[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [PATCH] aiunit.c ai_military_findvictim() cleanup (PR#1264)

[Raahul Kumar <raahul_da_man@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Petr Baudis <pasky@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear diary, on Sat, Feb 23, 2002 at 02:38:58PM CET, I got a letter,
> where Raahul Kumar <raahul_da_man@xxxxxxxxx> told me, that...
> > > > I believe but I am not sure, that the AI does not become democratic or
> > > > republic.
> > > > It's always on the offensive, so the unhappiness would kill it. Is unit
> > > > unhappiness actually an issue? 
> > > 
> > >   Make sure that you're really understanding the cause and effect
> > > here.  The AI may not "become democratic or republic" precisely because
> the
> > > unhappiness from it's despotic/monarchic past might be too much of a
> drain.
> > > 
> > >   The "production at all costs, and ignore whether we can find useful
> > > outlets for it" attitude of the AI probably contributes a lot to the
> > > bizarre styles of play it has.
> > > 
> > 
> > I was wrong in that according to Petr the AI does become a republic.
> Frankly,
> > I have not yet seen that in any game I have ever played. In order of
> popularity
> > I have seen:
> > 
> > Despotism
> > Monarchy
> > Communism
> 
> I usually check mainly AI which are able to compete with me ;-) and they are
> Republic most times (or Monarchy rarely).
> 

This is bizarre. What does determine the tech path for ai nations? I'm pretty
sure that the nations ruleset contains techs the AI is supposed to go for.
Exactly how this relates to the ai tech path I do not know.

> > Fixing the production issue, the AI badly needs more science. That means
> > fixing ai_eval_governments to actually work. That means writing a happiness
> > manager for  the AI. Building order for improvements, that means fixing the
> > priority overrides for military units. Military units should not get
> priority
> > over wonders of the world or temples, or settlers at times. This is a very
> > scary list.
> 
> Cutting these out from Ross' corecleanups would be worthy. I plan do it after
> some more cleanups... (basically I now plan another path for that common
> formula, then cleaning up one other not-very-nice military function and then
> cleaning up parts touched by Ross' cleanup)

Just ask Ross to do that. He'd know the corecleanups better than anyone else.

> > I believe that there is one quick fix solution. Come up with a minimal
> > diplomacy model to allow the AI to trade techs. That will stop the AI from
> > being so badly behind in technology.
> 
> If we are going to do it, we should to it properly. No quick hacks and quick
> fixes, please.
> 

The AI trading techs with other countries would not be easy. I do not feel like
trying to work out when the ai should pay tribute, when it should kowtow to its
neighours etc. Have a look at the lack of diplomacy code. It's a tremendous
mess.

> And, then I won't be able to win against AI! :) (I'm relatively bad freeciv
> player)
> 

Yes you would. You'd just have to trade techs as well. In fact this would allow
a trader style of play. You research techs that Civ 1 does not have, in order
to
gain a tech that Civ 2 does not have. You then trade that tech to Civ 3, and 
you are now 3 techs ahead, with a 2 tech lead on the AI civs.

It might mean an alternative to war. 
> -- 
> 
>                               Petr "Pasky" Baudis
> 
> * elinks maintainer                * IPv6 guy (XS26 co-coordinator)
> * IRCnet operator                  * FreeCiv AI hacker
> .
> No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.
> .
> Public PGP key && geekcode && homepage: http://pasky.ji.cz/~pasky/
> 


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