items not hauled to Trade Depot

Question

So, the Dwarf traders have arrived. The day that they showed up, I immediately told everyone to start moving goods to the Depot.

• q on Trade Depot
• g move goods

and told my broker to haul his ass over too.

• q on Trade Depot
• r request trader at depot

By the time the broker finally decided to show up, I found out to my surprise, that no-one could be bothered to haul items to the trade depot, even though hauling to the Trade Depot jobs have a high priority (right?). They were all going about their business: attending meetings, watching sparring demos, eating, sleeping, doing their job (for a change), dumping, moving items to stockpiles, ...

I have no idea what is going on. The Trade Depot is accessible. When I start trading, stuff from last year is available for selling. The rest is still [PENDING]. No mandates are impeding trade, stockpiles are giving away like hippies elves, no burrows active, no forbidden items (couldn't have marked them for trade anyway, I think)..

How is my leadership lacking? Is the dwarves' passive-aggressive ignoring me an early sign of a mutiny about to happen?

Answer 1

There are literally so many things that might have gone wrong with this process that we may not be able to help you without a save uploaded to http://dffd.bay12games.com/. Still, these are some common reasons that trade depots are not working well.

The depot is clearly cart-accessible from the outside, because you say the traders showed up and unpacked properly. However, is it accessible from the fortress? Check your stairs and ramps. People screw these up constantly, it happens. If the depot is in an insecure area (in a room outside your main gate, or even outside entirely!), make sure the front doors are unlocked, the drawbridge is down, &c.

Is your stuff reachable? If you've set up all your stockpiles on a different floor (which is common), make sure dwarves can reach that area as well. I think this is probably the most likely problem from your description. You may have inadvertently cut your fortress into two pieces, which aren't reachable from each other. Your broker and depot are on one side, all your export goods are on the other.

Did your broker show up too early? Since you said the dwarves weren't even trying to deliver stuff, this is unlikely, but it's a common mistake. You can order the goods moved over and request the broker to show up, but you want to give the dwarves a few days to actually deliver stuff before initiating the trade process (with q-t).