forester is stupid; plants wrong trees at wrong locations

[Sigra]

The forester is really stupid. He plants trees on hopeless terrains, like steppe_kahl, where any kind of tree will usually just die.

It might be a good idea to replace a tiny tree with a new one of another species that is more likely to grow well on that terrain. But if the tiny tree is already of the best species for that location, it should not be replaced.

The best location and the best tree for that location should be chosen. Some more knowledge than just how well the tree thrives on the location might be needed, such as how long it would take for the tree to become usable and the probability that it will survive to that stage. Other things to consider would be how long the tree is likely to be harvestable before it dies.

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Original bug report (2 out of 3 points are implemented now):

The forester is really stupid. He
* plants trees where tiny trees are already growing,
* plants trees on hopeless terrains, like steppe_kahl, where any kind of tree will usually just die.
* plants the wrong kind of tree, like oak on steppe.

It might be a good idea to replace a tiny tree with a new one of another species that is more likely to grow well on that terrain. But if the tiny tree is already of the best species for that location, it should not be replaced.

The best location and the best tree for that location should be chosen. Some more knowledge than just how well the tree thrives on the location might be needed, such as how long it would take for the tree to become usable and the probability that it will survive to that stage. Other things to consider would be how long the tree is likely to be harvestable before it dies.

[Chuck Wilder (chuckw20)]

The forester also plants trees in established farm fields, destroying the field in the process.

[SirVer (sirver)]

ixprefect solved this problem recently for lumberjacks via claiming of immovables. Something similar could maybe also be done for fields to solve this issue.

[Nicolai Hähnle (nha)]

I believe those are separate problems. What this bug is referring to is that the forester doesn't consider terrain affinity, and apparently some wheat fields are not "solid", causing the forester to overwrite them? I haven't observed that myself, but it's easy enough to check.

[Chuck Wilder (chuckw20)]

I came across the field destruction when I was testing the farmer
animation. It does seem to be consistent as it occurred multiple times
during separate tests.

[Astuur (wolfsteinmetz)]

Forresters will also plant trees on mountain terrain (Seen with imperial on Atoll map).
They never grow to a size that they can be harvested.
So, if you have foresters in a narrow mountain valley, much of their time is spent with fruitless action.
Instead, foresters should know where to plant trees and concentrate on these kinds of terrain.

[Nasenbaer (nasenbaer)]

Two parts of this request are implemented now. Only part left is:

* plants trees on hopeless terrains, like steppe_kahl, where any kind of tree will usually just die.

And even this is not that worse as before, as the forester at least considers, which tree would fit best - that way even on steppe and mountain terrain, trees are growing relatively good.

[_aD (ad-simplypeachy)]

I've noticed foresters which are marked at 100% productivity, but mostly planting on ice sheets where the trees die almost every time. IMO a tree that dies should count against productivity.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

_aD: From the descriptions I've seen of the productivity code (haven't checked the actual code, sorry), it only looks at the action carried out by the worker, not the result. In other words, it counts whenever a tree is planted, not trees that grow and thrive. Since I assume this code "ticks a box" each time a worker performs its action, changing that would probably be non-trivial, especially considering it can currently be kept common for all types of workers.

I think it would be nice if the foresters would at least prioritize "fertile ground" somewhat rather than picking a spot completely at random, though.

[SirVer (sirver)]

I agree that would be desirable. There could even be a difference between tribes again - the barbarios now their forrest and therefore know where they grow and plant the trees wise.

One could argue the other way around as well though: Since around the barbarians there were always enough trees, they have no clue what a tree needs to grow. So the forrester is an idiot in this regard. I bring this one because the barbarians are already very good in acquiring wood.

[SirVer (sirver)]

Setting to incomplete for bug sweeping.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for widelands because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[SirVer (sirver)]

fwiw, the forrester now always plants on the best possible tree for the field he chooses. But the field he chooses is still choosen randomly.

[GunChleoc (gunchleoc)]

See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/1574379

[kaputtnik (franku)]

I mark this as a duplicate of bug 1574379, because the other one contains a possible solution for the remaining point "* plants trees on hopeless terrains, ...."