Re: Developer Questions

[Dave Fancella <david.fancella@comcast.net>]

On Monday 08 March 2004 04:45 pm, Gil Pinheiro wrote:
> My name is Gil Pinheiro, I'm an 4th year undergrad at WLU (Ontario, Canada)
> - I'm currently enrolled in a course on Artificial intelligence. The crux
> of the course is a project, chosen by the student. Therein lies the reason
> for this email - I'm going to add additional AI support to CF.

I was just thinking to myself, "It would be nice if some college kid with a 
project to do for an AI class came along and gave us an AI."  ;)

> I've been hacking on the source for a week or so now, and though I don't
> have much experience working on open projects, I've managed to abstract out
> a multiple AI interface, and have added a game type that allows 2 AI to
> compete against each other.

To tell you the truth, I'm personally interested in an AI that can be plugged 
into parts of the user interface.  For example, I'd like to have an automatic 
target selection, where if I forget to fire my artillery or if I forget to 
attack with a front-liner, the AI would go ahead and fire them for me.  If 
the target selection is good enough, then I'd only have to focus on moving 
the pieces, which would be nice.  :)  (I'm lazy, so sue me)

Dave

> Principally, I'd like to merge this back into the main tree, but I am not
> sure how to accomplish this, or even if its a good idea. Right now I'm
> using my own SVN server to track my own local changes, and can generate
> DIFF files from it to the main branch.
>
> Second, although my code works, I'm not sure that I understand the event
> handling mechanism. Specifically what should I call to handle events during
> long processes (such as when the AI is thinking) to ensure the UI does not
> 'hang'.
>
> Right now my code has diverged quite significantly from the tree, I've done
> some refactoring in some cases, with much more work to be done. At the
> moment the build is stable with only a single serviceable AI (the stockAI,
> and a test AI that does nothing). I would not recommend distribution, but
> would like feedback, and a chance to share my work.
>
> Certainly I can tar.gz up my sources, or distribute a binary to see if the
> changes are worthwhile. I would note however that the file format has
> changed, and any compiled .sav, .lev would be incompatible.
>
> It is actually pretty interesting to watch the two AIs battle it out.
>
> There is more to say, but it can wait until later.

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