[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [Bug][RFC] Stupid attack behaviour by AI (PR#1340)

[Raahul Kumar <raahul_da_man@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- "Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 08:56 PM 02/03/23 -0800, Raahul Kumar wrote:
> >
> >--- "Per I. Mathisen" <Per.Inge.Mathisen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 23 Mar 2002, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
> >> > Raahul Kumar drew my attention to this phenomenon: if you park your,
> say,
> >> > phalanx on a wee mountain outside an AI city then from time to time the
> >> > city's gates will burst open and AI will attack you with few phalanxes
> or
> >> > similarly inefficient units.  Seemingly without any real desire to kill
> >> you...
> >> ...
> >> > because reinforcements are counted in the attack but _not_ counted in
> the
> >> > loss.
> >> >
> >> > So what happens is:
> >> > AI accumulates quite a few defensive units.
> >> 
> >> Why on Earth does the AI build and attack with _defensive_ units?
> >
> >This is quite a vicious cycle. The answer is in three phases:
> >
> >The AI system of what to build is prioritised in favour of military units,
> and further weighted to favour defensive units first. It also checks the
> nearness of enemy units and that phalanx on a mountain outside the city is 
> very near.
> >Rather than build attacking units the AI builds defensive units because it 
> believes that single phalanx will take out 3+ phalanx behind city walls.
There 
> is a bug right here. Having enemy units outside the city leads the AI to 
> *ALWAYS* build defensive units.
> 
> It is not too difficult to phase over from defence to attack by tweaking 
> the danger calculations. After a couple defenders have been built it should
> start producing attack units. It should not attack with the last one or
> two defenders (for bigger cities) unless the battle odds are really in its 
> favour. I played with this a bit if you take a look.
> 

Well if you want me to take a look there are two things you could do

1.) Post a link to the latest corecleanups
2.) Split the ai parts away from the rest and post them to freeciv-dev. Petr,
you were working on this last I heard?

I wonder if you also considered the benefits of making every city build at
least
one great attacking unit. I often build for example catapault
after my two defensive units, just for the ability to take out enemy units next
to my city.

> These parameters are sensitive (== somewhat chaotic), but it is doable :-).
> 
> >There is also a bug in win/loss equation. As Greg described it, the AI
> wrongly thinks it can destroy a fortified phalanx with four attacking
phalanx. > The cost to it is far higher than my loss.
> 
> Actually, there are other effects than pure combat weights at play here.
> 
> It is really dangerous to allow an enemy to keep a fortified defender 
> next to one of your cities. It can protect a series of attackers and
> result in city loss which can be infinitely more damaging than a few
> phalanxes. A purely combat odds AI will lose badly against opponents
> that understand some of the more sophisticated advantages/weights.
> 
> But, the AI should still improve on its (apparently) sole takeout 
> strategy in this case :-).
> 
> BTW: can it do a diplomatic buyout yet? This should be an obvious
> enhancement to deal with single pesky enemy units.
> 

You know there is no diplomacy code as such. The AI only uses diplomats in
cities, it does not use diplos to buy/steal tech/sabotage. Once the AI has
built a diplomat, it just sits there. Per is working on this at the moment. 

Welcome back by the way. 



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