[freeciv-ai] Re: (PR#3663) Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#3665) [PATCH] Thanks for the really addictive game, guys!

["rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SMAC makes cheating part of the rules so it is no longer cheating.

Its basic idea is to scale the thresholds for any and all resource
or cost items. Thus food boxes have 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 row sizes, one
needs 60-150% resources to build units or improvements, gain techs
etc.

So typically there are per civ penalty/bonuses for various activities.
The rationale is that various factions have different strengths or
weaknesses, and thus can find cheaper ways to do certain things.
Typically there is balane in that if you gain a boost in one area
it costs you in another. This also helps to foster AI personalities
since depending on the bonus/penalty areas different AIs will appear
to have different priorities and will develop along different lines.

It should not be difficult to do something similar with a broad
range of similar elements rather than just the few mentionned below.

Another variation on the same scheme is to apply the same sorts of
penalty/bonus systems to civ ranking - the top civ in a particular
category is given a harder row to hoe, while the weakest have a
slightly easier time of it. This is sort of the philosophy used in
the tech leakage ideas. But this is much better for newbies as they
automatically get assistance or more challenge according to their
growth in skill level.

Cheers,
RossW
=====

Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
[...]
> Whatever handicap system we come up with, we need to decide how are we 
> going to solve this praticular problem:  AI researching too fast on easy 
> level.  Why this happens?  I guess because AI knows the best strategy -- 
> to go for the republic straight away.  So possible solutions might be:
> 
> 1. Tweak AI goverment selection.
> 2. Tweak AI rates selection (make it like luxury, say)
> 3. Tweak AI expansion parameters, make them dynamic, so the desire to make 
> new cities _decays_ with #of cities.
> 4. Introduce level-dependent AI research handicap.
> 
> Number 4 is an immediate and easily adjustable solution.  It seems that
> most people are against it on ideological grounds.  Well, I say, if
> ideology stands in the way of making the game more playable for more
> people, stuff the ideology.
> 
> G.