Low CPU/Memory/Memory-bandwith Pathfinding (maybe like in Warcraft 1)

Posted by Valmond on Game Development See other posts from Game Development or by Valmond
Published on 2012-09-14T12:11:19Z Indexed on 2012/09/14 21:49 UTC
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algorithm

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path-finding

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warcraft

Dijkstra and A* are all nice and popular but what kind of algorithm was used in Warcraft 1 for pathfinding?

I remember that the enemy could get trapped in bowl-like caverns which means there were (most probably) no full-path calculations from "start to end". If I recall correctly, the algorithm could be something like this:

A) Move towards enemy until success or hitting a wall

B) If blocked by a wall, follow the wall until you can move towards the enemy without being blocked and then do A)

But I'd like to know, if someone knows :-)

[edit] As explained to Byte56, I'm searching for a low cpu/mem/mem-bandwidth algo and wanted to know if Warcraft had some special secrets to deliver (never seen that kind of pathfinding elsewhere), I hope that that is more concordant with the stackexchange rules.

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