i have recently been finding out about aStar and have just done some paper work prior to coding,
i am confused because when two 'tiles' are equally valid moves i have read that it is not necessarily important which one is selected, but from my paper work i saw a much shorter path would have come from picking one than the other, and this in a simple grid.
The example is attatched if anybody would like to comment, and i have highlighted the tied move in question in yellow. The actual path found is shown by the red circles.
But in any case, any ideas on treatment of ties would be of interest.