Pathfinding

 agreed

 I've seen some of my units actually move off the road they are traveling on and end the turn 3 squares from where they should be when they dump themselves in a forest... having to move square by square along a road is annoying. LOL. I'm sure they know it's an issue. Just throwing my "voice" with yours in case they are unaware of the issue.

One thing the pathfinding does not do is count the value of terrain penalities I think. It counts terrain bonuses within a certain range. But overall, there are some pretty significant limits to Elemental's pathfinding. On a large map, you cannot order a unit from edge of the known world to the other unless there are regular intervals of your cities along the way. It uses revealed (and not in the FoW) territory for most of its calcluations. Beyond that, there's a point at which the game goes "sorry, you have to plot a closer point that's easier for me to calculate out.)

The pathfinding is lacking and there is no preview of the path your unit is taking to the destination. SD *must* be aware of this. Don't understand how this hasn't been a priority, though. It affects every single turn of the game, and for me is a gamebreaker.

How can we improve awareness if others are noticing this issue?  Maybe it's just not that big an issue to most folks...

I think this is mostly true.  I have hated most games, if not all games, pathfinding abilities and always moved the distance that  I knew the engine could handle.  Especially when coupled with any enemies along the way.  Of course, most of the ones I really hate are RTS and not TBS, but still.

Really, the Myth series (1/2) had the best movement of an RTS.  Admittedly, it moved slow enough that I could correct any problems, but usually I just assumed I picked a spot by mistake instead of where I wanted. (Since occlusion was brand new at that point, and it was tough to click behind a building during battles.)

I watch all my units if I care about the # of turns.   Even in the Civ series.  From playing enough TBS board games where being one turn behind is a loss, just kick the king over type situation, you end up learning pretty quickly, or you just have enough at home to not care if you're a turn or two behind in movement to a defensive position.

Now the moving a ship (or unit) from one end of the world with too much FoW in the way, the UI should plot the multiple move points _and_ display them to us (as has been mentioned before).  I shouldn't have to micromanage across the world movement of my characters.  I almost feel like building a level 1 city ever so often to make this possible, but that seems weak.

So in conclusion, it's not that big an issue for me, excepting for across-the-map movement not working right. If everything else were perfect, I'd ask them to work on pathfinding, if only to sell the damned algorithms to all the other game companies (if such a thing were possible).

Just my two cents.

I have hardly even noticed the effects mentioned so far.

What i have noticed far more in my games with regard to pathfinding (not exactly pathfinding but in that general area) in order of annoyance are as follows;

1) Walking near cliffs. I dread walking near cliffs (north face) due to the high probability of wacky destination selection. I use the keypad for basic up and sideways moves, but angle moves with the keypad are inconsistent.

2) Mouse pointer. Often it will be the case in certain parts of the map where the mouse pointer seems to become misaligned with the tiles. This results in units moving into the tile adjacent to the actual tile you selected! This can be annoying if it takes you off road as a result or if it delays an attack or goodie hut retrieval.

3) Exiting cities. I dread having to exit a city to attack nearby enemy, because most often my units will not attack from the direction of the city. Instead, they will run into the wilderness (you don't see that part) then turn back towards the enemy but typically expend all their movement points then i lose the city because no one is home!

All of these above things annoy me far more than the actual auto unit movement pathfinding.

I have hardly even noticed the effects mentioned so far.

What i have noticed far more in my games with regard to pathfinding (not exactly pathfinding but in that general area) in order of annoyance are as follows;

1) Walking near cliffs. I dread walking near cliffs (north face) due to the high probability of wacky destination selection. I use the keypad for basic up and sideways moves, but angle moves with the keypad are inconsistent.

2) Mouse pointer. Often it will be the case in certain parts of the map where the mouse pointer seems to become misaligned with the tiles. This results in units moving into the tile adjacent to the actual tile you selected! This can be annoying if it takes you off road as a result or if it delays an attack or goodie hut retrieval.

3) Exiting cities. I dread having to exit a city to attack nearby enemy, because most often my units will not attack from the direction of the city. Instead, they will run into the wilderness (you don't see that part) then turn back towards the enemy but typically expend all their movement points then i lose the city because no one is home!

All of these above things annoy me far more than the actual auto unit movement pathfinding.

Edit: Sorry for double post. It got stuck when i clicked 'post' then eventually i got a white page which asked me if i want to retry, hence the double post!

to prevent the exiting city thing, i have learned to to come out of the city nearest the unit i want to attack, then i go one square at a time until i can attack it - typically 2 or 3 squares. The auto move is so fudgy i never trust it. The one thing i can trust it to do is to somehow move my troops through a forest. Even if that forest is in the opposite direction from the one i want to move in the comp will find a way 

I consider the exiting city bug a pathfinding bug.  you have an enemy right outside one of your cityies, and you select your garrison force and try to attack the enemy but if you do not micromanage the pathfinding the game cannot usually do it correctly. 

Thanks for adding that one to this list.  Seriously, it is very annoying.  it will turn off folks new to the game, so why not just fix it.  It should not be hard to spend a bit of effort on pathfinding.  Improved pathfinding will only improve the user experience. 

I've noticed pathing problems.  There's the 'enter/exit' city one, where the unit moves into/out of the city proper tile (the one that is created upon city creation, not subsequent buildings) instead of the nearest city tile.  That can cause the unit to move off of a road, and not enter the city when had it stayed on the road it would have.  I have to micromanage the movement to not lose a movement.

Other than that, and having to move around neutral heroes, pathing isn't too bad.  I can't recall seeing what some describe here.

hehe maybe an option to turn "off" forests in the map until pathing is fixed ?

The pathfinding for exiting a city really bugs me too.  I have lost cities when encountering that particular scenario, or when sometimes, your units and the unit you're trying to attack, stacks.  That, to me, is a big fail.  How does that happen?  How do you stack with an enemy?  I've also noticed the forest thing when there's a perfectly good amout of flat tiles not one space over.  Micromanagement of pathfinding is horrible.

Most of the time I just wait for them to attack the city.  And wait...and wait...oh, there goes an improvement, and/or a caravan.  I go out and the settlement is destroyed.

I've noticed this, too. It seems to happen only after I rotate the map. You're right, it's super annoying.