[freeciv-ai] Re: Borg AI.

[Per I Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
> Is there a reason why you can't use these guesses with influence maps?

No, as I said, it is possible to use influence maps in freeciv, but it
isn't as easy as the standard influence map model, where you just map
units into a map struct and mesh the values out. The really hard part is
to figure out where the units could be hiding, and the influence map
doesn't really help there.

> So you attacked and found that there is a defending Archer. You killed
> it but the city is still defended. What information does this give to
> the attacker about the remaining defending forces? IMHO nothing except
> that the city doesn't currently have stronger defenders than Archers.

I was thinking more high-level. ie we try one attack on continent X with Y
units and fail. So next time we try continent 2 instead. Or something.
Attacking repeatedly on the same spot is a typical AI failure that we
should avoid.

> IMHO a good way would be to assume a fixed number (1 or 2) of the best
> defenders in the city and than attack if you have collected enough
> forces to get the city. If you fail increase the number and retry. If
> you get your first city you can also learn from this. You know how
> many defenders and which type their were. You can now use this to
> _estimate_ the defense of other enemy cities.

That doesn't sound right. Often the enemy will attempt to rush its units
into the single spot where you concentrate your attacks, leaving other
cities less defended.

Yours
Per