ranaries and warehouses are set up to work with very little intervention from you, so that you can spend your time on more pressing matters.

However, there may be times when you wish to take more control of your goods. You might want to store a large quantity of one good in order to send it to the Emperor, for example, or you may wish to ensure that a granary near an important housing area receives a regular supply of food even though it is a long way from your farms.

You can issue special instructions to any warehouse or granary to give you this sort of control. Right-click on a granary or warehouse to access the Special Orders button, which lets you manage the flow of food and goods. Most of these special orders relate only to goods that you specify.

When you click this button, you see a list of the commodities that the structure trades in. After each item, there's a button that looks like a balance scale. Click the balance button to choose one of these three options:

If more than one building has “Request Getting food/goods” or “Maintain Level” orders for the same commodity, sources will take their goods to the nearest one of the requesting buildings that is working and has space available.

The panel that appears when you right-click on a granary or warehouse also has a button marked “Empty.” This orders the structure not to accept any more goods, and to try to send whatever is stored there elsewhere. Of course, your city will need empty space in other granaries or warehouses to accept the contents of the structure you ordered to empty.

Warehouses have another button marked “Make Trade Center.” A warehouse designated as a trade center is the preferred destination for merchants to unload their imports. If your trade center is full or isn't working, merchants take their goods to the working warehouse with empty space that's closest to your trade center. The city can only have one trade center at a time, so telling a new warehouse to become the trade center automatically cancels the status of the warehouse that previously held that distinction. The first warehouse you build in a new city automatically becomes the trade center.

One last special instruction is at your disposal. You can tell your whole city to “Stockpile” a good, meaning that you will neither distribute it through your markets nor export it. This is especially useful when Caesar requests a shipment of some good. To issue this order, visit your Trade Advisor, click on the relevant good, then click the “Stockpile” button.