[freeciv-ai] Re: Borg AI.

[Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2002, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:

> I don't know why I bothered to check out the Japanese screenshot, but what
> I saw exceeded my expectations.
>
> A brand-new AI which is actually working.  Wow!

> Please enlighten us on the history of this development.  Is it being
> actively developed?  Can we join the fun?

Basically Luís and me spent several weeks to make what you see there. It
is quite far from complete. Making an AI for a game like Freeciv is a
large project.

That said, I found it much easier than I thought. It is a large job, but
not that hard.

We stopped developing it some months ago due to lack of time. Luís can't
work on it at the moment and I am busy with the upcoming release and the
GTK+ 2.0 client. If you wish to further develop it, be my guest!
:-)

> I cannot say I am big fan of how certain things are done.  And maybe I
> would change the structure a little bit, but it is so wonderful to
> actually see a well-structured AI!!!  Written in a comprehensible manner!!

Heh. Yes we put quite some effort into it. We wanted the BORG AI to be
pretty clean. By this i mean an easy structure with well separated AI
agents, and the less intrusion in civserver code as possible. The AI the
current Freeciv AI gets called and messes with data in civserver is just
too much.
The BORG AI is not very smart, but it is way faster than the current AI.

BTW which things did you like and dislike in it?

> Also I am quite envious, as it was my dream to built a structured AI from
> scratch but I haven't got the guts / time to do it.

I know how you feel. I thought about starting a new AI about 3 years ago
but never had the time. I only managed to get the time for doing this
because i was able to shoehorn it into one of my classes at university.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa