Dismiss Merchant

[slink]

I have one map where the merchants all turn around after trading and go almost back to the entry point, where they turn back downstream and exit normally after passing the dock a second time.  I suspect it has something to do with how the waterways were laid out during the creation of the map.

[Greydragon]

it does that on the tiny island seed (at least it does for me)

[salamander]

Anyone else played the Tiny Isle seed, or the original Tiny Isle game, and noticed this?

[rkelly17]

I just had my third wrong-way merchant. The common characteristic of the maps seems to be that the river takes a sharp turn (just about 90 degrees) just after it enters the map, runs parallel to the edge for a bit and then takes a second sharp turn toward the centre of the map. The merchant always turns around between those two sharp turns.

[nmid]

I've seen that as well...
In my map, once it visits the dock and is dismissed, it goes all the way back to the entry point and then travels all the way down to the exit again.

I assumed it happened because of me blocking the lower river because of an unbuilt port or something.

I'll post pics in a bit, but here are 2 for now.

[rkelly17]

Yeah, @nimd, that first little bit of river looks exactly like the 3 maps that have given me wrong-way merchants. Note that on the mini-map you only see water at the edge right at the top. As @slink pointed out, there must be something in the map generation that both creates that geography and triggers the wrong-way behaviour.

[salamander]

I haven't yet had merchants going the wrong way, but there are certain trading posts where the merchant undocks with a quick flip in the wrong direction before heading the right way.  Not all the posts do it on undocking.  Maybe it's related to what you're seeing.  I'll start trying to keep up with when it occurs and what the geography is around that post.

[rkelly17]

Yes, @salamander, I've noticed that in the everybody-in-the-market-circle challenge town I've been doing. It's the first time I've had more than 2 trading posts, so more possibilities. I'll have to look and see whether it is trading-post specific.

[Kaldir]

In my latest town, I've dismissed three merchants at exactly the same time (while paused), in Spring 26. You can see them row out in the first screenshot.

In Late Autumn 26, the first merchant returns, as seen in the second screenshot. That's after 7 seasons, or 0.58 year, which is pretty close to @salamander's numbers.
A second merchant has just entered the map at this time (not visible on the screenshots), to arrive in Early Winter, the third is not visible yet, but arrived in Winter. Despite the trading posts being near each other and the merchants being dismissed at the same time, there is quite some distance between the returning merchants (first and second were only 15 squares apart when dismissed, half a map when arriving).

It seems there is some randomness involved in the interval between leaving and returning. It's certainly not always exactly 9 seasons, and not exactly the same for all merchants.

[salamander]

I'm just about set up to start some merchant timings at several trading posts.  I'll post results hopefully in a few days, at the latest.

As I've worked toward getting things in order, I've noticed the same thing as you -- merchants dismissed at the same time from posts near each other don't necessarily arrive in a group on the next rounds of visits.  Your idea that there's some random 'slop' in the visits seems likely.  Unless I've mis-planned something, I should be able to estimate all the legs of a merchant round trip ... one visit to the next.

[Kaldir]

I dismissed all three merchants at once again, in Winter 26. They all left the map in Late Winter 26.

Next merchant arrived in Summer 27. This time is was the 'second' one, the one on the middle trade post, whose predecessor left the map as second. The other two merchants arrived in Early Autumn and Autumn 26.

Edit: I'll leave the rest of the testing to you, @salamander, so I can go back to creating boulevards and such.

[Kaldir]

I haven't seen any merchants going the wrong way myself. On one of my trading posts they dock backwards though.

[salamander]

Way overdue, but not forgotten.  With another couple of hours in the game I should be able to start crunching numbers, so hopefully sometime over the next few days I'll get something here, or maybe in a new thread to keep it organized.

In the meantime, one of the delays has been keeping my population under control.  I'd wanted it stable so I could concentrate on the merchants coming and going, but it slowly started to decline -- my stable point (about 20 years ago) turned out to be a broad peak, instead.  That seems to be over and the pop's going back up.  Unfortunately, it looks like I may be headed for a rinse-and-repeat cycle.

[salamander]

I've started a continuation of this discussion in a separate thread (Dismiss Merchant (Part 2)), just to keep things a little organized for myself as I gradually post information that's been collected.