So I've been trying to plan out a turn-based strategy game, and was thinking about unit movement, with suggestion options to a player and to handle a computer player's choices. I was thinking of using a simple A* method to find the shortest route to the desired space. Since a space can be advantageous or problematic, would just adding an extra variable to the heuristic help in avoiding certain regions and moving towards others? For example, assuming a unit can move say 10 spaces a turn, and units could potentially be hiding in specific terrain, a unit would want to walk around the terrain a unit can hide in (like woods), so they don't run into a dangerous space. Would just rating the movement cost higher for that space be enough?

The current idea is I have a map that has a few terrain elements units can hide in during FoW. I'm trying to come up with a way to traverse around those spaces, instead of walking through them (walking through could trigger either a surprise attack or a full halt of the unit that is moving). Enemy unit count and units able to hide in that terrain is not known.

I think a function that creates a "terrain evaluation" would work for adding an additional value to the movement cost. Keep the terrain danger value but add in a negative due to it being a goal space.

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to see how things pan out as I go.

Reducing just the goal space and no others is useless since if there is a finite cost the A* algorithm will find the path to the goal; it will just search more and more nodes trying to find it. You probably want to give a negligible cost to all spaces right next to the goal though so if you are right next to it in your search you go that way first.

That's a good point. I guess I wasn't thinking that part through all the way. That's why we plan things out, right?