[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#14923) Stupid AI Building Wants

["Benedict Adamson" <badamson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=14923 >

Per I. Mathisen wrote:
...
> Ideally we should add piece by
> piece and measure improvements somehow.

I initially tried that approach, but it failed. The underlying problem 
is that the want computation code is plain broken. Improving part X so 
it computes sensible want values means that the wants generated by part 
Y are never large enough, or are always too large. The only existing 
parts that generate sensible wants are the settlers and founders code. 
Note that my patch makes very little change to them.

...
> I am thinking of code like the part where you add a penalty for wanted
> government based on the increased upkeep of settlers. Why is this
> necessary? Does the AI become better due to it, or does it make it less
> capable (reaching Republic ASAP is vital in current rulesets)?
...

I added this after testing the patch without it.

Once the AI is at Republic, it does not want to build Settlers because 
of their increased upkeep. Consequently, an AI that reaches Republic 
before it has placed its first colonies abroad is beaten by an AI that 
remains at Monarchy for a little longer.

I could take that code out and see if we want to add it again later.

> Yet the net result is that techs are traded for 1/12th the current value,
> no? The AI would be selling itself cheap.

The code as it stood was plain wrong. My patch makes it dimensionally 
correct. Perhaps now it is correct but stupid :-) Once we have the 
number of 'bulbs' we must convert those to gold. How much gold is one 
bulb worth? You seem to be saying 12 $/bulb, but that seems excessive to me.