I have about 40 or so units on Auto-hunt order.
Concentrate on land units. Notice that most of them are in domestic territory instead of enemy territory. (Just get up Military Advisor (Hotkey F5) and change the left drop down menu to Orders. Then click on units under Hunt Order heading. You will see dots of light. You will see them in domestic territory mostly. Then you just need to click on one of these dots and the map will bring you to the unit you desire to examine.
I have analysed what is happening in your save game in some details, and single stepped through the decision path for a selection of your specific automated units, and my conclusion is that it's nothing I've done (but that it's pretty obvious why it behaves as it does). Here are the details:
Firstly the top level logic that automated hunting uses is this (explanation follows), none of which (at this level) has been altered since AND 1.75 at least:
Code:
PROFILE_FUNC();
int iMinimumOdds = GET_PLAYER(getOwnerINLINE()).getModderOption(MODDEROPTION_AUTO_HUNT_MIN_COMBAT_ODDS);
if (AI_goody(4))
{
return;
}
if (AI_heal())
{
return;
}
if (AI_huntRange(1, iMinimumOdds, false))
{
return;
}
if (AI_huntRange(2, iMinimumOdds, false))
{
return;
}
if (AI_exploreRange(2))
{
return;
}
if (AI_huntRange(3, iMinimumOdds, false))
{
return;
}
if (AI_exploreRange(3))
{
return;
}
if (AI_huntRange(5, iMinimumOdds, false))
{
return;
}
if (AI_patrol())
{
return;
}
if (AI_retreatToCity())
{
return;
}
if (AI_safety())
{
return;
}
getGroup()->pushMission(MISSION_SKIP);
return;
So basically this goes:
1) If there is a goody hut within 4 of us go get it; else
2) If we're hurt heal; else
3) If there is an enemy we have decent odds against within 1 tile go attack it; else
4) If there is an enemy we have decent odds against within 2 tiles go attack it; else
5) If there is something worth exploring (unrevealed territory basically) within 2 go explore it; else
6) If there is an enemy we have decent odds against within 3 tiles go attack it; else
7) If there is something worth exploring (unrevealed territory basically) within 3 go explore it; else
8) If there is an enemy we have decent odds against within 5 tiles go attack it; else
9) Try to patrol; else
...
I stopped after step (9) because it almost cannot fail (can only fail if there is no adjacent plot we can move to without an enemy on it).
So, taking your save game, I examined 3 units:
Modern Grenadeer south of Dijon - this spots the stack with the injured French dragoon a bit west of its position, but doesn't attack because it evaluates the odds as not good enough (there are some slightly weird calculations that adjust the AI's view of the odds that I'm not sure of the purpose of, but it's not something that has been changed since AND 1.75 at least). As a result it winds up falling into the 'Patrol' step at step (9), which amounts to a random walk.
Light tank SE of the Hague - this spots the dragoons just SE of Paris and likes its odds, so at step (8) it decides to go attack them. However, the best path to them (due to the road network) takes it AWAY from them on the first move, and because the hunting does not have any 'memory' the net result is that on the NEXT turn when it repeats the same evaluation they are now out of range and it drops into 'patrol' mode (even deeper in your territory than before due to the raod network taking it that way)
Infantry SW of Nanjing - basically just far too far away to see any potential targets and drops straight into 'patrol' mode. This is what most of your automated units are doing.
Now, I won't deny this is pretty broken for the purposes you have in mind, and obvious improvements do come to mind. HOWEVER, I can find no trace of anything I have done having any effect on this, so I believe this is no worse with the current SVN rev than it ever has been. One thing that DOES strike me is that the larger your territory (and to some extent the more developed the road network unless you just spam roads everywhere) the more pronounced is the failure of this algorithm to produce effective results, so is it possible that you're noticing it more recently is a reflection of the way your game is evolving (your territory getting bigger, making out-of-range issues more likely, plus possibly changes to the road network) ?
One obvious way to fix this is to add a step immediately before the patrol step to have any unit that is in your territory path to a random plot on your border with any player you are at war with or any adjacent neutral territory (or at the least to have a chance of choosing to do so).