[freeciv-ai] Re: ai bug when splitting up settlers

["Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 13 May 2002, Ross W. Wetmore wrote:
> It is probably a mistake to split settlers into two non-convertable units,
> at least at this stage of the AI. You really need the flexibility of all
> types of activities to balance things out, as the original code did and
> you are finding out.

The split has already been done. To be able to make worker units is a
feature in Freeciv, and that feature is really ill supported in the AI. I
believe a few fixes will make it acceptable.

> It is a mistake to try and figure out what the "best" level of anything
> is as well.

It is a mistake for us to assume for the AI what is best for it, yes. It
should do its own analysis and find out. But right now we need to curb
some excess building behaviour.

> The trick is to figure out what good and bad are, and to come up with
> reasonable feedback effects. If you are grwoing too many settlers, then
> the want value for settlers should be scaled down

What is "too many settlers"? If there are no threats on the horizon, if
anti-ICS parameters are set very low, and we gain more long-term
production, trade and science by simple building more cities (which is
true now), then it should build settlers, settlers and even more settlers
until there is a good reason not to.

> If you insist on splitting the types, then workers should go join
> smaller cities to raise them to rapture levels, or to exploit resources.
> roading hills and mountains, or transforming terrain are also good
> activities for surplus workers with two workers tasked per tile. But
> right now the "join city" is probably part of founding and (mistakely)
> off limits to your workers.

I don't think that is a mistake. In my own ruleset, workers are regular
units, and don't have pop_cost. Ideally, "join city" behaviour should be
another flag, though, so that this can be customized better, but for that
we need to reorganize city_desirability a bit first. The "join city" code
there should be moved into a separate function anywy, I think.

BTW, Ross, can you take a look at my settlers.c cleanup patch? There are
also two bugfixes for settlers.c in the bitvector flags patch.

Yours,
Per

"As Israeli forces pursued militants, civilians
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