[freeciv-ai] Re: AI Explorer Improvement Idea

[Jason Dorje Short <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There is already such an algorithm in place.

* Each tile is given an "exploration value".
* A search is done outward from the explorer looking for tiles to explore.
* Each tile's goodness is then ammortized by the time it would take to 
get there.
* Finally the best tile is taken and the explorer heads there.

It's still 1-dimensional in that it doesn't consider that you can 
explore some tiles on the way to others for instance.
The main problem is that the exploration value isn't very good.  For 
instance tiles working by cities need to have an incredibly high 
exploration value.  Tweaking the values could probably give better 
results if you've got the time to test it out a lot.
-jason