Do units always prefer the most dangerous route?

[Xiao Xiong]

My settler just spawned and there is a barbarian at the gates. I select a tile further away from the city, to move him to safety, thinking he will take the obvious route. Of course, he always chooses an alternate route, that I hadn't considered, that involves running up to a barb and becoming dinner.

The game would be a lot more playable if, when two possible routes were available to reach a destination tile, if the safest route were chosen. You would think that in real life settlers, given any choice, would prefer self preservation over running into the arms of death.

This is the one thing that either causes me to rage quit out of my games, or else rewind and replay every move exactly the same way, but with a less brain dead path for my guy.

I mean if I'm out dangerously exploring with my settler and he runs into a barb--ok, fair is fair. I am talking about when the barb is clearly visible, you give the settler a move-to a few tiles away, he can go left to safety, or right into the arms of the barb, and he always seems to choose going right. Even more infuriating is when because of a mountain + friendly unit blocking his path instead of asking you what to do, he reverses course and runs straight towards the barb in some crazy plan of going "around" the path temporarily blocked by another unit (a problem that could be solved by.. moving the other unit!).

 

[The_Quasar]

If there are barbs about, never, I repeat, NEVER, let a Settler or Worker move on auto!

As far as Settlers and Workers go, I never let them loose more than a couple of tiles on auto, and then never when a barb or enemy is near... barbs will always target Settlers or Workers, it's in their programming, even to the extend that I've been known to sacrifice a Worker to protect a valuable military unit.

Mostly the rule is, if in any doubt, don't use auto, and never, never automate a Worker.

 

[Optional]

I am talking about when the barb is clearly visible, you give the settler a move-to a few tiles away, he can go left to safety, or right into the arms of the barb, and he always seems to choose going right.

We need to learn not to trust auto-pathing, just like anything with 'auto' in the name.
Only when the map is relatively clear of units - friendly or unfriendly - the chosen path will be sensible. Otherwise we need to take charge ourselves.
I'm not expecting the developers to come up with a lot of code to help us deal with situations where the path has its traps and tribulations, that would be a lot of work.

A friendly unit blocking the path may indeed have moved on by the next turn, but the AI always judges a situation as-is, to let it think a few turns ahead would be tough.
And a settler could perhaps be instructed to avoid unfriendly units, but what is a safe path? You might have a unit exerting Zone of Control somewhere, making the shortest path safe, but how to make this clear to the settler?
Or the unfriendly unit happened to be a scout, and AI scouts never attack anything, not even workers, so no need to adjust path here either...

It would take a huge bulk of code to make settlers take the 'right' path all the time, and I'm not seeing this bulk of code happen.

 

[draaibaar]

I don't understand why settlers don't take the same route as warriors. When i have a settler and a warrior on the same spot, and direct them to another same spot, it's still possible they take a different route. They both take the shortest off cause, and the warrior the route which gives him defence bonus (hills etc). Why not give a settler the same code as a warrior so they always go the same route?

 

[joncnunn]

I've gotten to where in Civ V I never give movement orders that won't complete that turn as I'm in disagreement with the path finding algorithm so much.

 

[eris]

I also experience occasional frustration on auto path decisions. I also understand that the pathing computations are a major contribution to in-between-turn lag. So can't advocate for safety based decisions to be expanded, sensible as they may be.

Mostly, I have to react in horror that you are both using an unescorted Settler (which I may be guilty of myself at times) and that you are doing anything less paranoid than moving one tile and double checking before moving again. I get lazy about a lot of things, but I take complete manual control of Settlers. They are just too darn precious to me in Civ 5. Even if pathing did the right thing, I wouldn't let the Settler out of my control!

 

[ense7en]

Auto pathing, yeah, just no.

It takes more time/turn to do one move a turn, but i gave up queuing movement long ago.
Too ridiculously dangerous.

 

[pxpdoo]

I never send out unescorted Settlers until I have opened Honor and haven't seen any Encampments in quite a while... Usually also keep a 'patrol' or 'outpost' unit or two, just to keep any hidden Barbs in my sights.

 

[draaibaar]

...... just to keep any hidden Barbs in my sights.

How do you do that...keep a hidden barb in your sight?

 

[Furyofposeidon]

If there are barbs about, never, I repeat, NEVER, let a Settler or Worker move on auto!

As far as Settlers and Workers go, I never let them loose more than a couple of tiles on auto, and then never when a barb or enemy is near... barbs will always target Settlers or Workers, it's in their programming, even to the extend that I've been known to sacrifice a Worker to protect a valuable military unit.

