[Freeciv-Dev] Re: AI Reengineering

[Mathias Broxvall <matbr@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> The goal of what I am proposing is not fixing the actual AI but rebuilding it 
> completly. Ok, meanwhile someone can make some patches for fixing bugs, so 
> the game works better than it does now. 

If you need voulanteers I'd like to help since I (like someelse wrote earlier)
also like to play civ games for just a small while without allocating myself
to a network game (+ I've got terrible ping times / packet loss rates).  

As I see it  there are three approaches to choose between.

1. Write a completely new AI client - not thouching the server!
2. Make a new AI player in the server but keeping the option of
  using the old AI player. 
3. Replacing the AI in the server.

The last approach probably isn't acceptable since we couln't commit it until
the new AI is strictly better than the existing AI in every
scenario/modpack/savegame etc. Even then some people probably would object.

Point number two above has the advantage of storing extra information in
existing structures (storing utility values in map cells / enemy cities etc...)
without a duplicate representation of them - but it would probably get some
clashes with the existing AI.

So, as I see it the best way is to got for a networked AI, I believe there's
been some work at that earlier? Is this the way to go? 

Also, should we write a generic AI working for all rulesets and modpacks or a
specific AI for the default rules (with some considerations to options) and
simply expect other AI's to be written for other modpacks. 

/ Mathias Broxvall (ready to start hacking as soon as the computer at home
works again...)