Terrible pathfinding in towns

[Danest]

I've seen bugs and bad pathfinding before, but I really have to wonder what would make CA program pathfinding *that* strange. I've seen units make moves in the town square that aren't even *close* to a straight line. I'd think it would take some really strange programming to make them ignore their normal tendency to move in a relatively straight line.

[bovi]

I'm somewhat confident that they place "navigation nodes" at roads throughout the city to make sure they'll walk around buildings rather than bang into the walls, and reduce time spent for calculating their path. When the unit or the destination is inside the walls when the order is given, traverse along all the different node routes and compare their length to find the shortest one. Then let the unit go from node to node along the path until they have no nodes between themselves and the destination. Finally move in a straight line.

You can see this especially clearly when entering the town square. They will walk along the town square, PAST the natural point of entry to the node it decides is closest to the destination, then turn around and walk in.

[Ignopotens]

that seems most likely the case, it just makes me wonder how they just let that kind of stuff slide in testing (having been a tester myself for a retail game, I know someone must've brought it up), how'd that thought process go?

"Hey man what's with the pathfinding when they fight in cities, are there traffic police or something?"
"Dude, don't you know all those reports of pillaging are BS? The troops always followed all road signs, even to the point of death."

[bovi]

I suspect more like:

"Hey man what's with the pathfinding when they fight in cities, are there traffic police or something?"
"Dude, how serious would you say this is? Would you return the game because of this issue, or would it keep you from buying future games?"
"Man, I've forgot what we were talking about, that battle was probably like 10 minutes ago, I must have had 8 other ones since. I can rout the enemy in 20 seconds with my 20 cavalry units! I roxors!"
"Dude, awesome, glad to hear you like it."

[Ignopotens]

these people need some better testers then

[Michaelis]

Couldn't agree more, I was almost yelling with frustration when I told my idiots to finish off the defenders in the town square and they actually walked AWAY, right in the other direction.

I suspect that broader settlement roads/more space around the square centre would help, but it's probably a lot of work - had a look at the file and there were all those mind-numbing coordinates.

[Dayve]

RTW was never beta-tested... I'm convinced of it. A bit like M2TW... How can such simply bugs as units not doing what you tell them to do, which is, i dunno... Perhaps the most important function of a battle?

Or, in M2's case... Such bugs as your most powerful units on the battlefield, cavalry, not charging... And Billmen not attacking at all...

If these games were beta-tested before release, then i'm Bill Clinton. And i did NOT have sexual relations with that woman.