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[WJLIII3]

This is absolutely infuriating. I have to wait for every single item I marked to get carried to the depot, at the absolute least, because even with all hauling disabled, the broker still brings items to depots. I've managed to trade with two caravans in three years, one dwarf, one elf. This has been a problem as long as I've been playing DF, every single version I've ever played, though its much worse this time...please, Oh Great Toady One, just make Trade at Depot higher priority than Fish. Or even Eat. Then we can just toggle the toggle when we want to trade, and he runs the 40 steps to the entrance, and everything's ok.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally displeased by how I get to kill them all and take all their goods now. I was just hoping to be able to offload all these god-awful decaying worthless clothing items that are cluttering up my FPS, and are dropped by the ten every time anything dies. And which take forever to haul. And which the Trader will necessarily haul before actually doing his only job, literally the only thing I ever ever have enabled on him.

[WJLIII3]

Oops, please move this to Suggestions?

[Snaake]

There are loads of simple workarounds to this, mentioned dozens of times here on the forums (and probably several on the wiki). Starting with creating a burrow with only the Trade Depot in it, and assigning the broker to that when a caravan is announced. He'll probably go eat, drink, sleep and on a break immediately after noticing he's not allowed to do any of his usual jobs, but there should still be enough time for him to trade, if your fortress design doesn't have massive distances between the bedrooms, dining rooms, meeting halls, and trade depot. Remember to let him out of the burrow after trading. Or you could just keep the broker as a dedicated trader assigned to the depot, that way he wouldn't do all 4 non-work things when you assign him there and need him the most.

[kefkakrazy]

Editable job priorities would be a cool way of tackling this...



I know it's not exactly on the priority list, and that it'd probably be a pain to have to reupdate every patch, but I still can't help thinking that having something on the lines of Dwarf Therapist implemented as an optional secondary-window plugin would be awesome. (An official one.)

[ResMar]

He's right though, this is an easy fix to an annoying bug that should have been knocked off ages ago.

[Azated]

I've never noticed a problem. After a few migrant waves, you usually get some dwarves with the appraiser skill. If you disable trader only at the depot, then the next free person with appraiser will go trade.

Also, hauling trade items has always seemed to be top priority for me. Seconds after I select goods to trade, I get a steady stream of helpful dwarves carrying barrel fulls of destroyed clothing to sell to those poor humans. I mean, who in their right mind would buy twenty barrels of 'xxpig tail fiber trousersxx' in exchange for suits of steel armor?

[knutor]

No.  Please keep it the way it is.  This is a players problem, not game bug. 

Broker is a suicide job, the minute the mandates start appearing.  The Hammerer's love to beat the snot out of Brokers. 

My advice to OP, just don't overhaul.  Be less greedy.  Remove all the tradeskills and haulskills from the, soon to die, Brokers. 

Or do what wiki used to suggest we do.  Make one small trade.  Take a huge loss on that small trade.  This is to raise up the visiting Trader's relationship.  Then haul all the junk, and do larger scale trades.   

Or..

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Paint your dump over your Trade Depot and haul to Depot 100% of the time.  This comes at a cost, of decaying, now however. 

  Sincerely, Knutor

[WJLIII3]

I've never noticed a problem. After a few migrant waves, you usually get some dwarves with the appraiser skill. If you disable trader only at the depot, then the next free person with appraiser will go trade.

Also, hauling trade items has always seemed to be top priority for me. Seconds after I select goods to trade, I get a steady stream of helpful dwarves carrying barrel fulls of destroyed clothing to sell to those poor humans. I mean, who in their right mind would buy twenty barrels of 'xxpig tail fiber trousersxx' in exchange for suits of steel armor?

Hauling trade items is high priority. That's my problem. Its higher priority than Trade at Depot, and all dwarves do it, regardless of their assigned labors. So even if you disable everything else, your broker will still wait until every last item is delivered before starting to deal.

No.  Please keep it the way it is.  This is a players problem, not game bug. 

How is this not a bug? I have a dwarf, his job is Broker. His job title is...broker. He doesn't do anything else, his only purpose in my fort is to deal with incoming trade caravans. He is assigned the position, and the responsibility, of dealing with those trade caravans. The Trade Depot has a toggle-able option to call him, the Broker, to come and do his only job. Despite the fact that he is forbidden from engaging in the hauling of items in any way, he will still opt to haul every single trade item before he does his, again, ONLY JOB.

Also, I enjoy how you proposed a series of gamist workarounds for something which is "not a bug" in this simulationist game. Sure, I could have them use the Trade Depot as the garbage dump or force the broker to live his entire life inside there.

OR HE COULD DO HIS JOB.

[James009]

I understand what your talking about as I've had this happen to me but, personally, don't see this as a hugely horrible issue. I believe, like the others have said, there are some small workarounds that can be used to circumvent this issue at large. A big thing is staying organized with stockpiles, using bins, and having enough haulers. I've never had a problem with the time it takes to drop off goods at the depot including hundreds of crafts, clothes, and cages. This isn't something I regularly do but they the burrows idea to keep the Broker around the Depot, I tried it before and it worked. You also shouldn't have a Broker as someone who does a ton of jobs or holds a number of positions, I tend to make him a Broker/Bookeeper and not many labors so he can be dedicated to his job. Don't use a Mayor as a Broker because he commonly has to meet with people too often. Lastly, you could try using Minecrafts and stockpiles to make drop off almost automated.

Checklist:
1) Effecient Stockpiles and using bins
2) Sufficient haulers
3) Assign burrow to Broker
4) Don't overload Noble professions
5) Avoid Mayor/Brokers
6) Disable other labors
7) Try using Minecarts for optimal effeciency

Godspeed. Hope this helps.

[Snaake]

No.  Please keep it the way it is.  This is a players problem, not game bug. 
...
My advice to OP, just don't overhaul.  Be less greedy.  Remove all the tradeskills and haulskills from the, soon to die, Brokers.

Well, it's not really a player problem, although like I said, it's pretty easy to work around, with burrows if nothing else. However, Knutor is right that it's not a bug, rather a balance issue, which should be expected to be common enough in an alpha. However, afaik dwarves still haul items to the depot, even if you disable all the hauling labors. I think it's one of those things all dwarves do, like harvesting crops (unless you set that to farmers only).

Toady's planning to do a large-ish rewrite of the dwarven brain (soon? he at least did some groundwork for it with some new code in the last couple of weeks about morale etc, which has more effect in adventure mode.), I think he's saving up all the troublesome job priority (trading, meetings, medical jobs, cleaning...) issues for that, since he'd have to change them again then anyway.

[knutor]

you proposed a series of gamist workarounds for something which is "not a bug" in this simulationist game.

Game's a game, man.  I don't discriminate between them.  Toady's logic is sound.  How can a Broker trade without anything to trade?  First it needs put in the Depot, maybe try setting up a low quality stockpile, next to the Trade Depot, to limit footfalls for hauling junk.  In a small pop fortresses, the Broker maybe the only hauler.  Or cushion your Trade Depot, deeper in the fortress, to limit footfalls.

It's not a bug, its logic. 

But I do, just like everybody get frustrated with it, time and time again.  And hell it sure looks like a bug.  The best solution from what I've seen in this thread is Azated's solution, to set it so Anyone can access the Trade Depot.  Especially when time is limited, and a visiting Trader is about to pack it in.  This along with sensible limitation of trade goods, will prevent the Broker from NOT DOING HIS WORK.

And there is always next visit.  At least they aren't hauling the crap back to the stockpiles, anymore, when the visit is over.  Knutor