Re: [Freeciv-Dev] city plan patch

[John-Marc Chandonia <jmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 13, 1999 at 12:19:08PM +0200, Peter Schaefer wrote:
> a)    Give a weight, for example, how much is it worth 

        I was assuming the AI is always wrong: it doesn't know if I'm
preparing for war, trying to catch up in science, building population,
raising money, etc.  It can know those things for the AI players, so
a good AI will set these kind of overall goals, weighted by importance,
and the AI city advisor should pay attention to them.  The AI should
be improved by looking at the logged games of good players and seeing
what sort of things they build under certain circumstances.  So,
the current AI will rarely make a good decision--once multiple lists
are implemented (i.e. specialized for a city with a lot of ocean, or
for a city with a lot of production ability) I don't think the player
would ever want to override the AI.

        Any additions to the saved file, like weights, should be easy
to add... optional numbers could be added on the same line as the
name of the improvement.

> b)    Should the improvement be bought when reaching 20/40 shields or more ?

        I think this is a good idea.  It's kind of difficult to express
when something should be bought without a scripting language, though,
since that depends on player cash, production in the city, and expected
time to completion.  If the AI ever explicitly uses city plans, this
should certainly go in!


> c)    Multiple lists; not urgent, since one day, someone will just drop by and
>       add that feature. 
>       (Important) However, it might be good to foresee this, and use a list 
> box
>       instead of a checkbox.

        Yes... that's a minor patch to citydlg.c; the harder part is setting
up the main city plan dialog to handle multiple plans.  The "infrastructure"
for multiple plans is in place, though.

> d)    Ability to build units; for example build two after building Barracks 
> II.
>       This is tricky if Musketeers are not yet available or have become 
> obsolete.
        I thought about this, but couldn't think of a good idea for now.
As a player, the stupid AI building choices bothered me more!  Note that
the city plan doesn't interfere with building units; the player can notice
when a barracks is built and switch to a unit; the plan will wait until
the next time a building gets built.

> e)    Ability to disband units, sell buildings, and to cancel build commands.

        This is more the sort of thing the AI should do; as a player,
I never plan obsolescence of units/buildings, so I would never put that
in a plan.  This is the sort of thing I would do in an emergency, so
that's not part of the plan...

[setting up the file]
> IMVHO, this should be in the options menu, and be saved in the 
> client options file. The city plan should be loaded when the option 
> has been turned on, and if a cityplan file is in ~/.freeciv or DATADIR.

        I think putting city plans directly in the client options file is
not flexible enough; however, you're right that the client should be
better about automatic loading if you've set them up.  Once we playtest
the city plans for a while, I think the most urgent improvements to them
should become clear.

JMC
-- 
John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)              We're everywhere...
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http://yuri.harvard.edu/~jmc                                -- Psi Corps <*>