Quoted from Squidbrains:

the magistrate ... would momentarily appear on the bottom left (north, I think) roadblock, and then vanish because there was nowhere he could go ... Is this a bug

The magistrate is doing exactly what I would expect him to do. Whether that's a bug depends on whether you think the creators of the game weren't aware of how they programmed magistrates to walk. In my opinion, it isn't a bug.

Quoted from Squidbrains:

did I make a mistake somewhere?

I would guess that you did. Perhaps you didn't read (or didn't understand) the part of reply #1 on Policemen, Magistrates, and Tax Collectors. I edited that part of reply #1 to make it a little clearer.

[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 01-10-2014 @ 11:03 PM).]

Hm, I guess I still don’t understand it. There are four possible road spaces that the magistrate could depart from and return to, counting the booth, all along the southwest side of the building. I see that the first preference would be the bottom left (north), but I thought that if it was roadblocked, the magistrate would then go down the list of preferences and emerge to the west/southwest. Does this mean a road outside your housing block can never touch the courthouse except downstream, so to speak, of the magistrate's intended departure point? Even with a roadblock?

Or do you mean that if the first point of contact with non-roadblock is directly south, the magistrate will not come out, even though there are other options?

Quoted from Squidbrains:

if it was roadblocked, the magistrate would then go down the list of preferences

No, a magistrate (or tax collector, policeman, fireman, or architect) may start his walk on a roadblocked tile.

I edited reply #1 to discuss the start and finish points when multiple unconnected roads touch a building and also changed walker names to those that the game uses (such as "citizen" instead of "labor-seeker" and "constable" instead of "policeman").

Very nice, Brugle!
Any plans on testing this in a city in the near future?

Hi Cfilorvy1,
I'm not sure what you mean by "testing this". I don't have any plans for building a city with unconnected roads. (Someday I might make an Improved Immortal Iunet or finish the Middle Kingdom by building Heh, and I expect I'll connect all roads in either of those.) I just felt like making this post more complete, and it didn't take too long to run enough tests for me to be pretty sure of the results.