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[ragincajun]

OK, I've missed two merchant caravans.  I've set up to call the broker to the Depot as soon as I get the merchant arriving message.  I move all my goods for trade to the Depot.  Yet the broker never goes to the Depot.  The first time he wouldn't stop working on the books, even though it showed he was at the highest accuracy setting already.  The last time, I dropped his bookkeeping skill to minimum, and he went on break.

The Wiki shows this is a low priority so two questions:
1. Should I ignore the broker and just use anyone?
2. Even disabling his other jobs just caused him to go on break or sleep, what else can I do to get him to go trade?

[Elvang]

Either let anyone trade, or assign a dwarf that is more motivated to be your broker.

[Kaos]

when the caravan arrives, I turn off all the jobs in my broker, that includes also the hauling jobs, and even cleaning. That leaves him to only do "bring item to depot" jobs, so I make sure I don't order my whole fortress to be carried to the trade depot,  just enough for everybody to get to work, so my broker hauls a thing or two to the depot on his way there, after he's  at the depot I order everything else I need to be hauled.

You can also try burrowing the broker in the depot.

They still need to eat, drink, sleep and take breaks, so it might be wise to have a replacement broker just in case.

If your broker is also your bookkeeper you may need to temporarily de-assign him from his study room, if he has nowhere to work at he'll cancel the "updating stockpile records" job immediately and do something else, bookkeepers seem to get stuck record keeping even when there's nothing to update, only stopping the job to eat, drink, sleep, and go on breaks.

[MasterShizzle]

Some things:

• Your broker and bookkeeper should NEVER be the same dwarf. It's virtually guaranteed that your broker/bookie will choose the absolutely worst time for updating the stockpile records. Having a bookie/manager is usually what I do, just to save on office space, but my starting broker is almost always a separate dwarf. On embark I usually tack the "Appraiser" skill onto a farmer/fisherdwarf, since they're always near the surface, always doing pretty much the same thing, and don't perform any tasks that take a long while to complete or suffer from being interrupted.
• You can still miss out on the caravans when everything else is in place, especially on large maps or maps with convoluted routes where the wagons take for-freaking-EVER to get from the map edge to your Depot. Cut down trees and anything else in the way so that your caravans have the shortest route possible. Every little bit helps.
• Your broker might not have any labors assigned, but as soon as you disable his labors he'll VERY likely choose that time to grab a snack, take a break, grab a drink, and then sleep, by which time you might not have a caravan to trade with anymore.

The best sure-fire way to get a guaranteed trader at the depot in time is to make a burrow that covers ONLY the 25 Depot squares. When the caravan starts unloading, assign your broker to that burrow and then "r"equest him at the Depot as normal. Once your broker finishes whatever task he was about (which if you're following my advice above won't take long) then he'll go to the burrow and stay there. If you happen to have food/drink on the Depot for trade he may stop to eat or drink, but aside from that the game won't let him accept any job but "Trade at Depot".

It works every time, no matter what. Even if you get hit with hunger/thirst/whatever, the caravan won't be there long enough for your broker to die of thirst or anything. Just remember to remove him from the burrow after trading is done. The upside to this is that you don't have to mess around with his assigned labors at all. He'll get out of the burrow and happily go back to whatever he was doing, without any further actions.

[WJLIII3]

If your broker is also your bookkeeper you may need to temporarily de-assign him from his study room, if he has nowhere to work at he'll cancel the "updating stockpile records" job immediately and do something else, bookkeepers seem to get stuck record keeping even when there's nothing to update, only stopping the job to eat, drink, sleep, and go on breaks.

Well, this is because there's never nothing to update. You're producing new items and building new constructions all day, every day, presumably.

[knutor]

what else can I do to get him to go trade?

Maybe building a brokers bedroom, near the depot.  And a low Q, omni stockpile.

Not sure about this, but in this fortress, I've saved, its 25yrs old, the caravans stay, until the next one arrives.  I think its because I've established such good relationships, but I have no idea, really.  Maybe early on, the caravan visits are shorter, until relations improve.  I keep that in mind when deciding the quantity of tradestock to haul up to the Depot.   

I like to have a few social dwarfs mingling around doing nothing at all.  So that if the Broker doesn't ever show up, by the time I get the departing msg, I can toggle on anyone to trade, and one of those there, socializers, fill in for the absent broker. 

It can be frustrating.  I would prefer it all be automated, with only us assigning items and tariffs.  And also, like the bookie precision, with only us, deciding how much profit to get.  Like biggest revenues to smallest revenues.  It is nice now with the popup and pagedown in the trade menus.  But automation, would be a pleasant addition.  Or at least a pleasant option.

[AutomataKittay]

The op sounds like they have a rather lazy dwarf in first place. I've not had problem with broker being bookeeper ( mine does broking, book-keeping and manage job orders ) as long as you don't set book-keeping quality too high too soon and disable all other labors. Unless the dwarf's particularly lazy ( Not sure which attribute to check for that ).

If I get particularly lazy broker I just let any dwarves trade, though that's more due to my overproduction and lack of needs, using the trade caravans as dumping ground for excess supplies. It seem to give them enough experience really fast so that anyone can tell you how much things are worth.

[greycat]

1. Should I ignore the broker and just use anyone?

That's what I do.

[Sutremaine]

Not sure about this, but in this fortress, I've saved, its 25yrs old, the caravans stay, until the next one arrives.  I think its because I've established such good relationships, but I have no idea, really.  Maybe early on, the caravan visits are shorter, until relations improve.

They stay as long as it takes for them to pack everything up. If you're trading them more items now than you were at the start of the fortress, that's why they're staying longer.

[Garath]

1. Should I ignore the broker and just use anyone?

That's what I do.

same here

[Farmerbob]

OK, I've missed two merchant caravans.  I've set up to call the broker to the Depot as soon as I get the merchant arriving message.  I move all my goods for trade to the Depot.  Yet the broker never goes to the Depot.  The first time he wouldn't stop working on the books, even though it showed he was at the highest accuracy setting already.  The last time, I dropped his bookkeeping skill to minimum, and he went on break.

The Wiki shows this is a low priority so two questions:
1. Should I ignore the broker and just use anyone?
2. Even disabling his other jobs just caused him to go on break or sleep, what else can I do to get him to go trade?

Change the bookkeeping tier to one lower than the already-acheived tier.  I see this very frequently with my broker.

I typically create a special leader for the early days of the fort.  All of the useful social skills + leadership + bookkeeping.  That dwarf ends up being the catchall.  He chops trees for the first couple months if there are trees around.  He builds lots of workshops and the trade depot, with various skills turned on just long enough to build shops.  This is while the 5 miner dwarves go about carving out the foundation of my fort, and the farmer collects topside plants and then when the miners have a place ready, begins farming and ONLY farming.

The leader dwarf, after my first immigrant wave, has all of his functions transferred to the newcomers, and he is then made the manager, bookkeeper, broker, leader.  He gets his own chair and table, a barrel of booze, and has all of his duties cleared.  His job is to manage and interact, that's it.

There does seem to be a hitch on highest precision bookkeeping.  It seems to stick unless you drop it down one teir then raise it up again later.  And with my typical fort-building process, he's normally sitting at that point when the first traders arrive.

Sometimes there are problems when the leader gets themselves a mood due to carpenter or mason skill that he collected making beds or chairs and tables in the first couple months of the fort, but when that happens, I just assign the Depot to allow all dwarves to trade until the leader is done with his mood.