[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#12788) Does a Unit Ever Know its Body Guard?

["Peter Schaefer" <peter.schaefer@xxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12788 >

If you can manage to keep the bodyguard move ahead of the escortee,
and make it actually protect it, this would be a little something to
make freeciv stand apart, since I can't count in how many games with a
guard/escort command the bodyguard simply follows the escortee, which
of course dies to the enemy.

On 4/14/05, Per I. Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=12788 >
> 
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Benedict Adamson wrote:
> > > this might be a source of some errors in the AI.
> >
> > The functions ai_unit_move and ai_unit_attack uses ai.bodyguard to try
> > to bring a guard along with a unit. Part of aiferry_gobyboat tries to
> > load the bodyguard of a passenger onto the same boat using ai.bodyguard.
> >
> > It seems to me that bodyguards will never move with their charge as the
> > code is now.
> 
> But they do... I've seen it consistently happening. Not often enough,
> though, not by far.
> 
> > At present any number of units can thinkthey are the guard for a unit:
> > several untis could have the same value for ai.charge. Keeping
> > ai.bodyguard and ai.charge consistent would prevent that. I suspect that
> > is the intent of the current code anyway: ai.bodyguard is not a list,
> > and bodyguards are intended to stack with a unit, which is best if there
> > is only one guard.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > If a unit could have at most one guard, there would have to be someway
> > for a unit to detect that its assigned guard is no good (too far away,
> > too weak) and request another. Perhaps by releasing and re-requesting
> > guards every turn.
> 
> The key problem is one of sequence. We do not know which unit, guard or
> charge, will be managed first. But that is only half the problem - we also
> need to set the bodyguard want in the charge, before we can manage the
> bodyguard, but if we manage the bodyguard last, he may never catch up, nor
> will the charge know if he did get a bodyguard.
> 
> Keeping the bodyguard<->charge relationship over several turns reduces
> this problem a great deal.
> 
>   - Per
> 
>