Good, average roads and poor roads - why not use the better one?

[BlueInMotion]

I searched the forum as well as the manual for this question but didn't find a satisfactory answer. So I try it here.
I'm just a casual player but I noticed, that when I move units around they rarely follow the roads, be it major or minor ones.

E.g. in swampy/wooded areas units (motorized or not) usually try to avoid these and take a big detour, even if there are average roads in those swampy/wooded hexes.

From the manual I take that good roads are continuous line, average roads are the dotted line and poor roads are no line.

I haven't tried every possible (good, average or poor) hex and area, but I regularly see my units just walking or driving cross country, even if there are good or only average roads around.

If there is no road (aka poor infrastructure) in the hex the penalty should be severe and the units should use available roads, right? Because even a with horse drawn carriage (and the majority of the German units still used horse drawn carriages), using the average road even through difficult terrain (swamps or wooded areas) should be far better than going cross country on bad roads.

So why don't my units take a more direct approach using the average roads through difficult terrain but instead make a big detour avoiding those hexes with roads?

[Wiedrock]

So why don't my units take a more direct approach using the average roads through difficult terrain but instead make a big detour avoiding those hexes with roads?

They take the route which requires the least amount of MPs. If you want to circumvent this you can move each Hex individually one by one.

And example which may make it understandable (and ignores all the special additional rules):
A Tank Division (which is always MOT) pays 16MP per Hex in Mountain Terrain which has "average roads" (so dotted roads painted on the map).
So if this Division would need to move 5 of such Hexes it would need to pay 5x16MP=80MP.
If it has another route of "poor road" Hexes (so no rail lines on map) through Clear terrain which means moving 30 Hexes instead of 5, it will take the "longer route" paying the 30x1MP=30MP Movement Cost instead of moving three Hexes per turn (a MOT Division has max 50MP per turn, so moving the 5 Mountain Hexes would only allow you to move 50MP/16MP=3Hexes per Turn).
Note: This is an theoretical example, not 100% sure if the game would actually do it like this (I assume it would).

[BlueInMotion]

Thanks for the answer.

But let me give you an example for what I mean: turn 3 Army Group South. 298th ID, hex west of Kivertsy (189/177), 15 MP left. I want to move this ID east to Rovno.

The way the route is taken by the computer is one hex to the southeast (190/178) and then strait to the east until Rovno is reached. 298th ID now has 8 MP left. Using this way there are three hexes with poor roads (infrastructure): one has light wood, one is clear and one is a swamp hex. Neither of this three hexes has an average road.

In reality the 298th ID probably would have moved to Lutsk (190/178), then east (191/178), then northeast (191/177), then strait east until hex north west of Rovno (194/177) and then south east to Rovno (195/178), because there are average roads using this way. 298th ID has 8 MP left as well. Using the average road would probably been faster than moving through light woods and a swamp with only poor roads and 298th ID should have more MP left, because using average roads would have been way faster.

Another example. turn 3 as well: the newly activated XXXV. Korps: I want to move it east to the area of Brest Litovsk: the computer moves southeast to Lodz, east to hex 171/174, southeast 171/175, east to hex 174/175, northeast to Lukow (176/171), east to 178/170, northeast to 178/169, east to 181/169. Using this way there multiple hexes with only average roads, some with poor roads, some with only railroads and so on.

In reality it probably would have moved east to Warsaw on good roads and from there eastwards via a slight detour (?) to Siedlce and on to Brest Litovsk. There are at least average roads all the way to Brest Litovsk, thus I could avoid any poor road.

I know that the way the game is programed it doesn't take this into account. But would it be impossible to program it by increasing the MP values and differ the terrain values more?

This doesn't make sense and kills immersion (a little bit at least).

[Sammy5IsAlive]

As per the tables posted by Wiedrock, the road system starts to be much more important in heavy mud and heavy snow. When the weather is good, both in the game and, in my view at least, in reality the quickest route is the straightest (perhaps with diversions to avoid the heaviest terrain), even if this means using unpaved dirt roads.

[BlueInMotion]

I see your point so I looked at the 'Stalingrad to Berlin campaign' - Soviet side - because it starts in winter.

And here too the units (motorized or foot), well they don't avoid roads, but they don't seem to make as much use of the advantages of the available average and goods roads as they should and did historical when calculating their way to the intended destination.

To sum it up, I got the impression that the road system is not implemented very good. Roads or the lack of roads should have a bigger impact on the movement of units.

I haven't delved into the supply system as much, so the road system may have a bigger impact there. But in my opinion the movement system (aka path finding) isn't very sophisticated and sometimes kills immersion.

[Wiedrock]

I know that the way the game is programed it doesn't take this into account. But would it be impossible to program it by increasing the MP values and differ the terrain values more?

You could mod the MPs in the first Chart I've posted. So you could adjust the costs and fine tune them to have some more difference as you immerse it would be.
What you need to remember is that Roads neither get destroyed or congested by using them. Additionally there are no Road signs which need to be palced or no rules on which Divisions are allowed to go first, so it's a simplification and you have to immerse it in a way which you see fit.

A while back I found the Panzerstraßen (Tank Roads) which were intended for AGS to advance into Ukraine, it's not finished, there was a minitual text describing which Unit were ordered to go which route until point X and also some alternative routes were given. As you can see the game doen't have the exact same Road network since it's hard to define at which point a poor road becomes a average road and so on. But it highlights, that even "poor roads" are also roads and in some occasions possibly even better suited for advancing than "average (dotted) roads".

[Jango32]

To sum it up, I got the impression that the road system is not implemented very good. Roads or the lack of roads should have a bigger impact on the movement of units.

Basically road quality affects a unit only in 3 circumstances:

1. morale is above 50 or above 80
2. unit is motorised or non-motorised (sometimes motorised units do not get road MP reduction)
3. hex type and the weather in there

And even then, it's arguably not that important outside of being slightly less expensive spending MPs to move. I am also pretty sure that road quality doesn't affect the logistics phase at all in practice.

[Joel Billings]

Deliveries in the logistics phase are all about the number of MPs to make the move from the depot to the unit. The greater the MPs, the greater attrition on trucks and the less freight delivered to units. Especially in bad weather, better roads can make a difference.

[Jango32]

My mistake, I mixed up roads with ZoC when I wrote the observation concerning the impact on the logistics phase.