[freeciv-ai] Re: RFC: Behaviour constants.

[Gregory Berkolaiko <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> On Wed, 4 Dec 2002, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
> > How can we improve AI without going too deep?
> >
> > This is a legitimate question, and an answer to it is given by various
> > constants and factors and multipliers that the AI code is peppered with.
> > Examples are: what is considered to be a small nation (number of cities)
> > -- used to encourage settler building; what is the default danger for
> > capital; what is food/shield weighting etc.
> >
> > Some of these numbers are defines, some are just plain numbers.What I
> > propose is to collect them all in some .h file included in all AI files,
> > so they can be tweaked in a systematic way.Then tweak them and run
> > pitfights, lots of them.There ar, of course difficulties like "constant
> > is constant for all nations", but they are solvable.
> 
> I think this is the wrong answer. We can tune the AI a lot to a bunch of
> constants, but the moment we change the rules or use a modpack, these
> constants will be way off. Better teach the AI to utilize the rules
> better. Better attack code, better ferry code, better settler code and
> better production code is much more of an improvement in the long run than
> even a 50% improvement in pitfight stats due to tuning of constants.

You misunderstand me.  This is not "the" answer.  This is not an 
alternative to writing proper algorithms.  This is a way to additionally 
improve the quality of AI, by using fx GA as banjo suggested.  And also to 
understand the influence of the constants on the AI strategy.

Answering to Raimar, the best way is to do it
        int get_foo(pplayer)
so it's a player dependent constant.

Answering to Mike and Ross, in

> > Examples are: what is considered to be a small nation (number of cities)
> > -- used to encourage settler building; what is the default danger for
> > capital; what is food/shield weighting etc.

I wasn't asking questions.  I was giving examples of constants which can 
be taken for tuning.

G.