[freeciv-ai] Re: Borg AI.

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:53 AM 02/07/03 +0200, Raimar Falke wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 10:30:26AM +0200, Per I Mathisen wrote:
>> On Wed, 3 Jul 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
[...]
>> Often we will simply have to do an attack in the dark without much
>> knowledge of the enemy's real strength. Then we can use the
>> knowledge of how this attack fared to determine the quality of the
>> defenses of the area.
>
>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.
>
>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.

Yes!!!  

There is hope for you yet ... iterative vs detailed strategies are good(TM).

In the case of estimations for such attacks, there is a 2-1 rule or
variants of this that says you always need to overestimate the attacker
strength.

Another way to think of this is you need to supply attackers, plus an 
appropriate level of subsequent defence.

Thus the basic AI strategy should always be to coordinate and attack
in strength with multiple units.

A refinement can be made when more detailed knowledge is available, 
and/or some agent refining code is implemented.

A "nuisance" or "opportunistic" attack option can be implemented when
there is an excess unit and there is some perceived tactical advantage.
Only aggressive or war-crazed Civs should do this in general, or do
this with any degree of regularity. Barbarians are the exception :-).

>       Raimar
>-- 

Cheers,
RossW
=====