[Freeciv-Dev] Re: AI

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 07:55 PM 01/09/15 -0700, Raahul Kumar wrote:
>What is the current state of Freeciv's AI? Is anyone
>currently working on a patch to add diplomacy to the
>AI?

The current AI is largely in the state that it was in a
year or so back when Syela (Trent can give you the real
name) stopped working on it. Basically, no one else can 
figure out how to change this without the whole system 
coming unglued.

Currently the "neural net" (because that is the best 
analogy for the current code - layers of complex decision 
weights and code that mixes certain weights to make a 
decision) is hardwired for a despotic sort of xenophobic 
play mode. The AI has two states, "No Contact" and "War".

>I have heard proposals to radically change the AI, but
>is anyone actually planning to implement these or not?

There are proposals to develop client-side AI through
"Advisors" that humans can use to offload some of the 
mundane strategy aspects. Raimar is laying some of the 
infrastructure for this.

I am in the process of hacking the server AI code left by
Syela to try and first cleanup and document what it does,
and then try to localize and parameterize some of the
characteristics, so that the AI instances can develop a
bit more "personality", i.e. to want things other than to
beat up on any other civ it knows about.

The step after this is to teach the AI the concept of 
"not enemy", and then maybe move on to "trade with not
enemy is good", where trade values may be influenced by 
the personality goals.

>I would also like to know exactly how Civ II ai behaved,
>i.e which techs to offer to other players, whether to
>demand tribute or not, and how exactly it kept track
>of karma. 

This answer to this is, whatever you want to make of it.
Currently you have pretty much a blank slate to write code 
on.

>Is there any particular reason for the trade
>management to be so bad? The AI never seems to attempt
>to grow its cities before opening trade routes, and
>never attempts to trade with the biggest cities of
>foreign civs.

It is not bad ... it is non-existent.

Cheers,
RossW
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