Intelligent moving of groups in real-time strategy games

This paper investigates the intelligent moving and path-finding of groups in real-time strategy (RTS) games exemplified by the open source game Glest. We utilize the technique of flocking for achieving a smooth and natural movement of a group of units and expect grouping to decrease the amount of unit losses in RTS games. Furthermore, we present a setting in which flocking will improve the game progress. But we also demonstrate a situation where flocking fails. To prevent these annoying situations, we combined flocking with influence maps (IM) to find safe paths for the flock in real time. This combination turns out to be an excellent alternative to normal movement in Glest and most likely in other RTS games.