[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Small patch to AI Manage functions

[Gregory Berkolaiko <gberkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

 --- Zach Garner <zach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
[...]
> 
> As a note, I am very interested in working on the AI in freeciv.

You are very welcome to! :)

> However, I have not contributed a great deal to Free software projects
> before (though I have worked on the AI for the game Othello under
> guidance of my prof. for an extended period of time). I very much
> appreciate help and criticism and will do my best conform to freeciv's
> coding style, procedures, etc. 

As Raimar outlined, there are two sides to it: client side helper stuff
(to cut micromanagement) and server side AI proper.

The client side people have three advantages -- they are not weighted
down by messy and badly commented code, they have a maintainer directly
working on it (Raimar that is) and their changes are immediately obvious
to the end-user.

The AI people have a dubious advantage of having a big code base with a
lot of wisdom in it but it's very hard to distinguish wisdom from folly
at times.

The immediate task is cleaning and commenting AI base code.
Then there are missing capabilities like diplomacy, active use of
diplomats, use of airplanes.
Then there is globalisation issue: how to make AI do things as a
civilization, not a collection of independent cities.

At times the patch acceptance process is long, but if you have patience
and motivation, there is so much you can do!

Best wishes,
G.

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