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[nickbii]

Five minutes I ago I remembered a major reason I stopped playing Dwarf Fortress months ago. Brokers are just too damn lazy.

I always have to draft him into the military, and station the squad right by the Depot. Once I had to do the undraft/redraft thing a dozen times before the stupid bastard actually did his job. And yes, I had turned off all his labors except Health Care. He still preferred "No Job."

My current Broker is in the midst of the same draft/undraft routine, refuses to accept any job but meet with the human representative, but won't actually meet. Several times the human has been on the square next to her, I have un-drafted her, she has taken the "Meet Representative" job, and she immediately walked away. And now the humans are about to leave without trading. And I've only got 16 plump helmets to feed my 33 Dwarves.

I love building my fortress. Creating beautiful rooms for my dwarves is fun. Spending 15 minutes to half-an-hour gaming settings, and micro-managing a single dwarf, is not fun.

I don't care how you fix this. The simplest solution is pretty obvious -- make trading and meeting more important to a broker than anything else.

Nick

[Wooty]

A lot of these problems could be fixed with a simple "DO IT NOW! NOW!" button. What would be really awsome is if we had some kind of shortcut, like hold (key) and then tell your dwarf to do something and he'll put it on absolute priority, second only to eating and sleeping, and hold (differentkey) and tell your dwarf to do something and he'll only stop if he's dehydrated, starving, or extremely tired - and have the job he's doing appear as yellow or red on all the menus where it says what job he's doing to reflect this, just so you don't forget and have Urist making stone blocks until he collapses from exhaustion and crawls halfway to the booze stockpile before dying of thirst.

In Dwarf Fortress, you can't directly control anything - you can just issue orders and if you dwarves feel like it then maybe they'll follow them, or maybe not. This renders your military almost useless, and makes it extremely frustrating when you need something done NOW and all you can do is hope that a dwarf feels like doing it sometime sooner or later.

[Soralin]

And now the humans are about to leave without trading. And I've only got 16 plump helmets to feed my 33 Dwarves.

Meeting with the representative is a different thing then trading is, if you want to trade, select the depot with q, and press r to make sure that there's a broker or some random dwarf requested at the depot to trade.  Meeting with the representative is so that you can do stuff like request what they should bring next year, and I'm not sure, but I don't think that's done by the broker, i think that's usually handled by the mayor or king or such.  (although at least early on the broker and the mayor are usually the same person)

[Pilsu]

Humans talk with your broker and dwarves your highest noble I believe

But yeah, you trade at the depot, not with the representative. He handles orders

[nickbii]

Humans talk with your broker and dwarves your highest noble I believe

But yeah, you trade at the depot, not with the representative. He handles orders

I know that. But there's no way to kill the meet with humans order in the Brokers order queue until she's actually finished the damn meeting. This is a major problem for me right now because the wagon full of food is about to leave, and I have no food at all. My Broker won't trade because her job is "Meet with Human," but she refuses to actually meet with the human.

It looks like I'll have to let some random dwarf handle the actual trading. That is extremely annoying because a) that dwarf won't have the appraise skill, so I'll have to go off of memory, and b) I've given this Broker a fancy bedroom, and a wonderful office. All because I wanted her to do her job.

Nick

[KaelGotDwarves]

Uhh, I've never had any trouble once I figured out to disable all jobs on the broker the instant traders arrive. Even if the damned broker needs to eat, drink, then sleep, there's at least half the season to complete the trade. If you have trouble getting all the trade goods there in time, build your depot somewhere safe where you can drop the goods there early.

[corvvs]

Several times the human has been on the square next to her, I have un-drafted her, she has taken the "Meet Representative" job, and she immediately walked away.

Here's your problem - this is the correct behavior. Meetings don't take place at the depot. Does your broker have an office? Meetings take place at the broker's office, or lacking that, in any room owned by the broker, or failing that in any meeting hall or dining room.

[Silverionmox]

Still, I've seen liasons chasing the guy they want to meet all over the fortress. Meetings should get the highest priority, to minimize synchronization problems. And both parties should go to the relevant meeting place and wait until the other gets there.

[Granite26]

Still, I've seen liasons chasing the guy they want to meet all over the fortress. Meetings should get the highest priority, to minimize synchronization problems. And both parties should go to the relevant meeting place and wait until the other gets there.

Maybe not highest, but crazy high...

Remember, you can turn off trading by only the broker in an emergency