#9 Exploration AI

[Lib Spit]

I think another major weakness in the AI at the moment is it's pathological need to explore.

In Vanilla Bts this is not such a problem, 2 or 3 scouts left to the business will usually explore a landmass for the AI.

In FTTW most scout/explorer units will get eaten or killed by the various monsters and barbarians flooding the waste.

So the AI sends out an explorer, explorer dies, AI makes new explorer, and the AI repeats this over and over again and eventually by sheer weight of numbers it achieves the goal of exploring.

Unfortunately this weight of numbers usually has a crippling effect on much of the AIs growth, because every explorer costs 1 pop.

So a player who is doing a reasonable amount of exploration, while mainly focussing on city expansion and growth and development, is going to out distance the AI quickly, because more 'in city' pop means increased everything, including the ability to plant more cities.

So a player explores to find a new city site, then fills that city site, then explores a bit more and expands and so on.

I think the AI has a pathological desire to explore the whole map at any cost, for the sake of exploring the whole map.

In Vanilla that is not so bad as it doesn't take much beyond time to do it.

In FTTW it takes a mass of explorers and city pop. to achieve which cripples the AI long term..

We need to take a look at why the AI explores and if we can make 'mass-exploration' a much lower priority.

So that the AI explores with the goal of growth, rather than exploring for the sake of having the whole map explored. Creating a slower and more natural exploration process.