Potential source of empty market problem found?

[Ninjafroggie]

So, there's plenty of threads by now bemoaning a state the game can get into whereby stuff isnt getting delivered to the markets, even though there is absolutely zero reason why they shouldn't.

I think I found the cause.

I've been playing on peaceful, no bandits, just to enjoy the city builder aspect of things until it's a bit more fleshed out. The key point here is that there was absolutely no need to muster any troops.

Now, I had played around with the retinue, and had mustered them just to see what they looked like and how they moved and stuff. No problems there, the retinue guys are hired mercs that seem to live in a null space inside the manor. Whatever works, I dont judge.

My latest city is a true whopper of a town. 319 families, the end effect of finally getting a spawn in a region with good farmland. I could feed the whole lot on just bread, too, but imported a bunch of food anyway because you cant scale berry or meat production and i wanted the variety. Things were going fantastic.

Then, I got curious about the army system. So, I ordered a bunch of weapons from the trader, then created some regiments. I wanted to see if you could upgrade their equipment or their appearance like you could the retinue.

At this point, everything was still working fine.

Then, just for s**ts and giggles, I mustered the whole lot of my militia units. I wanted to see what the army looked like in the field. They spent maybe a week away from their jobs getting mustered up, looked great, I dismissed them, then deleted the regiments.

Over the next few months, more and more houses started popping warnings about lack of supply, my food stocks tanked even as my stock of flour ballooned, things were suddenly going very bad. So I start to investigate...

Sure enough, dang near every market stall was empty. I tried deleting stalls, even deleting entire markets and rebuilding them elsewhere, but nothing worked. They just would not carry anything to market. Not ALL vendors were affected, just a good chunk of them, enough to grind my economy to a halt.

I'm convinced that mustering the militia is what did it, and im guessing that all the men who got mustered were the ones who belonged to the families working in logistics buildings. My theory is that mustering them somehow glitches them so that they will no longer serve their market stall, and you dont notice in a growing town because youre always building new stuff. Or perhaps there's a way to shake them out of it, maybe by making families change jobs, which is something youre doing all the time in small towns.

I mean, I could be wrong, others need to test the theory, but my city that had been running stable at the same size for 5 years suddenly collapsed not long after i mustered a bunch of militia, just about how long it would take to empty out the stock in the marketplace...

[Borderline]

I will try this and see if that is the actual problem

[Lateralus]

The logistical bottleneck is the stocking of the market stalls. So yes, if you have raised your milita, the men that were working in granaries or store houses are not available to stock the stalls in a timely manner.

Good post overall, although a bit long winded.

[Ninjafroggie]

Originally posted by Lateralus:

The logistical bottleneck is the stocking of the market stalls. So yes, if you have raised your milita, the men that were working in granaries or store houses are not available to stock the stalls in a timely manner.

Good post overall, although a bit long winded.

the point is that they're not going back to their jobs when you disband them

[BehindTheBushes]

This it not it, my main town has 1,313 people in total. Despite having 2.7k in food stocks, every food stall is empty. The food doesn't seem to leave the trading post though this might be due to massive congestion with traders. I've deleted food stalls, tried moving stalls to different market areas, deleting entire markets, moving entire markets, moving granaries, tweaking granaries by prioritising food only. But nothing seems to work. This also seems to happen in my smaller towns too.

I guess we'll have to wait for a fix from the dev.