Also, it seems that the computer remembers routes. Once established for a unit (say, freight) to move between 2 cities, it always seems to repeat the route without problems.

One warning, though. I *never* move naval units "goto". They seem to have a bizarre notion of efficient routes. Maybe that is Ming's 0 coordinate problem. Land units are much more trustworthy than naval units.

Because I made much of the goto in freeciv.
*shameless plug* And to my knowledge it _always_ works perfect.
-always finds the path with the smallest cost.
-it work fine where the map wraps in the x axis
-it never goes into loops
-when using airplanes the planes will stop at ways points to refuel, and never crash (MUCH easier than moving them yourself). btw, airplanes don't automatically loose all their movement when moved into a city

i was fighting a war on 2 fronts, the celts in the east and the spanish on my western coast! I smashed the celts no problem with a far supperior force but was struggling against the spanish, so i sent my victorious army from the east to the west!!!

Now the path was fully roaded, about 24 squares in all, now for my army of horses, elephants and knights, this should've taken 4 to 5 turns depending on time to get on to the roads!!! but NO!!! the stupid computer sent them across the mountians, around MASSIVE inland lakes, the majority of my force arived after about 7 turns, after i abandoned the goto command and sent them by hand along the road!! by which time i'd lost 2 cities?!?!?!

I found this online:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Note: #0731 From: Ilovane Time: Tue Jun 13 23:24:27 2000
Area: General To: all
Subj: If operating systems ran airlines...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
UNIX Airways: Everyone brings one piece of the plane with them to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by
piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of airplane they are supposed to be
building.

Mac Airlines: All the airline personnel look and act exactly the same.
Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told
that you don't need to know, you don't want to know, and everything will be
done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air: The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards,
easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. Ten minutes into
the flight, the airplane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air: Just like Windows Air, but the tickets cost more, it uses
much bigger planes, and takes out all other aircraft in a 40-mile radius
when it explodes.

1) Mac Airlines: Everything is done for you without you needing to know the details.

2) Windows NT Air: The flight usually lasts about 20 minutes, not 10.

Well, just to drag us back on topic ( ), I tend to use the Go To command a lot in the Mac MPG version and except for crossing the seam in the world, it usually works okay. Sometimes units seem to run off the road like they missed the turn and caused a traffic pile-up. I've never tried a "test drive" followed by repairing the route with an engineer; that sounds like a good idea. However, I've never noticed units taking a mountain or the wrong way around the inland sea route. The success of the Mac Go To may be attributed to the Brian Nesse who fixed (at least to a major degree) the bug in the first Mac patch! I remember that before Brian's patch the Go To NEVER worked the way I would expect. Having said that, I still never risk a Trireme on a Go To command! ;p

Now I'm waiting for Smash to comment...

------------------
Different is GOOD!

I will admit that the latest patch does make the goto command work better than it did...
(and this didn't surprise me either)
But it could still use some improvements
(and this really doesn't surprise me)

The unpatched MGE version was a total write off.Units went whereever their little hearts desired.The patch helped alot but I still don't trust it.Try it with a bunch of freights or caravans.It can be quite amusing to watch.

It works alot better over short distances connected by RR.The straighter the RR,the better.Fairly reliable for inner core wonder building.

I noticed my triremes never sink despite wandering into open water under "go to".Unfortunatel,they never go where I want them to either.

Then I had to reinstall Civ II, and reinstall the patch. Now, I find (for the last several games) that the GoTo is still workable, but less so. I could once send a ship to a far-off port and forget about it until it arrived. Now I occasionally find it doing a shift from one point to another and back again.

On land, if there is a road, very often things will follow the road. However, several times a caravan heads out south to another city, then neglects to take a curve, and ends up going painfully cross-country, one space a turn, for the nexet little while.

If FreeCiv has fixed, or obviated, this bug, its almost enough to make me go and download Linux.