[Freeciv] Re: globalwarming

[Ed Cogburn <ecogburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Aug 05, 2000 at 07:41:09PM -0400, Ed Cogburn wrote:
> > Ronald van der Fange wrote:
> > > Hi all
> > >
> > > What can i do if the AI decides to spoil the earth and create
> > > polution, i suffer the global warming. Maybe the AI should be made so he
> > > has a high priority on cleaning the earth, as the humans should :P
> >
> >       Agreed.  CivI/II focused soley on doing anything to hurt the human
> > player rather than act rational, I never saw an AI nation use nukes
> > against another AI player.  I don't know if its different in SMAC or
> > CTP.  At the very least, the AI should
> > a) react to pollution in areas under its control,
> 
> Yes
> 
> > b) think twice about attacking a nation with its
> > own nukes, and c) if its target has no nukes or the ability to counter
> > them, then its likely the target is weak in conventional arms too, so
> > it should look real hard at attacking the target conventionally.
> 
> Not necesarily.
> AI is very bad at invasions, and can't do conventional attacks well.
> I would prefer it to fight by all means, instead of waiting to be killed.


        Ok, here's an interesting issue:  Do we intend to 'clone' CivI/II up
to and including AI behavior?  Or will we adopt more sophisticated AI
behavior if/when people code it, even if it doesn't match CivI/II
behavior?  Will we have at some point a "fanatical" AI and a
"rational" AI?

        In SMAC, AI behavior is very different.  For the first time I saw a
the AI do a rational thing:  A very weak nation on the same continent
as a powerful human player chose, after losing 3 cities to that human
nation, to "humble" itself, and not just as long as it took to build a
combat unit and launch a surprise attack on the nearest human unit
(I've seen that insane behavior over and over in the Civs), it stayed
friendly for the rest of the game.  Maybe it was because I was not
particularly aggressive in that game.  I wasn't out to conquer the
world; the major portion of the largest continent was all I needed, so
I kept that weak nation around for economic trade as it was no longer
worth the trouble to destroy it.  I'm not sure how it calculated that
it should give up trying to kill the human player.  Now folks who play
Civ as a (bad) wargame can use the "fanatical" AI similar to the
Civs.  Others who would like a little sanity on the part of the AI
nations can use a "rational" AI.

        This all assumes somebody else codes this, of course, because I sure
can't.  :-)


-- 
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire

Ed C.