Re: ...and the AI's decision-process around resignation

[Lincoln Peters <peters2000 at mindspring dot com>]

On Sat, 2002-06-08 at 13:03, Hans Ronne wrote:
> I would agree that the AI resigns much too easily, particularly at the
> start of the game. However, Stan wanted it to resign before the game ever
> became boring. That's why the resignation code works this way.

What if the AI could be told to ignore certain conditions early in the
game that would make it resign?  For example, maybe it shouldn't resign
within the first 20 turns if its point value is low compared to other
players.

> 
> >Once the game ended, I looked at the AI player's plans and the tasks
> >assigned to units, and it seems that the AI had assigned a "Colonizing"
> >plan to all the settler and engineer units, but none of them had built
> >anything yet.  I also noticed that the other units always had either an
> >"Offensive" or "Defensive" plan, and most of the units that required
> >fuel has used up most of their initial supply.
> 
> Nothing wrong so far. This is how things should work.

The logistics of the military units aren't very good.  They need to
protect the settlers and engineers, but they also need to conserve fuel
when they can.

> 
> No, the AI just thinks it is too far behind in the game. It's too dumb to
> realize that all these settlers are just one or two turns from becoming
> cities. Since cities have a much higher score, the AI that moves last, and
> thus has not built its cities yet, frequently resigns at this point.

At this point, all units have the same point value, but I do plan to
change that later.

Maybe the AI needs a planning strategy such as:
1. I need a fighter to Hold area 3x3 around the mothership.
2. I don't have any more fighters, so I need a city or an arcology to
build one.
3. I don't have any cities or arcologies, so I need a settler to build a
city.
4. Aha!  I have a settler!  It shall Move to x,y; then Build city.

This sounds to me like it would be tricky to program (for one thing, the
city has to know what the settler was up to), but it's probably the only
way that the AI could *really* compete with a human player.

> 
> Can't tell what happens to your fuel without examining the game in more
> detail. However, an obvious suspect is the supply code, which tends to mess
> up things.

What I've observed is that if the mothership is fully fueled, it will
resupply any occupants that need fuel (I'm not sure how it prioritizes
different units, though).  The mothership's defined handling of fuel is:

2 basic production, 200 storage (200 at start of game), 1 basic
consumption, times 0% if occupant, needs 1 to move, 1 consumed per move

It wouldn't be a problem if the AI was smart enough to keep the fuel
supply from being depleted in the first place.  Of course, it ceases to
be a problem once a city or a spaceport has been built (even a size 1
city will produce at least 10 units of fuel per turn).