Part of Squad Follows Different Path Than The Rest

[DaddyO]

I ran into a situation that confuses me..

Campaign: Devil's Descent, Scenario: The Bells Are Calling

Situation: Two Squads Occupy A Two Story House bordered by a solid hedgerow in the direction I want them to proceed.

I send one squad out the back door of the building to the hedgerow and have them blast a hole in it. They execute their instructions perfectly.

Next turn I direct the other squad out the same back door to the entry side of the blasted hole, then to the far side some distance away. While most of the squad follows the prescribed path, a couple of squad members exit the building using the front door and proceed to follow a completely different hedgerow without openings, one that takes them a completely different direction far away from the path I have ordered. I presume they "believe" this is their most efficient path to their final destination, but it's as if they don't "realize" there is a much more efficient and safe path out the back door and through the blown hedgerow.

Does anyone have any insight into this strange behavior?

 

[Combatintman]

Not really mate - the same has happened to me often enough that I eventually learned to plot my move orders carefully. My general rule with defiles is to plot movement orders on the AS right next to the entrance and the AS right next to the exit which generally works. In an ideal world you shouldn't have to do this of course but I doubt that Battlefront will devote much time to addressing this. I say this not to have a pop at Battlefront, I just don't see it as a gamebreaker that they would naturally be more inclined to prioritise, as it is something that can be managed via the method described above.

[DaddyO]

The thing is, I tried plotting this in various ways to overcome the problem, including right next to the inside of the hedgerow gap and the action square next to it outside the gap. Still had the same problem. Go figure. I've never had this happen before. I'll just have to move on. Thanks for your comments.

[A Canadian Cat]

I'll just add that I think what starts this is congestion points. In this case the back door. A full squad of say 9 guys starts heading out the door. The last team rather than sitting there doing nothing can get going to by heading out the front door. But by doing that they are now on a different path and things start to diverge.

I follow what @Combatintman man suggestion about placing way points directly in front of the entrance I wand to see used. Typically I only put an additional way point right on the other side if this is an environment with lots of obsticals.

 

[DaddyO]

IanL, just from watching as movement develops out of the house, I think you may be right. The two or three that diverge go out the front door rather than the back door, and the leave the building before the last part of the rest of the squad exits the back.

[A Canadian Cat]

Yeah it is hard to really know when this might happen but if you suspect that the obstacles and terrain in the are of the door will slow things down you can split the squad and issue similar orders for each team but pause the start of the second and third team 5 or 10 seconds. Or maybe only one team needs to be split and paused.

At any rate that my not be totally satisfying but sometimes we have to learn how to issue orders that will be followed the way we want rather than wait for changes or fixes that might take a long time or never come because these corner cases are too risky to tweak.

[DaddyO]

Originally I had wanted, after the hedgerow blast, to get two full squads across a long field as quickly as possible. The first squad occupied the downstairs of the house, which had a back door right out to the hedgerow. I tried various "paused" locations for the second squad, upstairs, outside the front door, etc. What finally worked was to start with the first squad in the small space between the back door and the hedgerow, i.e., outside, and keep the second squad paused on the first floor until the first squad was already out the hedgerow. 

Agreed, there's a way to skin the cat, but sometimes it takes some experimentation to figure out how.

[Falaise]

hi

Yes it happens to me sometimes

I did a series of tests on the same place where it happened often.
I changed the pace: fast, quick, move, slow.
I noticed that the phenomenon happened more often in fast and quick and much less, but still, in move and slow (I did not test hunt)
  To ensure the movement, the best is to divide the teams. Even without giving a deadline, they will all choose the same path.

[DaddyO]

Using slower movement modes is a great suggestion, Falaise.