On 16 September 2012 15:52, Matthias F. Brandstetter <m...@mabra.me> wrote: > Hi Freeciv Team! > > I am a PhD candidate at De Montfort University in UK, working on > Computational Intelligence for Computer Games. For my current studies > I am thinking of using Freeciv as test bed for my research on AI in > games. > > On your web site I have seen that you are currently re-writing the AI > code for v2.4.
Actually, we've for most part ceased feature development for 2.4 last November when we branched stable branch to make 2.4 releases from once it gets stable enough. That AI reorganization was finished before that, though, and in since then there has been only a litlle bit of development on this field on trnk (from which next branch will be 2.5) That was not so much rewriting the AI code itself than reorganizing how it gets called. AI code used to be mangled to all server code, now things are more modular, AI code being separate from the other server code. It was done in a way that completely new AI implementations can be introduced as (loadable) modules - distinct players can use distinct AI implementations. Server calls AI callback functions at defined situations. Those callback functions for AI module to implement are listed in common/ai.h. In addition to those callback functions module needs to define just two functions, one to initialize it and second to return its capability string for checking compatibility between the server code and the module while loading the module. > Is there any document describing the "big picture" for > custom AI's? I have skipped through the latest source code a bit, seen > the AI stub and ai.* files in the "common" dir, but I am not sure > about each of these functions in detail,m when they are called, etc. I'm afraid the documentation is still quite much lacking - so far I've only added comments to common/ai.h about when each callback gets called. As AI runs just as part of server binary, it has access to all the data, freedom to modify it any way it wants, and to call any server functions. This means that AI module can cheat as much as author dares to make it to cheat. It also gives AI author responsibility not to mess game state. > Also, I am new to Freeciv dev in general, have not worked on the code > so far, only played the game in the past. What would be the best way > of debugging my own development? When writing a new AI for Freeciv, I > of course want to see how it works bit for bit, so a debugging feature > would be very handy! There's no single catch-it-all feature for debugging. Depending on what exactly I've wanted to know, I've combined several techniques. In most cases you want to run autogames (games with no human players) with predefined random seeds for reproducibility. You can run them in debugger, collect logs (get familiar with logging macros in utility/log.h) and compare results between original and modified AI, creating starting situations in editor. That's the most general level view, feel free to ask more detailed questions once you get yourself familarized with the code. - ML _______________________________________________ Freeciv-dev mailing list Freeciv-dev@gna.org https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/freeciv-dev
