That's interesting, Brugle. Nice work!

I have of course experienced the seemingly long delay of getting the first batch of food. I'll have to watch for that.

Quoted from Brugle:

I hope this is new.

Some of it isn't. Reply #15 of Headless Ladies has information that should have gotten me on the right track years ago. The last sentence is:

Quoted from Trium3:

In Pharoah, things work differently but I expect labor access is still the trigger.

Headless Ladies was my thread. I'm still not sure what I need to do, but my problem was not disappearing buyers or buyers that wait until the trader (seller) gets back. My problem was getting the buyer to walk out of the bazaar the first time.

There is no situation (like stockpiling) that keeps the food from being procured eventually.

Sooner or later she makes that first trip, but the problem is it takes months. Based on everything I've read, I'll make sure there is occupied housing right next to the bazaar (on both sides), and that I'll build the bazaars first then the granaries.

One other problem is that nearby housing keeps buying food in an attempt to accumulate a two-year supply, so that the trader always runs out before reaching the distant housing (a situation which is resolved eventually, of course).

Once houses are stocked up with the basics, the demand levels off. So this is what I'm going to do: I'll build an extra bazaar in the space reserved for the scribal school, then replace it with a school when the school is needed. The downside to this is that the immediate area will take a desireability hit because of the bazaar, which may cause some of the housing to not upgrade, but I figure that's only temporary anyway.

Of course, I adjust my bazaar buyer orders so the bazaar to be trashed runs out of inventory first.

Henipatra

Quoted from Henipatra:

my problem was not disappearing buyers or buyers that wait until the trader (seller) gets back. My problem was getting the buyer to walk out of the bazaar the first time

As described in the 4th paragraph of the opening post.

Quoted from Henipatra:

the problem is it takes months ... I'll make sure there is occupied housing right next to the bazaar (on both sides)

How much housing? If it's just a few houses then I'd expect it to take several months. If the citizen goes by a lot of houses (say dozens of occupied tiles) then I'd expect the buyer to appear within a month after the citizen returns.

If that's not the case, I'd appreciate looking at an example. If you have a saved game where a bazaar's citizen goes by a lot of occupied house tiles but the buyer does not appear (to get food from a nearby granary) within a month of the citizen returning, would you send it to the address in my profile (mentioning Pharaoh in the email subject)? Thanks.

Not only did I fail to make the connection from one of Trium's posts, I failed to make the connection from one of my own posts (reply #2 of Bazaar buyer won't buy.). I appear to have been fairly oblivious late in 2008.

I think I've been aware for some time that market buyers in C3 do not appear at least until the initial citizen returns, most obviously evident in long 'forced loop' set-ups (I usually 'short circuit' the first walk to get the citizen back quicker, but not before he (and the market seller) has accrued sufficient labour access), I was aware in 2008 that the explanation lies in the Buildings Table, where each building has only two fields (offsets 34 and 36) in which to store references to walkers, making it impossible for a market to have three walkers active at the same time.

I was not aware until now (I missed this thread previously) that the bazaar buyer in Pharaoh actually disappears, but I'd expect that the explanation is the same - that there is unsufficient space in the Buildings Table to maintain the required number of active walkers.

Another bug!

I was designing a bit more of my Improved Immortal Iunet, and decided to make sure that when a food bazaar buyer who had already gotten some food disappeared when the goods buyer returned to the bazaar (as described in the last paragraph of the opening post), the food was instantly delivered to the bazaar. In the very first example I tried (using the bazaar in the west block of my Bubastis), the food buyer who had obtained 200 game meat disappeared (when the goods buyer returned with 400 pottery) but the bazaar got only 100 game meat.

With the same bazaar, I simultaneously obtained game meat and pottery at different times (sometimes delayed 0.5 or or 1 month by changing the bazaar's special orders, sometimes delayed a long time until the bazaar needed pottery again). The bug occurred only part of the time.

With the same bazaar, at the same time that I saw the bug occur, I set the bazaar to also Buy fish (which was in the same granary as the game meat). The food buyer obtained 200 game meat and 400 fish, and when she disappeared the bazaar got 200 game meat but only 300 fish.

I did not see the bug occur with other goods in the same bazaar, or with other bazaars in the same or different missions. My guess is that the bug could occur in some other bazaar with a certain configuration, but that's just a guess.

Assuming that the bug occurs only when a food buyer that has obtained food disappears when the goods buyer (from the same bazaar) returns with goods, it can be avoided. One way is to not have any bazaars that obtain both food and goods. (The bazaars that obtain only goods will need to have some food in order to get started, but once they permanently have goods then they can get rid of their food.) Another way is to design the roads (without ferries) so that a goods buyer never returns when a food buyer has obtained food and is heading back to the bazaar. (For example, if the food buyer goes 10 tiles each way and the goods buyer goes either 15 or 18 tiles each way, when the goods buyer returns the food buyer will either have already returned or will not have gotten food yet, so no food will be lost.)

An alternate plan is to produce enough extra food so that losing a little now and then won't hurt. We could assume that 100 food will be lost every time a goods buyer returns, but I'd guess that the actual losses would be much less.

I don't know what approach to take in my Improved Immortal Iunet. If I do decide, I'll post in its thread.

[added " when the goods buyer returned to the bazaar (as described in the last paragraph of the opening post)".]

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 09-15-2016 @ 08:39 AM).]

Quoted from Brugle:

(I) decided to make sure that when a food bazaar buyer who had already gotten some food disappeared, the food was instantly delivered to the bazaar.

This sounds like you are making this a permanent situation. Are you intending to actually exploit this and have a partially-staffed bazaar as part of the final city? Or will the bazaar buyer's walk just be so long that it won't return before the bazaar runs out of goods and a citizen spawns? The first option seems like a practical use of a new bug. But the second sounds like you wont be supplying enough goods for an immortal city if a bazaar is consistently getting to a point where it reaches 0 goods.

evil_live_vile,
Sorry, my previous reply wasn't clear. I was investigating a food buyer's disappearance caused by the goods buyer returning to the bazaar, as described in the last paragraph of the opening post, NOT a food buyer's disappearance caused by the citizen appearing. I edited my previous reply.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 09-15-2016 @ 08:54 AM).]