In .74 I would say there is an improvement over .72 in handling move orders with larger groups. You had people circling like electrons on an atom if they all moved to one destination together, and now you seem to have fixed that. But even now they still run chaotically and cluster tightly together.
It isn't all that desirable to have everyone cluster as close as possible - which if you give a group a move order - is exactly what they will do upon arriving. You are just asking for one guy with a fragment axe to clean up in one swing. Also it tends to be problematic if you order someone in the center to move out when everyone is clustered.
It makes more sense that they would stand and move in formation. I mean you are raising something like an army here. Obviously I would not expect the bandits to behave this way, but I'd want my men to do so. Groups of Samurai/Holy Nation soldiers/etc already do so while patrolling. This is what you would expect them to act and fight like... as trained soldiers would.
Kenshi already has something similar implemented, so I think this could be done too. If you tell people to bodyguard someone and give only that person a move order, they move in a more orderly fashion instead of individually/chaotically racing to the destination. Given that not everyone is equally fast, giving groups of people move orders over large distances always has bad results and might put some of them at a disadvantage should they encounter enemies in the desert while spread apart.
As is... it it is practically mandatory when moving large distances to -
1. Figure out who the slowest person is
2. Give them them the move order, and have everyone else bodyguard them.
3. Then eventually someone is approaching and you have to select everyone and give the attack order (unless you want to let the enemy get first blows in).
4. After the fight is done you have to assign everyone to bodyguard all over again. Supposing someone has an injured leg, you might have a new-slowest person. Go to step 1.
Obviously it gets tedious. It would be a lot less trouble to just have them behave as a squad should.
Although squad movement would be nicer, there might be situations where you want people to individually race to a spot (what they will always do now). The UI already has a walk/jog/run option. How about integrating "formation march" as a forth option into the existing UI?
Another side benefit I could think of - this could reduce/simplify the amount of pathing that needs done. Only the "squad leader" needs to path to a destination - perhaps walking further away from obstacles than usual - and the rest of the squad just moves relative to the leader. I suppose the rest of the squad might need only check closely around them for obstacles (so they don't walk through walls when the leader goes through a door etc). But still I'd think there would be performance benefits to be had versus everyone needing full pathing.
