[freeciv-ai] Re: AI plans

[Gregory Berkolaiko <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> It does appear that our plans for the AI's war code is not documented
> anywhere. Did we really only discuss this on irc and not make any logs,
> Greg?

Yes, but you recollected everything pretty well.

> Anyway. I will try to rehash the ideas. Since both I and Greg are pretty
> busy, anyone who wants to have a go at it should feel free to. At the
> moment, I am working on diplomacy and hunter code and Greg is working on
> ferry code, and I think that's it. Everything else is up for grabs.
>
> So. The idea is that find_something_to_kill (hereafter fstk) should be
> retired in its entirety, along with kill_something_with (ksw) and other
> related braindamage.
>
> A new system should be built which clearly separates defensive attacks
> (kill units converging on our cities) from coordinated offensive attacks
> (bring an army to the enemy).
>
> Defensive attacks are in general in two categories:
>   1) kill dangerous units that are too close to our cities
>   2) kill transports, diplomats and other dangerous units before they get
> close

[defensive attacks skipped]

> Then on to the offensive part.
>
> We should calculate a 'ground zero', a place to concentrate our attacks.
> This should be a coordinate on a continent that is somewhat close to the
> AI, which has not too well defended cities, and bonus if there are rails
> and roads we can abuse. We should calculate a turn sometime in the future
> when we should have forces enough available to conquer this place.

Let's discuss this point a bit.  I think to calculate ourselves a target
it is best to use PF with multiple starting points, taking all our cities
as the possible starting points (maybe all on a given continent).  This
way we cover all target reachable from at least one of our cities.

This is not part of PF yet.  If you think it will be useful here, I will
(re)start working on it.

G.

> Units that are recruited to offensive actions should check each turn if
> they must start moving towards ground zero this turn to reach it or not
> (with some margin of error). If they must, start moving. If not, just
> check for rampage targets and wait. This way the army will only assemble
> once they are at the ground zero, at which point it is hopefully too
> late to do countermeasures.
>
> If they need to ferry, then they should grab a ferry immediately, and
> the ferry will sail when it is time. (I am not sure about this point.
> Greg?)
>
> When moving into ground zero, avoid ending up stacked with other units
> (if killstack == 1). This is a challenge best left to the pf authors, I
> believe, rather than custom hacked into the AI movement code.
>
> The offensive want calculation should be based on the same principles
> as ksw - that is, we check what is a good unit to attack versus the
> units in the ground zero area. We need a nice statistical distribution
> of attackers and defenders (bodyguards).
>
> Now, the big question is how to stick the odd unit capabilities into
> this. Diplomats, nuclear and air units should (still) be handled by
> separate code, I think. Paratroopers, I am not sure.
>
> Comments / ideas? Code? :)
>
>   - Per
>
>