Mostly the rule is, if in any doubt, don't use auto, and never, never automate a Worker.

This person is right. Also, settlers are SO valuable! Maybe not so much, but enough so that you should have a military unit at least one square in front.

 

[pxpdoo]

How do you do that...keep a hidden barb in your sight?

Sorry, I'll clarify: To keep an eye out for travelling Barbs that pass through the sight zone. I should have been a bit clearer.

 

[Smokeybear]

Also, settlers are SO valuable! Maybe not so much, but enough so that you should have a military unit at least one square in front.

In the early game, on higher difficulty settings, keeping that one settler alive and in your possession is likely the raw difference between winning or losing the whole game.

 

[qemist]

We need to learn not to trust auto-pathing, just like anything with 'auto' in the name.

That seems a rather lame, defeatist response. No, we should demand that the manufacturer provide a product that works the way they say it does. The solution for auto-pathing being stupid is to fix it. Similarly auto-explore.

 

[eris]

That seems a rather lame, defeatist response. No, we should demand that the manufacturer provide a product that works the way they say it does. The solution for auto-pathing being stupid is to fix it. Similarly auto-explore.

It seems a very realistic response. When you ask that it "works the way they say it does" do you have any documentation from Firaxis that auto-pathing is supposed to include danger avoidance for civilian units? That is a very specific subject and should be findable as a reference if there is one. If Firaxis hasn't specifically said that would be true, they are still within advertised features and you are asking for additional capabilities, not correction of present abilities. Given the very slow response on adding features, and given the long list of features wanted, many with high community priorities, expecting any motion on this subject seems very un-realistic indeed.

Moreover, it seems to me that Firaxis has always considered auto-anything to be a poorer strategic choice for the player, an opportunity to substitute your own intelligence instead, and are mostly content to leave it that way.

Therefore, the friendliest advice seems to be to adjust the movement of your civilian units to accommodate the known dangers.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Mostly, I have to react in horror that you are both using an unescorted Settle

It's not an unescorted settler, I have units in the area, and complete visibility over all the tiles in the area. I can see the barb clearly. I can see where I want my settler to go. I can see how I think he should go there. I click on the tile where I want him to go, in the opposite direction of the barb, to an area completely illuminated by my nearby units.

There are two ways of equal distance the settler could go. One goes towards the barb, and the other goes away from the barb.

In my experience the settler ALWAYS goes towards the barb.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

In the early game, on higher difficulty settings, keeping that one settler alive and in your possession is likely the raw difference between winning or losing the whole game.

There is one exception... when barbs capture a settler they always escort to the nearest barb camp. If you know where that is, and it's roughly where you want the settler to go, and you can get barb killer to the barb camp site around that time...

Why not let the barbs escort your settler? It leaves your units free to do other things while the barb treks across the map escorting your settler for you.

I do this sometimes. Helps if you have "honour" and can see where all the barb camps are, and towards the end of the early game when the map is clearer to you, so they don't go some unexpected direction, or through another civ's territory.

 

[bcaiko]

It's not just workers that herpaderp on autopathing. It one of my most recent games, I had a land unit being volleyed by an enemy caravel in the adjacent water tile as my unit sat on a penninsula that jutted out into the water. So, I told it to go home to my capital 3 tiles away.

Before I realized it, the unit hopped right into the water. RIGHT NEXT TO THE CARAVEL. I was livid. The path didn't need to even go into the water, since that wasn't going to be faster (just equally fast)...and in this case, it was incredibly stupid to do so.

I really wish there were some kind of "guidepathing" for units, so you could tell them where to go and how to get there without having to deal with the unit every other turn.

 

[Shizuko3]

IT's more like the barbarians are always stalking your units, not bad choice.

 

[qemist]

Why not let the barbs escort your settler?

Well one reason is that it expose it to capture by other civs who would not otherwise attack it.

It leaves your units free to do other things while the barb treks across the map escorting your settler for you.

That would seldom be an advantage. Instead of allocating one unit to escort the settler, you now need to allocate at least one unit to taking the barb camp. It might buy you a turn sometimes, at some risk.

A better idea that I sometimes use is storing unneeded workers at nearby barb camps instead of deleting them. In the late middle game I may have few tiles worth improving and quite a lot of captured workers. I could delete all of them, but I'm sure to want a worker at some point in the future. So I delete most of them and leave a couple with local barb camps. These are in isolated, unattractive areas on the border.

 

[DaveMcW]

How do you do that...keep a hidden barb in your sight?

Mouse over the fog with your settler selected. If you find a red circle there's a hidden barb.