Talking about pathing

[miguelzin]

Not sure if theres any topic related to this already, but lately, watching and playing the game, I notice pathing bugs is happening more and more lately, and I dont see anything about this in the new updates.

Its kinda important thing imo, happens alot when ur in a patrol war and you wanna retreat, and then suddenly all you army run into the enemy's army. Also, another thing I see alot is villagers making stupid running around buildings when u actually need them to go directly to the tc, or when u wanna quickwall with a gate and a building next and after u start building the gate the vill just go back for no reason and then come back to try to do the next building.

Whats ur opinion about this?

 

[Clemensor]

Ive seen these kinds of comments before everytime a new patch comes out, but in my experience these pathing issues have always existed in one way or the other. Are you sure that they happen more now?

 

[Fall]

I have definitely noticed villagers taking more zig zag paths rather than straight lines to a TC, even if it seems there isn't a nearby building to make them behave like that. I can't remember when this started but not before 2018.

 

[TriRem]

None of the recent UserPatch updates have touched on pathing, the only related thing that was changed was patrolling and that was over a year and a half ago.

 

[scripter64]

Pathing routes are identical to v1.0c. For example, when old v1.0c recs are played in compatibility mode under latest v1.5, the pathing code remains identical and the recs play to the end as expected with all of the original weird routes, which confirms no changes have occurred or the rec would stop in the middle with a rec desync pause. In other words, if a unit would take a strange path now, it would have taken the same strange path in 1999.

As for retreating units under patrol, this should be improved if your games are played on v1.5. On v1.4 and earlier, it was far more likely that you would need to use the Stop command before moving back to avoid forward drift. The Stop command before retreat can still be useful for larger unit groups like galleons, etc. for maximum control.

No changes have been made to v1.5 for anything related to unit movement in about half a year.

 

[TriRem]

Pathing routes are identical to v1.0c. For example, when old v1.0c recs are played in compatibility mode under latest v1.5, the pathing code remains identical and the recs play to the end as expected with all of the original weird routes, which confirms no changes have occurred or the rec would stop in the middle with a rec desync pause. In other words, if a unit would take a strange path now, it would have taken the same strange path in 1999.

As for retreating units under patrol, this should be improved if your games are played on v1.5. On v1.4 and earlier, it was far more likely that you would need to use the Stop command before moving back to avoid forward drift. The Stop command before retreat can still be useful for larger unit groups like galleons, etc. for maximum control.

No changes have been made to v1.5 for anything related to unit movement in about half a year.

Ninja’d

 

[scripter64]

gg lol

 

[teutonic_tanks]

it happens often, that vills (especially female ones) run not in a stargith line, but rather in 2 long diagonal lines, both parallel to the edges of the map. It kinda happens more likely if there is some tree/house/palisade near the path.

 

[_Mr_St4rk_]

Nothing wrong for me, seens like a noob complaint

 

[Spring_]

there is def weird pathing though like he said about the palasade gates.. vills will walk about 3 tiles away from the gate (even though they started next to the gate tile) and then go back.. also, It def feels like all units have had alot more collisions ever since UP, almost like their hitbox got extended on the diagnal parts of their body... dunno if that makes sense

 

[Deathcounter]

And i swear to god, on standard build order on arabia, with 6 on sheep, 7 build Lumbercamp 8th villager set gatherpoint on the tree right next to lumbercamp.... like 75% of the time the villager just walks towards the setpoint tree, stops right in front of it, and goes back to TC to chop a freaking straggler

 

[scripter64]

For the wood thing, it's common to see players place their first lumber camp and immediately begin to send lumberjacks to the nearby woodline by either directly right-clicking trees or using the TC gather point flag. When a lumberjack is tasked to a tree, it will attempt to path to it and if the tree can't be reached (the TC gather point flag was set on a tree behind the front woodline or behind other lumberjacks, etc.), this will usually lead to the new lumberjack standing stuck against the woodline as it struggles to find a way to get to the unreachable tree. After a few moments, it should give up on reaching the original target tree and begin looking for another target tree near the closest wood dropsite.

Although this is usually fine, it can lead to another interesting situation. If your lumber camp was still under construction when the lumberjack gives up, that lumber camp doesn't count as a valid dropsite yet, so the nearest wood dropsite would still be the TC. If you've ever seen a lumberjack walk back to chop the straggler trees near your TC after being sent to get wood near your first lumber camp, that's why it happens.

