[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [RFC][Patch] AI can fly v2 (fwd)

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

At 01:07 PM 02/04/11 -0500, Mike Kaufman wrote:
>On Thu, Apr 11, 2002 at 07:36:51PM +0200, per@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> On Sun, 7 Apr 2002, Gregory Berkolaiko wrote:
>> > Oops, the patch was too big so my first email didn't go through...

>> - The AI should not attack cities with aircraft without checking for
>> reinforcements first. Should also check for SAM (it's omniscient, use it;
>> we don't remember and analyze stuff).
>
>I don't like this. We should be moving away from the idea that AI can see
>all not toward it.

The real problem here is that humans have persistent memory about what
they *have* seen (in now fogged out areas), or pretty good guessing skills
about what they are likely to find based on lots of subtle clues.

The AI program to mimic this is probably a few decades out even at rates
like Moores's Law.

Even caching past information is expensive.

A reasonable compromise is to allow the AI to "see" the real map but 
add an error or ai_fuzzy() factor that makes this information less
reliable in locations that are unknown or fogged. For a difficulty
factor you can have the AI fuzz run from 0% (i.e. Mike's favorite
level) to 100% accuracy reflecting a more sophisticated cognitive
ability in a human.

>> - Also in the same savegame, why doesn't solomon invade sooner? It cruises
>> around with dozens of transports with units in for dozens of turns before
>> it finally decides to land them. Drives me crazy. pille's cities are empty
>> and deserted!
>
>yes, I noticed this when I looked at the original patch. AI doesn't seem to 
>know when to pull the trigger.

You are supposed to be able to determine "flag" presence, so the AI should
know when a town is empty and change its attack computation accordingly.
This should not be a big deal if someone is playing in that code area. It
may be as simple as it never targets towns, just units in find something to
kill, so empty towns are 100% safe if they don't have units as bait :-)

>-mike

Cheers,
RossW
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