Civilization 6 settler decided to recreate Moses' journey and wander through the desert

One of the most engaging activities when playing Civilization is improvising scenarios and explanations for everything happening with your civilization. I still remember moments from made-up epics when I played Civilization 3 about 25 years ago, like spending many turns building a railroad through jungles stretching from north to south on a neighboring continent to deliver coal to a port city and beyond to power my empire. It wasn't necessary since resources are automatically available everywhere, but it brought the process to life. By the way, this brings up thoughts that Civ clearly lacks hardcore logistics mechanics.

Scrolling through the Civilization subreddit, I stumbled upon a screenshot from one player that reminded me of all these imaginary scenarios and explanations. The image shows a settler choosing the most absurd route to their destination – instead of taking a direct path, the unit decided to make a complete detour through the desert to reach the only suitable tile for founding a city. As the player noted:

I think my settler's name is Moses. 4(0) extra turns through the desert!

The screenshot shows how the planned route circles around the city in a wide arc through desert tiles instead of simply stepping toward the city on turn 8. Considering that in the early stages each turn takes an enormous amount of in-game years, this maneuver will cost the Settler centuries.

One commenter explained the reason for this behavior. It's due to peculiarities in how the pathfinding algorithm works – the AI calculates routes line by line, and an error in one column can lead to such "spirals" appearing. This is exactly why enemy AI sometimes makes senseless moves, and late-game stages on huge maps start to lag – the computer chokes on calculations.

However, as players joke, this Settler looked at the map and said he wanted the scenic route. Though the city location itself isn't the most advantageous. Unfortunately, the player didn't provide a screenshot of the entire map.