The "Colonizing" plan

[Lincoln Peters]

On Sat, 2002-06-08 at 13:04, Hans Ronne wrote:
> This is intentional. The colonizers do random walks (Brownian motion),
> which is the quickest way to spread them out over as large a territory as
> possible. In Civ type games, this is very important. Grabbing territory
> (and holding on to it) is what the game is all about. If some of them
> stroll into enemy territory, so be it. They will not settle unless the
> immediate neighbourhood is clear of enemy units.

In this game, it's not a good idea to cover a territory that's larger
than what you can defend.  I would imagine that the same applies for any
Civ-type game.  Especially in this game, it is important to make sure
that if a hostile unit shows up, you can move in and repel it
immediately.  Otherwise, it might capture or even destroy your city. If
the city is under construction, it only takes one hit to destroy it,
along with the settler.

As the game progresses, it might not hurt so much to lose a settler, but
in the beginning, ouch!

> 
> P.S. The move at random code for other units works differently, and I think
> less efficiently. They frequently get stuck trying to walk into the same
> obstacle again and again.

It seems to me that the random code for the colonizers had the same
problem.  When the game ends, I try to see what the AI was up to, and it
looked like a settler might easily try to walk into a lake or ocean
cell.