[freeciv-ai] Re: general report about a single player game with 15 AIs

[Lo'oris <lo_oris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Il giorno 09/feb/05, alle 12:57, Per Inge Mathisen ha scritto:

> I think this needs to be improved, so that the AIs will try to estimate potential gain from waging war when evaluating war wants. Defense power divided by the number of cities would be a good measure, perhaps. I know the AI in Moo2 does this, and it makes it worthwhile to upkeep a dummy army even though you have no need for it ;)

right. Moreover the AI could also notice if your cities are empty. I mean, if an AI notices that an opponent has got not army at all, it would sound very reasonable to attack

> > +++ TECH +++
> > First thing to be noted, is the tech level: i was far more advanced
> > then any AI except one. I suppose that this is only partly caused by my
> > peaceful status... and the main problems are tech exchanges. I could
> > trade technology with every other player
>
> Hopefully Mateusz has fixed this.

in beta7 or cvs?

> > +++ ALLIANCE +++
> > It was already strange that everybody was willing to be in peace with me, even when i was weaker both in military and in science... but it was even more strange to see how easily they proposed alliances. I got something like at least one proposal per turn, from anybody. They were really eager to get more allies.
>
> I agree this happens too quickly.

and too often, too

> > Do they understand that the game is won by a single player? I think they
> > don't.
>
> We have introduced 'allied victory' in the game, and the AI will attempt to achieve this.

uh i didn't know that

> > I personally thought an alliance is a very important and dangerous thing, and i would not intend to be allied with more than one player at once.They instead created two great blocks of alliances, something "the axis and the allies". Sounds weird to me.
>
> This is intentional. How smart it is, is another question.

well, i'll throw in my two cents: this is bad. And i'll explain why right now.

If i play against 15 AIs, that's because i'd like a complex game with complicate webs of diplomacy, and so on. If they instead form two great blocks, i feel i'm playing againts only 2 fronts. If i wanted that, i'd have used only 2 AIs, directly ;)

To "correct" that, i think an option "max allies" (i.e. you cannot have more allies than this variable) could help (it should affect both players and AIs). (Personally i'd set it to 1, or 2 at most).
Another, but more difficult, way, could be to have the AIs to alliance less easily, but it could be complex.

(Note that AI should know about that, he should know that he won't be able to have more than X allies, so they would choose them very accuratly)

> > +++ SIXTH SENSE +++
> > I very appreciated one thing in particular: i was preparing to do war to on an opponed that "peacefully colonized" myown island. So i created lots of units, fortifications, etc. They noticed this, and
> > their attitude to me became "Uneasy". Unfortunatly they were not willing or not able to protect those cities, even if they had plenty of time.
>
> The AI is stupid. What can I say.

oh well not so stupid. The good (really good) thing is that they understood i was going to attack them (i hardly think it's a coincidence). Ok they didn't react, but at least they noticed.

> > +++ VARIETY +++
> > Unfortunatly i found it very frustrating to play a game with 15 opponents that thought exactly in the same way. I think that having different behaviours for different AI players, would be the most important improvement that freeciv could do.
>
> In what ways should the AIs be different? Which is more important?
> Diplomacy? Units built?

everything. Do you remember in CIV2 every nation had two qualities? They were something like "Perfectionist / Expansionist" and "Aggressive / Peaceful"...

So i think we should have some variables set differently for each AI player, and based on that they could either build a few good cities, or large empires of little cities, they could attack everybody unless they really notice they can't (too much wars or too inferior) or they could try to ask peace to anybody.

If you are willing to implement this i could elaborate it further :)
-- 
[Lo'oris,] tu sei il lano e modifichi astromondi
- Braindamage

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