Most of StephAmon's observations also apply to Caesar III roaming walkers. This comment applies only to C3, but I thought that it belongs here. (I'll link to this thread from the C3 Game Help forum.)
In either a "blockage-shorted" or "grounded" walk, the walker switching from destination to random mode "does not reverse direction". On an intersection-free loop road, that means that a Pharaoh walker will continue around the loop (at least until switching back to destination mode for the return to its building), but a C3 walker might not.
In C3 (unlike Pharaoh), destination walkers who are following a road will cut corners. (Note to StephAmon: using C3, your research might have been easier. ) If a walker was cutting a corner when it switches from destination to random mode, it may go in any road direction (since none of them are the reverse of cutting the corner). An example, in the next paragraph, may make this clearer.In my latest C3 city (a try at an interesting challenge: the "career" Valentia at Very Hard difficulty without trade, debt, the "rescue" gift, or initial personal funds), I started a housing block with a 46-tile intersection-free rectangular loop road, where I expected all roaming walkers to complete the loop. Most did. However, on 1 walk out of 4, the trader from one market near the east corner had a "grounded" walk which began with a counterclockwise destination walk to the tile just SW of the loop's north tile, and since she cut corners getting there, she arrived travelling toward the west (cutting from just SE of the north tile to just SW of the north tile). Switching to random mode, she chose to travel toward the northeast (not the reverse of toward the west) and continued clockwise. When switching from random back to destination mode near the loop's south tile, she reversed back to counterclockwise to return to her market, and therefore missed some houses on that walk. (Fortunately, I expect that traders from the 2 other markets, who go by all houses on every walk, will be sufficient to prevent devolution.)Thanks, StephAmon, for explaining what otherwise would have been a puzzling (and annoying) mystery!
[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 05-17-2005 @ 04:25 PM).]