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[Zake]

I'm not sure if it qualifies as a bug per se, but the following shouldn't happen; the first dwarven caravan in the fall somehow got into a fight with a herd of unicorns (my fort was in a "serene" location), and one of the merchants was wounded.  The other merchant was fine, and got to the depot without trouble; however, I couldn't trade with him 'cos he said he hadn't finished unloading (missing the second one).  The second merchant, meanwhile, was struggling along, in pain and falling unconscious every several seconds.  This kept up untill they both decided it was time to leave- at no point was I actually able to trade.

The slight reconciliation, of course, that the starving dwarves in my fortress were occaisionally just going and grabbing food off of the incoming caravans, which is also a bug (I assume, unless they planned to pay for it later).  Too little, though- I abandoned the fort.

[Toady One]

I wonder what the proper fix for that is.  I guess it depends if the first merchant is a heartless bastard.

[Aquillion]

Possibly wounded people should be able to ride in the wagons or on a mule?  His buddy could 'rescue' him onto his mule, if possible.

Well, not riding it so much as tied to it like a round dwarven bundle.  But anyway, he could be carried off the map by his mule.

[ October 06, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Toady One]

That would handle the way out...  but if they are still intent on trading, they'd need to handle that part too.  It would be harsh if the merchants completely bail any time they receive any wounds, but it might have to go that way.

[Aquillion]

Couldn't they just drag the wounded merchant to the depot, then drag them out when they leave?  Merchants would probably be risking their entire fortune on each trip, after all...  it's several months journey, probably, carrying a ton of valuable stuff, and fortunes are made or lost based on how it goes.  I can't imagine they'd bail too easily...  the dwarven ones, in particular, would probably grit their teeth and tell their friends to drag them to the depot for anything short of a clearly fatal wound.

In real life I'm not sure a merchant would bail even for a casualty, although they might expect compensation or something.  They'd probably take the remains of the dead merchant with them so they could be buried in their homeland, in any case...  although in game terms that would probably just result in more merchants getting slaughtered trying uselessly to recover the corpse...

[Toady One]

Yeah, there's just not a lot of time for them to be running all over the place when you want time to actually trade with them as well.  I guess the body guards can pull hauling duty if they survive, and the caravans could come with other helpers...  though the helpers would just create another injury liability.  If the pacing of dwarf mode weren't so fast, it would be much easier to handle.  These concerns would be trivial if your adventurer happened upon a caravan, since time is like 72x slower or something.

edit:  in addition, the wounded merchant is leading a mule, and would lose that tie upon being hauled, unless the hauler led the mule (breaking their tie with their own mule if they have one...)

[ October 06, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[bbb]

maybe trading shouldn't require every merchant/wagon to arrive to start?

having a few more guards, splitting some into defending particular wagon and others floating around helping whoever is needed?

love the guards... i'm going to ignore hunting for a while and just have military + merchant guards do the killing (well.. mostly it's mutual annihilation atm.. bloody gorillas) and pick up outside refuse

[Mechanoid]

Whatever merchants have unloaded at the depot you can trade, but if the merchant with the copper cage can't make it, you're SOL.