I am using a modified flood fill design at the moment,it works in 6 directions since I'm working with hex map designs at the moment. I don't know how this stacks up against the A* in general but for rts/rpg type games where you have to plot a course for multiple targets for multiple rpc's I think this method could really shine. unlike A* this routine starts at the target and floods out posibly hitting multiple npc's depending on that distance set for the target, multi targets can be plotted at the same time and shortest distance will overwrite any overlaps.So for gather's of food a single map could be generated for all the npc's in a group and would remain valid until a food source runs out. a return map would be required for unloading of course but it would remain valid until all resources in the area have been depleted.