Unit pathing

[IronBMike]

I know that when I was fortunte enough to test the game over the summer that a new feature had been adding in the way of unit pathing around other friendly units. It is obviously not realistic for regiments to march through each other with no negative effects on organization and such, if it is even possible, and so for those that don´t know a new feature of this game will be that units can´t walk through each other.

But if you ordered a unit to march to a spot and its path was blocked by a friendly, it would automatically find a path around that unit and show you the waypoints for the march around it. I liked it in concept, but found that it would take regiments where I didn´t want them going (into enemy fire, into bad terrain, etc).

Personally, I think that units should not be able to move through each other unless they are retreating. But I don´t like the AI choosing a path for you; I would prefer if the unit would just march where you told it to until it ran into a friendly, and then would just stop and refuse to move through. Then you could manually move the unit around how you wanted.

I just wanted to start a thread and ask, has anything changed about this feature? Are there any other ideas being thrown around for it?

[Kerflumoxed]

Good point!

One "pathing" concept I would like to see incorporated (perhaps it already has been discussed) is for the regiments in each brigade to be able to follow each other rather than follow parallel paths through the "wilderness"...similar to what can be done when in "road march" orders. Can/will that be available? Is actually much more realistic as the "path" of the following regiments would ease the fatigue factor!

Also, while on the subject, is/will it be possible to place the regiments in a preferred order rather then rely upon the "game" to select the order of march? Same thing for placing a "skirmishing" regiment in front of the brigade...can we choose which regiment to set up as the skirmishers?

Thanks

J

[norb]

Yes, units automatically path around areas they should not march through. Sure if you keep clicking enough you might find a hole and force them through. But the idea was that it was just too unrealistic to have units march through each other and through the middle of a fire fight. If you are displaying pathing points, you can see the route they will take.

[Ephrum]

It would be great if the player could choose the route for a brig/div/corps. Being able to mark the waypoints that the player would want them to follow, might make for more strategy options.

The direct route isn't always the best route.

[IronBMike]

Ephrum wrote:

It would be great if the player could choose the route for a brig/div/corps. Being able to mark the waypoints that the player would want them to follow, might make for more strategy options.

The direct route isn't always the best route.

]

A feature like this would allow for some nice strategy options, as you could set up a wide flanking march without having to keep going back to your troops to keep them moving. Like a shift-click option that a lot of RTS games have.

[RebBugler]

Ephrum wrote:

It would be great if the player could choose the route for a brig/div/corps. Being able to mark the waypoints that the player would want them to follow, might make for more strategy options.

The direct route isn't always the best route.

Just submitted this idea as a 'Feature' for the first patch. Also included the request for a Gameplay Route/Positioning Map to accommodate this feature.

Talk it up! If the present game-engine can support such features, it could become reality. The more support, the better likelihood for this or a similar feature.

[Hancock the Superb]

It would be nice to be able to set up a route, for example, select a commander, double right click on the ground in one place, another, and another, select road pathing, and your commander marches to location 1, 2, 3, along roads, then deploys into formation. The difficulty with this is that if you don't click on a road, exactly, your units might wander to the fence and then back to the road...

[norb]

You can pick your route. You can build your own path for your commander, then your subs should follow you when you tell them to use roads.

[Ephrum]

norb wrote:

You can pick your route. You can build your own path for your commander, then your subs should follow you when you tell them to use roads.

That's fantastic!

Any chance you, or one of the team could explain how it works?

Can we mark the waypoints, like Hancock just described?

[norb]

I haven't used it in a long time, so I might be wrong here. I don't even know if the testers use it. But they will now after they read this But you just hold down the control key while you double click and it adds points to the path. If you are showing the pathing icons you can see exactly where you are going to go. You can do this for any unit under your command. Guys, you better test this in MP!