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[qoonpooka]

Seventh or eighth year dwarf caravan showed up, got ambushed by goblins (as had become customary).  One of the merchants took a headwound and started suffering from narcolepsy.

When the caravan arrived at the depot, the sleepy merchant was still halfway across the map.  They wouldn't start trading until he got there, of course, but long before he was even in the same map square they packed up and booked it - meaning I never got to trade with them.

Similar scenarios to this happen to me quite often.  Merchant traffic doesn't handle getting split up well at all, which makes it largely irrelevant after a few years because caravans always show up with ambushes and always get hurt in the process.

[KenboCalrissian]

Like this?

It's been reported numerous times.  Most likely reason is that the merchants aren't correctly load-balancing their wagons, and the slow one has all of the heaviest items on it.

[Footkerchief]

^^^ Not like that.  As he described in the OP, the slowness was the result of a merchant constantly passing out from a wound.

[sunshaker]

Yes Merchants can get split up and all have to be at the depot before trading can begin. You have a few options on how to deal with this.

1. Kill the lagging merchant (and take his stuff), though that might be hard to do without an existing death trap or captured hostile beastie.

2. Build a fortified road just big enough for the wagons from the map edge to the depot (stone road, traps, stone walls, traps, guard towers, traps, chained war dogs, traps, siege engines, death traps (drowning chambers), did I mention traps, the whole works) and disable the rest of the map edges from being merchant spawning (wall them off, channel out every space or every other space). This will cause the merchants to use your safe road to the depot and also funnel most sieges down this route as well. Think of it as a minor mega project.

[Edit: I forgot this one] 3. The Under Road, sort of like 2 above but instead of an above ground road it is built under ground. About 4 squares away from the edge of the map dig a set of 3 wide down ramps, dig a 3 wide tunnel, fortify as above, build an underground depot, disable the map edges.