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[Malicus]

Oh, I eventually got time to try the things I needed.  They were like dwarven time trials, of sorts.

[Albedo]

So we've established that herding is not reliable.

Nothing of the sort.

We've established that it's not working on this save. Whether that's a change w/ d12, a bug, a one-time glitch, or what is still unclear.

All that is clear is that it's certainly not working on this map with this caravan arrival.

[Michael]

We've established that it's not working on this save. Whether that's a change w/ d12, a bug, a one-time glitch, or what is still unclear.

It's happened on two other fortresses.  Mind you, one of them was on the same site (seed reuse) as the one I just uploaded, and the other had much tighter herding (but still approved by shift-D).

Also, see the thread "[40D11] Caravan Can't Find Road after Reclaim" in Bug Reports, which also shows herding failure.  However, the reporter there seems to think the bug is caused by reclaim, a feature I've never used.

[Rowanas]

I reliably had caravans from all over the world arriving through my one paved road with no issues. humans, dwarves and elves all came through quite happily, although their non-caravan merchants would often come on from a different edge.

[Albedo]

M - trying to figure out what happened. Have regen'd your world, but it's large, and I'm not excited about tracking down your embark site the hard way - any clues where you embarked? (A rough description is adequate - I'll find the abandoned site no prob once I know where to look.)

[Michael]

M - trying to figure out what happened. Have regen'd your world, but it's large, and I'm not excited about tracking down your embark site the hard way - any clues where you embarked? (A rough description is adequate - I'll find the abandoned site no prob once I know where to look.)

Use the site finder.  In my original description I gave the criteria "and then search for 6x6, low evil, flux, no aquifer, river, magma pipe".

[Albedo]

Got it, thks, sorry - wanted to regen rather than download since I'm using 40d, didn't read any further, my bad.

If it works (~if~ I get the same site) and I find anything, I'll post later today - don't hold your breath. 

[Albedo]

Okay, two days late...

Successfully regenned the world fresh in vanilla 40d, built a similar setup*, and got the same result with a dozen tries - 1st Caravan kept spawning in the upper right block, where there is no access.

(* only wagon entrance on W'n side of river, w/ enclosed compound on E'n side, and underground access between the two beneath river.)

This is running counter to two different popular paradigms - 1, that caravans always appear where they can access the TD (which I've never tried to force before), and 2, that caravans always spawn on random map edges.  (Which I have witnessed before).

So... either this is a repeatable bug, or "Caravan forcing" doesn't work as advertised. (Or both.)

Any of the old vets care to comment, tell us what mistake/wrong assumption we're making?

[Wraithsight]

I think Iv found your problem. You see the caravans can spawn south and up 2 zlevels of where you have your road connected to the edge of the map. There are a couple of places up there where it is possible for them to spawn but not be able to path to your depo, resulting in the "The Wagons have bypassed your inaccessible site" message. Try removing the ramps around the edge of that little hill and that should cure your problem.

If it only has 1 path, it will appear so it can take that path. Congrats - you can build archer towers to safeguard it and/or a barracks tower to house an escort.

Note that this won't count for liaisons or elven (non-wagon) caravans, which can travel anywhere.

The bit about elves might not be entirely correct. In my current fortress I have a road running to the edge of the map, hemmed in by constructed pillars and running through a mountain at the end so there is only one way to and from my depo. Since its has been built (about 5 years now) the Elves have always spawned in the same place as the other caravans.

[alexwazer]

I think the problem you have is caused by the stream. Looking at your embark area, I've noticed the stream fills the whole west border. I've made a quick test on another map to see if I could reproduce the issue. I've created a similar setup (stream on southern border and only access to depot from there) and got the same problem: Shift + D shows depot to be accessible, but caravan won't show up.

So I'm assuming caravans can't spawn in a local area tile with stream/river. Since I don't usually embark in area with a stream/river, I've never had that issue (before my test). Maybe someone else can confirm or invalidate this hypothesis from their own experiences/tests... I'm too lazy to do any more testing myself 

[Malicus]

So I'm assuming caravans can't spawn in a local area tile with stream/river. Since I don't usually embark in area with a stream/river, I've never had that issue (before my test). Maybe someone else can confirm or invalidate this hypothesis from their own experiences/tests... I'm too lazy to do any more testing myself 

This sounds likely.  I haven't tried to duplicate the issue myself, but it seems to make "sense", as far as DF goes.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Well...

After the caravan arc, the wagon will came from the direction that the civ's settlements lies.
So... Yeah.

[Albedo]

So I'm assuming caravans can't spawn in a local area tile with stream/river.

That's an interesting theory, and should be easy enough to test with the same map, 1 tile over on the Local map.  This is bugging me. I'll give it a shot, but might not happen before next week.

[Qwernt]

HHmm...
My current fort has a chasm (no stream) in an L-ish shape.  I started on the inside (top left of the L), dug stairs down a few levels, tunnel then bridge across the chasm and then built my trad depot on the other side.  All caravans thus far have showed up on the wrong side of the chasm.  I ended up building a nice long tunnel & bridge for the caravans to follow. 
I was assuming it was because the liason could path across but the wagons couldn't.

[alexwazer]

That's an interesting theory, and should be easy enough to test with the same map, 1 tile over on the Local map.  This is bugging me. I'll give it a shot, but might not happen before next week.

Boredom defeated laziness, I've made another test. I embarked in a similar area, but with a single tile of land on the opposite side of the stream. On the first autumn, the path to Depot was clear to the eastern edge, but the path was blocked from/to the south-east corner. The wagons didn't show up as expected. On the autumn of second year (humans didn't show up at all), the path was cleared all the way to the south-east border, but wagons still didn't show up. So I guess I was wrong 

n = Land tile
= = Stream tile
F = Fortress location

Merchant spawn location (A1 and A2)
v
n n n n =
n n F n =  <- Autumn 1 (A1) Access: fail! 
n n n n =
n n n = =
n n n = n  <- Autumn 2 (A2) Access: fail! 

Clearly, the stream/river (and chasm apparently) are the culprit, but it might be more complex than local map disposition or, knowing DF, it might be very simple and logical... dwarven logic that is. This seems more like a bug than a gameplay issue; the spawning restrictions ( ) might be intended, but the [D]epot Access should handle these restrictions to be accurate.