Re: Re : [Freeciv-Dev] AI (was: Beta 1.8.0)

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 05, 1999 at 06:35:05PM +0100, Alexandre BERAUD was heard to say:
> If the AI is omnicient, then I understand many things. But the real
> problem is that the AI develops technologies too fast ! Please code
> a simple play level where it wouldn't earn technologies that fast.

  I actually don't think so.  The problem is omniscence.  The AI isn't just
getting a tech/etc boost (like in lots of other games), it's playing an
entirely different game.  For example, it generally expands twice as fast
as me because I have to explore regions--often encountering dead ends,
exploring areas where a city wouldn't work, etc--while it can just
decide on the best spot for a city and stick one there.  Same for
exploring the seas; it doesn't have to blunder around trying to find islands,
it just goes straight to the best one.  Plus, I have to heavily guard all my
cities since it knows where they are.  So it ends up expanding twice as fast
as me, and therefore gets twice as much science as I do.

  I've given up playing the FreeCiv AI until someone makes the omniscence
'feature' optional...

  Daniel

-- 
  The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four
forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and
bloody-mindedness.  Thus it was that the sun and the moon orbited the Disc
because they were persuaded not to fall down, but didn't actually fly away
because of uncertainty...
  Some druids suggested that there were certain flaws with this theory, but
senior druids explained very pointedly that there was indeed room for informed
argument, the cut and thrust of exciting scientific debate, and basically
it lay on top of the next solstice bonfire.

     -- Terry Pratchett on Discworld religion, _The Light Fantastic_