I have a question concerning trading with other cities via a dock.

As some of You know, trading like this is a pain, because every ship must, for whatever reason, visit every single dock in the city before leaving. Which instead of speeding up the exchange only slows them down.

I just found out there was a patch to the game that fixed that issue. My question is: Is it implemented in GOG version? Or is it still more room for improvement?

GOG.com version is patched to 2.1, but that issue is a game mechanic and is not a bug. If you are having problems with boats using all the docks, then your docks are probably inefficient and should probably be sorted to be more efficient.

The only way I've found to keep traffic moving is the placement of warehouses. If the deliveryman is going half-way across the map, it's trouble.

If a boat is at dock one, then that ship goes to dock two, then three etc.
But if there is a ship at dock one, and none at dock two, then the next ship skips dock one and goes directly to dock two.
I've never been able to get a three-dock arrangement to work efficiently.

I think having some space between the two docks helps. But that just may be my wishful thinking.

Abu is one of the exceptions that comes to mind, but generally, it's quite easy to get by with a single dock and 2 or more storeyards right across the road from the dock. Ideally, the primary imports and exports should be where the dock worker doesn't even move. He just appears with his cart, and it unloads without moving. As I recall, in Abu I was only able to get one SY, right next door.

Even there, I had enough disconnected SYs set to Get Max to keep the dock SY mostly empty of everything except exports. which are maintained with just enough to fill the ships.

If you have multiple docks, the ship "decides" which to head to as soon as it appears on the map, and will visit all docks until it does all the trading it can, which can include returning to a dock. But once the ship trades its full allotment, or there is no trading to be done, it leaves. With the right SY setup, and a dock close to the entry point, one dock is enough since the ship can be loaded and unloaded before another ship spawns.

Purists might object to the disconnected block, but personally I like it. The key is having enough close SYs GETting to keep the dock warehouse empty of imports

I didn’t know about this: does that mean that resources can be sent from one warehouse to another without a road connecting them?

Storage Yard's can go cross country to get goods. No road connection is needed. What Thorfinn was saying is that "purists" object to any kind of city where parts of it are disconnected: they like to have the whole city connected by roads, which -- for the casual player -- is a bad idea. Disconnected city sections are more efficient than the whole city being connected.

Thanks for the explanation!
I already use disconnected blocks to have separate services and industries networks, but this tip will help me greatly to better manage my cities.

Is it a specificity of storage yards, or does it work with other buildings like granaries too?

Only Storage Yard's work like this. Granaries need direct road connections to the source where they should be "getting" goods.

Understood, now it’s time to try it in game ;)

Next thing to try is filling the GET MAX SY with something else (often straw, since it often has no use, so levels won't change) all except one. So let it fill to somewhere between 29 and 31 straw. The SY will send out TWO cart pushers, and when they get back with 8/800 units of the good, will look for somewhere else to drop it off. If that's where your crafting buildings are, they rapidly replenish going from one industry to the next, filling each full, rather than delivering one raw material at a time. End up needing a lot less SYs that way.

You can also use it to transport food from unconnected farming districts. When they return to a SY almost full of straw, they drop it off at a connected granary.

That’s cool tips, thank you!
What about a new thread to share tips about Pharaoh? Would be a good way to put some life in this sub-forum ;)

Here's an example of a dock and double SY that does not require the dockworker to move. There are lots of other possible configurations. Like I said, most missions can be set up with something like this.

The thing to know is that walkers (like delivery guys) materialize on the first tile PAST 12:00 (clockwise) that has a road, and returns to the first tile with a road STARTING FROM 12:00. Deliveries TO the building go to the first road tile PAST 12:00.

If you were to add another SY between the west one and the hospital, the dockworker would have to move to the tile in front of the apothecary, due north of the east SY, due south of the hospital in order to drop off/pick up..

First, I wish the C3 modeled had been kept in the series. Which means I wouldn't set-up a non-connecting road system. Not a criticism-- each his/her own. But I've never replayed Empire because of the work/population ease.

But what I don't understand from your separated road system is that the biggest problem isn't the off-loading as long as the warehouses are close enough to the docks to keep the ships moving.
The problems are usually;
first, the number of items being off-loaded which requires roads for numerous warehouses sometimes.
And, two, the inland movement of the goods to worksites such as stone to monument sites. Doesn't the lack of a direct road from the dock warehouse to the worksite slow things down more than having a having warehouses in a separate system speed things up?

Bob

A ship will drop off just 12, and pick up 12. You only need one extra slot, since he drops off before he picks up. Once the import is dropped off, a disconnected SY guy will head to get it, so if you keep that distance short, he won't take long to clear the space. AND So long as you can clear the dock SYs of imports immediately, which is a function of how many close, disconnected SYs you have, and you set stocking levels to match exports, it's not a problem to keep up with several trading partners.

Again, if you are running into this, you don't have enough disconnected SYs moving goods around. South Dashur (I think it is) is a good example. I had probably a dozen SYs right next to the dock section to move stone from the dock to the SYs at the worksite. I don't remember exactly, but I might have even "chained" them -- a set of SYs halfway between the jobsite and the dock, so the dock clearing guys didn't have to travel too far. I did that in other maps, and S Dashur might have been one.

That's one thing that's good about the Pharaoh model -- you can always add more guys to move goods around the map. Until very late in the game, its about finding things for your people to do so they don't whine about unemployment.