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[AzuredreamsXT]

I request a trader at the depot, turn off all his labors and all his noble responsibilities except broker, and i know there is a path to the depot as dwarves pass by it all the time. Instead, he feels the need to harvest plants (something you can't seem to disable at all), and help with the bitch work of carrying items to the depot for trade. Any tips?

[tommy521]

You can set only farmers to harvest if you want with the jobs menu (shortcut with o?) and he will always haul to the depot as far as I know.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Let anyone trade. Merchants will feel better about the deal they're getting if they're getting it from a random drunk who was just passing by.

[Garath]

and if you're a bit like the rest of us you're making a lot of random junk you're happy to sell anyway, so a little difference in the price wont matter

[Sphalerite]

Create a burrow that covers only the trade depot.  Assign your broker to it.  This still won't stop him from going on break or taking a nap, but at least he won't be able to take any jobs outside the trade depot.

[AzuredreamsXT]

Nvm

[Garath]

oh, btw, you can also turn off hauling labors

[Vharuck]

I recently had this problem.  I would work and plead my broker to actually trade more than I ever did in getting my nephew to go to bed.  The one season I missed the human caravan; he stood on the bridge to the depot, in the same screen, for a month.  Telling me he had no job.

So I fired him, hired a new broker, and this one goes immediately.  I don't even have to turn off his usual labors.  He'll stop butchering the second I tell him trading needs done.  My guess is the dwarf's personality affects whether or not they'll rush to the job.

[Garath]

almost forgot that, they have personality. A broker that dislikes talking to strangers and is prone to procrastinating WILL take longer than one with a big sense of duty, a lot of energy, who likes a challenge and socializing, plushelping others

[krenshala]

I also try to pick a broker that sounds like he has a head for numbers (he's the guy that tells you how much things are worth) and knows/can-learn languages.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I always see the broker as the guy who sets prices, while the actual trading is open to whoever, this has the side benefit of training up replacement brokers for the day when the original starts to miss their "upper body".

[Talvieno]

I very often simply put my broker in the army in a squad all by himself, and send him to the front lines. Sometimes he surprises me by doing the most work he's ever done in his whole life by simply standing up and going where I tell him to.
...but just sometimes. 

[krenshala]

I always see the broker as the guy who sets prices, while the actual trading is open to whoever, this has the side benefit of training up replacement brokers for the day when the original starts to miss their "upper body".

The problem is, he had to actually do some trading in order to get the skills to see what things are worth.  I've had a couple of forts were the first caravan did not bring much, and I didn't have much made to sell, so the broker failed to have enough experience to provide me with any value listings.

[peskyninja]

Your broker is incompetent just becasue he is a dwarf.