[freeciv-ai] Re: omniscience problem

[Christian Knoke <chrisk@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 06:12:29PM -0500, Mike Kaufman wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 09:14:34PM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > The AI is omniscient and makes decisions based on this. This includes
> > where to build cities. However, workers, even an AI's workers, cannot be
> > placed on unknown territory. This presents a problem. Sometimes the AI
> > places a city on a really great spot, but since much of it is unknown, it
> > stagnates. An entire AI nation can grind to a halt this way.
> > 
> > One obvious solution is to allow the AI to place workers on unknown tiles.
> > This solution may break clients watching the AI, however. Sure would wreak
> > havoc on CMA.
> > 
> > I am tempted to go for a more radical solution. Now that we have /away, we
> > can reveal the entire map for omniscient AIs. This way those of us who
> > watch AIs, can see what AIs see, which is very useful.
> 
> NOOOOOOOOO! This  is  the  wrong  direction....

This is what I thought but didn't say anything.

Going in the direction of removing omniscience, I'd say, let the AI build
cities only if the surrounding is explored, or more exact, only count tiles
which are explored.

Fancying how the AI works, I think, the settler has to go 2 or three steps
further, then goes back to a tile it now knows to be valuable. Not a big
handicap.

Just my 0.00002 cent.

Christian

-- 
Christian Knoke     * * *      http://www.enter.de/~c.knoke/
* * * * * * * * *  Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse dividendum.