavern related things, so they won't be useless crafts forever.
I'd like this idea only to add use to instruments, not really for any other reason, when would you want the caravan not to approach if it isnt immediately apparent to the caravan?

[sirdave79]

I wouldnt want the default behaviour changed.

I have about 9 gates on the surface, I dont want them all open come caravan arrival time. However after arrival if they appear on the opposite side of my site with the gate(s) open on the other id prefer to use a call caravan function at the open gate than have them path all the way round to the other side where the gate was open when they arrived. I feel like this makes sense.

[teloft]

2) Caravan indicates which direction it wishes to leave the map by.

OK, I have nice ideas to help with the caravan stuff. I am inspired by my study of early North European trading towns.

1. There must be a clear road and waterway to the site of merchants. This can be painted (like we paint burrows) in with a 6+ tile wide road / waterway (or 3+ for one way rout).  The Merchant will complain if the road is not good in relation to the amount of trade that is happening.

2. Lots, I paint merchant lots where the merchant can build his shop / tent / house, (if we go with the old Frisian trading town lots, then we have a refuse pile at the back of the house / tent, then storage room, then facing the street we have a workshop with sleeping quarters on top). The lots can be of different sizes, then the merchants can trade them among them selves.

3. The merchant in the merchant town would then be in contact with the caravan leaders and prepare stockpiles of what they order, trading with your fort for what they need for there stockpiles. The fort can order whatever in whatever quantities from the merchant town, and the merchants would then go about sending the orders all over the world trying to build the right stockpiles, like (give me 15 steel-bars every month) // or (15 barrels of unicorn blood every year). 

4. The merchant town could even be offside and base its existence on the trade with the fort, like the human city of Dale from the JRRT Hobbit is for the Dwarf settlement of The Kingdom under the mountain.

[Detoxicated]

This would help with the problem of having to scroll through pages and pages to get what you want. If they set up different booths you can just trade there. Maybe you could designate an area surrounding the depot to increase the size of caravans.

[Dirst]

I had always pictured the future use of instruments as an adjunct to parties.  They could function as ephemeral engravings by telling a story.  Happy or unhappy thoughts in the audience relate to the playing ability or creativity of those playing the instruments.

Using instruments to call caravans and rally troops are also good ideas.

"Get on your feet!  Move it, vermin!  Don't you hear the alarm?!  The ≡gabbro piccolo≡ is sounding!"

[Waparius]

Using instruments to call caravans and rally troops are also good ideas.

"Get on your feet!  Move it, vermin!  Don't you hear the alarm?!  The ≡gabbro piccolo≡ is sounding!"

Becoming, at some point, necessary to change alerts for forts of a larger-than-N population size... Yeah, I like that.