Edit: I'm playing Caesar III.

I have markets next to some Luxury Palaces that, of course, need a steady supply of food, pottery, furniture, oil, and wine.

I also have a granary full of meat and vegetables and some warehouses full of pottery, furniture, oil, and wine, very close to the markets (and I have other granaries full of wheat elsewhere in the city).

Is there any reason why the market vendors wouldn't go to the warehouses to stock up on pottery (or other supplies) even when the Luxury Palaces need it? Because after a few years, it seems like they always just stop picking up supplies.

Sounds like you have everything close by except wheat then? That could be a problem because palaces require 3 types of food, so each market's market buyer will at some point walk the distance to go and get wheat. But that's an easy fix though. Just add another granary close by with the 'get goods' command or wheat.

Another possible problem is that palaces require two different types of wine, so it's not enough to simply have a warehouse full of wine close by. You have to make sure that the wine from two sources are definitely stored at the warehouse near the palaces. Otherwise if a second type of wine is much farther away in the city then the market buyer might head far out to get it.

edit : as Paviel stated below, the wine problem doesn't work ^this way. The game doesn't track it seems what the source of each wine barrel in the warehouse is. You just have to ensure that your city gets wine from 2 different sources.

Is wheat more desirable than meat or vegetables? I'm starting to think that my market ladies are going well out of their way to get wheat, taking a long time to get back, and so not restocking their pottery and other wares.

As for the two types of wine, I'm 99% sure that the game only keeps track of whether you're able to get wine from two different sources, not where each unit of wine came from. I first built my palace block up until it boasted Grand Villas (the highest level housing you can get without a second source of wine), and then when I opened the trade route to get my second source of wine, they immediately upgraded to Small Palaces even though I hadn't yet imported any wine from the second source.

Ah thank you I wasn't sure about the wine thing, and it would make sense for it to work that way since you can't differentiate different wine sources at the warehouse. I'll also try to properly test that sometime. But is seems pretty clear from what you've said.

Wheat more desirable? I'm not sure, that's also something I want to properly test sometime. However in your case it wouldn't matter since it sounds like you only have those 3 types of food. And grand villas already require 3 types of food. So the market buyers definitely will go and get some wheat.

Sort of. Houses that have more types of food stored than they need, do eat it left to right as listed. Doesn't apply here as Matewis noticed, but on some maps you can use this to build an emergency supply that only gets used once the staple food runs out.

Edit: but if the wheat problem stops them from getting pottery, you need to evolve your markets. Upgraded markets have dedicated buyers for food and goods, the long trip to get wheat would only impact the other foods then.

Only in Pharaoh as far as I know. In Caesar 3 each market always has one buyer and one trader.

Cool thanks, I didn't know that. How many years later I'm still learning :)