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I completely agree. From a gameplay point of view the most verosimile does not necessarily achieve the most realistic result.
What can I say.
But sincerely courier pathing is not the most annoying to me. At least in this case i see the sense and the sense is to give importance to the strategic roads. It is important.
The solution is something like "couriers not use roads" as an option for some multiplayer games.
I was one of the players fighting Kerflumoxed in our MP game yesterday.
While I can see the logic of couriers using roads, when the recipient is out of sight, I do think that needs to be tempered when the enemy is near, for the reasons already stated.
In last yesterday's game in a 30 minute period I received betweeen 15 and 20 intercepted messages. One of these was from Kerflumoxed's superior in the chain of command, which I think was reasonable as the courier would have been riding into a confused situation with little awareness of who was where. But the vast majority were messages from him (a brigade commander) to his individual regiments. The couriers just road straight towards my men, who were in clear sight, and were promptly shot each time.
There are two problems, at least fro my perspective. The first, which I think everyone would agree upon is that of the courier riding straight into the enemy lines. If the AI determines that the path for the courier to take involves moving along a road, it does not matter if the way is clearly blocked by the enemy. The AI will try that path first. Although simple to describe, and everyone knows what I mean, it would no doubt be difficult to program a solution. The second problem is that the AI will use a much longer path that includes the roads if the straight line distance between sender and receiver is > 400 yd. even if the receiver is in plain sight. That is not rational, especially if a battle is raging. In real life, the courier would take the path that would take the least amount of time.
I don't know why the notion of controlling the roads became an important notion for tactical movement during battle. It wasn't. It was important for the strategic movement of the armies, but once the battle commenced, straight line movement was used. For example, the 1st corps movement cross country to McPherson's Ridge is a good illustration.
I can make this march and I will make Georgia howl.
