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

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a bit confused about all the complaints of AI 
omniscience, because it seems to me the easy AI 
_isn't_ very omniscient.  Well, it knows about places 
to build cities, but the easy AI doesn't use that 
information very well.   And it _doesn't_ know where 
your cities are until it finds them.  It does know 
what defenders you have in cities, though a player can
also see undefended cities (if completely empty) in 
the minimap.

Could those who have trouble with the easy AI try with
the server option generator=3 and report back whether
that helps.  (Or if you've already tried that, just say :-)
I agree maybe that should be the default. 
(I'm slightly hesitant because I think generator=1
still produces the nicest maps, with the other
generators giving maps which are too regular in some
ways, and too random in other ways.)

When I did the easy AI mode I made it favour expansion 
less, since that is what makes the normal/hard AI very 
powerful.  But for AI's on the same continent at the start 
of the game that may actually make them even _harder_, 
because they may tend to produce military units even more 
(instead of building some settlers to expand with.)  With
generator=3 (so that each player is on a different continent) 
beginners should have a reasonable chance against the easy 
AI, I hope.

Regards,
-- David