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Author Topic: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]  (Read 1843 times)

Demonic Gophers

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Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« on: September 09, 2008, 08:06:49 pm »

A dwarven caravan arrived, worked its way to my depot, and started unloading.  I got the standard "Merchants have arrived and are unloading their goods." message.  I wasn't watching them too closely because haulers were still carrying a stream of trade goods in, and my broker was off storing an owned item.

Then I noticed some crafts lying around on the floor, with nobody picking them up and carrying them to the depot.  I checked the depot, and it said no merchants were trading; there were also no merchants on the unit list.

I received no message that they were leaving.  There were no free hostiles on the map, all though I have plenty of stockpiled goblin cages.  I don't think they even had time, between the last time I checked on them and the point when I noticed this, to reach the edge of the map.

I do have two trade depots constructed at the moment.  The one they were using is under ground, accessible by a fairly small, ramped tunnel, and they did have a bit of a traffic jam getting in.
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SocietalEclipse

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2008, 07:18:59 am »

Do you have trees on your map?  Could be the sapling->tree under a wagon destroying the wagon bug.
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Krash

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2008, 01:42:55 pm »

Do you have trees on your map?  Could be the sapling->tree under a wagon destroying the wagon bug.

Even the trees in DF are hardcore.  They must be in leage with those pesky elves.  Kill them all just to be sure!
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Demonic Gophers

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2008, 02:46:31 pm »

There are trees, but I think all the wagons had reached stone ground by that point.
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Toady One

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2008, 07:05:50 pm »

Also, when you say there are no free hostiles, does this include things like groundhogs and so on?  It doesn't take much for them to bail if they get freaked out, though it wouldn't explain the wagon death unless it's a larger animal or the groundhog was particularly ferocious.
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Drunken

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2008, 12:40:29 pm »

Ok I had something similar just now the merchants came and they seemed to be trying to unload on both depots. Then they just up and left when the last merchant got there without any announcement or anything. It's possible the OP just looked away for the 1-2 minutes it takes them to head for the hills. They did however see a kobold their on the way in but the guards killed it and they kept going towards the depot. With everything the same except that I only had one depot I have never had problems in this fort and the traders usually wait long enough for even my lazy trader to get there eventually.

Edit: I just noticed also that the 'Trader requested job' didn't cancel and also that some of the merchants (at the depot my trader wasnt at) left all their stuff behind.

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I built two trade depots to try and start a war with the elves. I wanted to make them into magma death chambers and still have one to use for my frequent visits from two dwarven and two human settlements.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2008, 01:04:48 pm by Drunken »
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LordBucket

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2008, 12:00:36 am »

This just happened to me as well.

Dwarven caravan. I had two trade depots. Didn't receive a 'depot is unreachable' message. As soon as they arrived I marked goods to be hauled to the depot. Shortly thereafter the merchants reached a depot and started unloading. A minute or two after that I was interupted by the liason screen. I took that to mean my broker was no longer hauling goods to the depot and told him to go trade. When he arrived I pressed 't' and only then noticed that there were no traders there. I checked the 'u' screen I found them almost to the edge of the map on their way out, and watched them leave. It was still the 'early' part of the season and the liason stayed for the entire season.

The map does have a lot of trees...but I was notified that they were unloading at one point, so they made it to the depot before they decided to turn around and leave. When I watched them leave, I didn't notice any wagons with them, but I did see one mule loaded with a bunch of items.

makar

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2008, 04:11:12 am »

In my experience you get the "unloading" message as soon as the FIRST trader arrives at you depot.

If any of the following (whom are still outside) gets hurt, all traders will pack up and leave. Probably without warning.
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Drunken

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2008, 04:46:16 am »

Ok this seems to be repeatable. When I have two trade depots the wagons seem to split between the two. Everything goes fine until the last merchant gets to one of the depots after which the traders sit on it for a while while the depot says 'there are no merchants trading just now' and then they quietly leave. Deconstructing one of the trade depots as they enter the map makes it possible to trade with them.

On double checking it seems that a wagon did die. On the depot. There was no reason why it should have.

edit: Update from further experimentation
I was closing off one depot with floodgates each time so they would go to the correct one and a wagon was getting stuck behind the gates more often than not. Thinking this might be the cause of the wagons dying I left all the gates open for the last dwarf caravan. All the wagons went to one depot and the first one stopped on the edge in the same place where the last one died. All the wagons stopped in a traffic jam beind this point. the donkey traders went to the other depot. Once they all reached the depot the no trader message appeared and they all left. One of the wagons still died and on the same spot as the last one.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2008, 06:35:15 am by Drunken »
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Drunken

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2008, 01:40:38 pm »

Ok I have experimented further, this bug is reapeated exactly for every caravan:

If I deconstruct one of the depots after the caravan enters the map but before they reach it, they go into the room it was in but instead of getting stuck there like when it was built, they turn around and go out again, and then enter the other trade depot.

The main bug is simply that under some circumstances if you have two trade depots the wagons go to one, and the camels/mules to the other, they then go "unloading" for a while and as the last unit reaches the depot the first wagon to reach the depot dies and they all go home

This may be a manifestation of:
001019 □ [dwarf mode][trade]   (Report) wagons can become stuck if caravans are arrive and leaving at the same time
but the fact that when the depot is not there the wagons seem to have no problem driving over each other may mean that there is more to it than previously thought
« Last Edit: October 29, 2008, 01:46:05 pm by Drunken »
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pushy

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Re: Merchants vanish mysteriously. [40d]
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2008, 10:26:51 am »

The issue the first poster experienced happened with me as well a few years ago in my last game. Dwarf caravan came and got attacked en route by an ambush party who were swiftly annihilated by the merchant guards and my two miners (the only 'military' I had at the time). Caravan kept going until it reached my depot and it started unloading goods. All the merchants got there (there are trees in the area but the depot was on a rock surface, so nothing to do with trees growing under wagons as has been suggested) and another ambush came out which got destroyed in a similarly quick fashion. My broker was busy chatting with the liaison so I left them to it, not wanting to risk my dwarves just in case there was another ambush party out there. No further attacks came and towards the end of the discussions I decided I'd let my dwarves go out and fill up the depot so my broker could pop out and get it sorted right after he'd finished the meeting...only to find that the caravans had left the depot and were heading off. They'd been sitting there for a little while quite content (even after the second ambush) with absolutely nothing around them (some unicorns in a distant corner but nowhere near the depot or fort entrance) and just left without any mention at all that they would be leaving soon or that they were on their way. Was a one-off thing for me, though, and I thought nothing of it, thinking it may just have been because I'd 'ignored' the depot all the time that the merchants were there, whereas usually I rush quite quickly to have haulers filling the depot with bins and all the crap that couldn't fit in bins.
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