[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#13351) Meta-ticket: AI and threads

["Per I. Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13351 >

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Benoit Hudson wrote:
> > Then much of the AI code would have to be rewritten, since it depends on
> > being able to read server state directly. Much of the AI's data is not
> > accessible through the network interface.
>
> But the server code depends on no one reading its structures while it's
> updating them

Good point. Considering the lack of interest/work going into AI lately, it
is unlikely to be considered even medium-term.

> so I'm not sure whether fixing the AI to be a seperate process is really
> any harder than fixing both AI and the server to lock structures
> appropriately. Having AI be a seperate process -- just another client,
> really -- would also be more elegant, and eliminate the annoying
> capability of cheating (at the cost of making the AI stupider, of
> course).

There are several issues here:
 - AI depends on direct access to server internals. Fixable.
 - AI depends on unchanging state while working units. Not fixable. Code
will have to be rewritten to take uncertainty into account.
 - AI depends on omniscience. Not fixable, but can be implemented by
player omniscience instead of direct access.

  - Per