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[Dagonus]

So, the wagons seem to show up without roads at the moment, which is probably a bug in and of itself and one I'm fairly certain has been reported, but because they end up going cross country(Or in my case they drove the brook (upstream which seems more strange)) they take so long to get to the trade depot, that the mules have been sitting there long enough to warrant an announcement that the traders would be leaving soon, when the wagons haven't even gotten there yet, so I haven't been able to trade with them since they were "still unloading their goods."

[Klokjammer]

They're too slow because they have to weave around trees and boulders to get to your depot.  You can solve this by actually building the road (it'll give them a straight path to the depot), or by building the depot closer to the map edge.

Hit ctrl+D to see where wagons can go, if the depot is "accessible" then wagons will come, if you don't want wagons construct barricades around the depot so that wagons can't get there but mules can.

Edit: specifically "map edge" means the approximate location of where they usually come.  This varies on all maps so you might want multiple depots or roads.

[ November 08, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[Hypcso]

Actually, they zig zag even without any obstructions. I have a frozen glacier map without a single other object on it, and they still zig zag. They also will not spawn on roads any longer.

[Paul]

It could be boulders. The little rocks that your dwarves can walk over will block wagons. You can remove them by designating them to be smoothed.

I smoothed and deforested a big area and they stopped zigzagging. They still go one way until equal the depot and then turn the other way, though. They can't move diagnal.

[rine]

The problem is, that their location to spawn seems entirely random, even on the same map. In example, my fortress has been running about four years, and every single year they spawn in a different location (Northeast corner, southwest corner, lower end of west edge, northwest corner). As such, it seems entirely pointless to build roads, because unless you pave a significant portion of the map, there's no guarantee they'll use them, rather than just taking a longer way through trees.

[Dagonus]

1. Yes their spawn seems to be random.

2. They shouldn't even be coming because the road isn't completed.  (Though the whole thing is laid out and clear and direct. I even mined through a small hill to give it a clear path) Unless Toady turned off the road requirement, but he didn't remove the dwarves telling about they only like nice roads and not unfinished stone, so I'm inclined to think they shouldn't even be showing up without the road. Just the mules should be. Not the Wagons.

3. The mules and wagons should be part of one "unit" and even though part of it shows up, the mules shouldn't be getting ready to leave before the wagons get there.

[Wiles]

I've cleared out a path for the wagons, but there are too many and too slow, so by the time the last one arrives, they leave

[Bricktop]

I think that the road requirement is gone now, because according to ctrl+d wagons can go across country, they just seem to go a lot slower (even without the weaving around).

I think something would would help a lot is if instead of having random spawn locations there was a certain area on the map edges for each caravan.

eg The human's wagons could always spawn on the same 3-wide place on the northern map edge (if that is where they are coming from) and this spawn area could be visible when you go into the ctrl+d view. Elves and Dwarves could also have these and so if you wanted to build roads for the traders then you would simply have to build a road to the spawn point.

[Angela Christine]

So far the only thing I've found that seems to help is to smooth the world.  Send out a bunch of useless peasants with the engraving job to smooth every stone on the surface.  If it is a forested map, clear cutting the world helps too.  

Having designated spawn points for traders would be fantastic.

[Cosmonot]

The caravan guards are idiots and frequently stand in front of the wagon, preventing movement.

[Paul]

One big thing that causes the wagon slow down is the fact that the guards that are guarding the wagons seem to enjoy standing in front of the wagon, making the wagon move EXTREMELY slow over top of the guard. I had one guard do this all the way for one wagon, and it moved so slow that all the other wagons (Even the ones that were way behind this one at first) were sitting in my depot for ages and they left before that last one made it.

This same reason is also why they are so slow to actually get inside the depot, since they have to climb over the other wagons and such to get in.

-edit- Haha, someone always comes in right as I start making my post and posts the exact same thing in a lot less text.

[ November 11, 2007: Message edited by: Paul ]

[Angela Christine]

Ooh, ooh, I have an idea.  

Use cage traps to trap a bunch of wild animals, preferably skittish, mostly harmless wild animals.  You can build traps outdoors now, so theoretically you could blanket the map in traps if you had enough mechanisms, but that would probably be over-kill.    :p  Ok, once you have a bunch of caged wild animals, don't tame them, but instead set them up all over the map, attached to a handy lever (or a bunch of levers, if you want finer control).  If the guards are blocking the wagons when the caravan arrives, release wild animals near the wagons.  Caravan guards HATE wildlife, so they will abandon their posts to go chase gophers.  This will let the wagons get ahead.

It is important that the animals in the cages aren't too dangerous, because if a guard dies before the wagons reach the depot they will turn around and leave.  No caged dragons, please.

This should totally work, right?