As for collision sizes and shapes, those are controlled by the .dat file of aoc, wk, aofe, etc. They are not set by the game .exe (UP).

 

[NuclearPasta]

I've also had it happen where if the vil starts chopping wood before the LC is finished even after the LC is built it'll still go back to the TC on the first trip because it hasn't registered the LC yet. When it happen it requires one or two more clicks to fix, which isn't that big of a deal.

 

[Deathcounter]

For the wood thing, it's common to see players place their first lumber camp and immediately begin to send lumberjacks to the nearby woodline by either directly right-clicking trees or using the TC gather point flag. When a lumberjack is tasked to a tree, it will attempt to path to it and if the tree can't be reached (the TC gather point flag was set on a tree behind the front woodline or behind other lumberjacks, etc.), this will usually lead to the new lumberjack standing stuck against the woodline as it struggles to find a way to get to the unreachable tree. After a few moments, it should give up on reaching the original target tree and begin looking for another target tree near the closest wood dropsite.

I am sorry to burst the bubble but thats never the case, the tree is usually always out on the open, accessable in my eyes, meaning that it can even path towards it, but then it just stands right in front of the tree - without any obstacle in front of the villager it stops, villager.exe not responding and goes back to the stragglers like: "Meh, i dont like that tree 11"
No offense, but i just wanted to mention the pathing issue that happens to me the most.

 

[TheViper]

learn to path man

 

[scripter64]

All of those behaviors are identical to v1.0c. For example, here's a v1.0c .mgx rec demonstrating awkward sideways pathing instead of moving directly to the town center for a drop (watch the path of the lumberjack at around 45s). Although walking back to TC stragglers is related to lumber camp completion timing and not pathing, retargeting to a new tree is almost always (there are some rare ES fails) caused by some form of obstruction.

This was the case in one of Spring's games several months ago when his lumberjack retargeted to a TC straggler on his stream. After checking the rec, the gather point flag was set on an open, front tree in the forest, but obstructed behind the new camp foundation, so the lumberjack stood there against another open, front tree in the treeline next to the camp, stuck, before giving up and going for the TC stragglers, since the camp was still incomplete.

It's important to set the TC gather point onto a reachable tree when first setting up a new lumber camp. After the camp is built, the system is more forgiving if you set the gather point on a random tree somewhere inside the nearby forest, as it will redirect the villager to a reachable tree near the closest completed lumber camp.

A unit can get stuck next to its actual target object, but this should be rare, and it depends on the A.G.E. .dat collision setup, local elevation, the unit's starting position, and a worst-case location of the target on the internal 8-tile, 4-tile, and 2-tile sub grids. None of this behavior has been changed by any update. It's just classic ES, unfortunately. Sorry for the trouble.

 

[Scogo_]

learn to fix ur lumberjacks by watching pro arena games, plebs

 

[ZeroEmpires]

And i swear to god, on standard build order on arabia, with 6 on sheep, 7 build Lumbercamp 8th villager set gatherpoint on the tree right next to lumbercamp.... like 75% of the time the villager just walks towards the setpoint tree, stops right in front of it, and goes back to TC to chop a freaking straggler

YES! This seems to happen all the time to me and I was complaining about it recently. The straggler is at 100% HP and they still walk back to chop it once the lumber camp is built

 

[Timotheus_]

Yeah, that wood thing is so annoying. Happens all too often and I have no idea why!

 

[Flow]

Happens to me quite frequently as well and I'm pretty sure the targeted tree is accessible. If I have some time later I'll try to recreate it.

 

[IamJeo]

My theory is that with bigger resolutions, when ppl see more, they begin to notice the pathing specifics far more than on mere 720p or lower when TC was like 40% of screen. Let's all go back to small screens, suddenly pathing isn't such an issue anymore :D.

 

[Socksyy]

Maybe the game just hates intersecting tiles at certain angles

 

[HyunaOP]

I think it's safe to say we all have wood problems

 

[_Mr_St4rk_]

Villager perspective:

"Dude wtf... ny boss just told me to get a tree.. what's the point in getting the one behind the lumber camp man... this **** are all the same.. all 100 wood... and i don't even have a double bit axe.... i heard they have bow saws in Company B.... such a lame ass job..

I'll just get those close to tc... will save sometime and i can still see those hot farmer-gals! "

 

[bMyers]

I agree, i defenitly noticed since wolo kingdoms came out vilagers take strange path especially when luring boar. And i have been playing a longtime and it never did this before the way it does now. there is something very buggy about this and its very annoying.