Let's talk pathing

[TheDecider]

So in my recent Ottoderp game I noticed a rather peculiar event, one in which the guy reading the map for my Libyan regiment clearly was drunk (but who can blame him, it has been a long campaign marching all over the place):

If we instead tell him to go one province closer to us, he still makes a detour (don't want to miss those lovely slaves in Ethiopia):

We can still manually force him to march for Basra first and then to our destination, earning us many miles:

I noticed that the first province (Khurestan) and any province located more south towards the tip of India would yield the same result, taking a longer route along Arabia. Is the pathing-algorithm taking into account the shape of the coastline when traversing between regions? Or is it just heading towards the destination until it reaches the shore then following the coast?

 

[TheDecider]

Anyone else seen sub-optimal routing results?

 

[parlinotomte]

Anyone else seen sub-optimal routing results?

A few times, but I don't have any good examples with images.

 

[Mann42]

Anyone else seen sub-optimal routing results?

All the time, but I have no idea what algorithm or system they're using to create these awkward results.

 

[A Swell Guy]

Hey, it could be worse... much, much worse...

They looped around 3-4 times. At least they made the pursuing French look silly before getting wiped.

 

[nephilim2k]

Doesn't it pick the route that will lose the fewest men (IE through attrition and land limits etc)?

 

[Junuxx]

Doesn't it pick the route that will lose the fewest men (IE through attrition and land limits etc)?

You think marching through the Nubian desert and then the Arabian desert would cause less attrition than a route through the Levant and Mesopotamia?

 

[nephilim2k]

In real life, no, it would be suicidal to take that route, but in game, the land limits may well be higher. I've had some odd routes but it kept attrition down to a minimum.

 

[TheDecider]

Here is a single unit:

Here is the supply of different provinces:

Note that the province in the desert has supply limit of 35.

There appear to be some correlation between supply limit and chosen path, but the single regiment wouldn't take any attrition in the desert anyways. I'm leaning more towards an implementation of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm

 

[deckhand]

In a random new world, my armies wouldn't march along the coast in provinces I controlled and would always divert inland thru a native province.
I switched map mode to terrain and saw there were mountains blocking that path I thought they should take.

The game gives you an ETA for the adjacent province; is there anyway to know when troops should be expected at the final destination?

 

[TheDecider]

...The game gives you an ETA for the adjacent province; is there anyway to know when troops should be expected at the final destination?

Yes, mouse over the province name to the right of the green arrow, on a selected moving unit, as shown in my images above.

it displays the destination, not the next adjacent province

 

[AurochsAway]

Yes, mouse over the province name to the right of the green arrow, on a selected moving unit, as shown in my images above.

it displays the destination, not the next adjacent province

Thanks! I played so many hundreds of hours without knowing this...