[freeciv-ai] Re: pre-patch to new settler code

[Juhani Heino <juhani.heino@xxxxxxxxxx>]

As a whole, settlers work fine now. Here are some observations from
my test. Most of them don't regard settlers at all, and some are
probably taken care of already, but I include all in case somebody
gets fresh ideas.

Settlers were built "in vain", ie. the city was size 1. A couple
of times they even bought settlers - in those cases it was only
a matter of one turn, but in one city the settlers were ready
(not bought) 15 turns before the size increase.

Should settlers avoid huts? Once one was lucky, but the second
case was killed by barbarians.

AI plants cities even denser than I do, but that's OK because
with AI strategy the cities don't get big anyway. But I suggest
"oceanotropism": the settler would choose the place with max
amount of ocean squares. That would give more room. I can clarify
this, but sure you get the idea.

Triremes were idling at the port, so they could have been used for
exploring. Should we make an "appointment", ie. the ship must be
THERE and THEN, and before that they can explore? They went also
carelessly to outer sea, but I saw that discussed earlier.

Units should avoid stacking in a same tile. Especially diplomats!

This may be only a problem of the observation mode, but cities
were oscillating wildly with their specs. Example: all workers
were scientists, so food was getting lower. But the next turn
they had produced food normally, and they were shown as scientists
again.
This most importantly concerns govt model: many times they
changed from republic to despotism and then back almost
immediately. At least that caused loss of units, but it
doesn't seem healthy in other respects either.

A city was building barracks until the last moment and then
changed that to a defensive unit (it had none). Only a matter
of one turn, but loss of shields anyway. Perhaps easiest way
would be a policy that first you have a defence (built or
brought from another city) and then you can build barracks.
And too many barracks were built anyway. Perhaps a little
specialisation is needed: best producers make barracks and
armies, the others make settlers or even buildings of which
I didn't see many    8-)

Militia (warriors) attacked a city - I can't think of any
excuse for that. Well, maybe AI has a right for wishful
thinking, too    8-)

Even more inexcusable was sending a task force and leaving
the city undefended while the enemy was at the gates. The
city even had walls, still rare at the time. And the suckers
couldn't even invade the city they were targeting. It's an
idea that they were avoiding being captured by the diplomat,
but shooting him and his escort with cannon would have been
more fruitful, I think.

A city built diplomat as its only defender and was invaded
at once, of course.

A settler landed back in the middle of the own cities. There
was room enough, so it founded a city. Admittedly, the
alternative was polar cap or a longer voyage. But even with
one whale the ice would have been better.

Another settler landed to a good place, but then decided to
wander 6 tiles away, to a place just as (non)vulnerable as
the original one, and nearer the "own country" so other
settlers could have gone there.

A trireme took a catapult to explore - quite expensive, I
think. Generally the AI uses vulnerable attack machines;
usually they get shot down by city defenders. I think escort
would be good here, at least when they have musketeers.

Cities were still letting disorder continue.

City defenders attacked a phalanx outside. I don't see why
- they would be better off letting it attack. Not even
counting the terrain bonus.

As I said, I didn't see many buildings. But sure, Greeks were
building Great Library and AFAIK they scrapped it many times
in favour of other needs. They even used caravans. And the
Library is one of the most futile wonders I know.

I got this message, but it didn't seem to affect functionality:
1: Encountered an inconsistency in add_adjust_workers() for city Dublin

I hope you can make out something of these    8-)

Juhani