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Most Impressive Game AI?
togelius asks: "I have the feeling that when developers make the effort to put really sophisticated AI into a game, gamers frequently just don't notice (see e.g. Forza). Conversely, games that are lauded for their fantastic AI are sometimes based on very simple algorithms (e.g. Halo 1). For someone who wants to apply AI to games, it is very interesting to know what AI is really appreciated. What is the most impressive game AI you have come across? Have you ever encountered a situation where it really felt like the computer-controlled opponents were really thinking?"
When I was contemplating learning video game programming, I was reading a guide that told you first to program a pong clone, and then a pac-man clone. Why pac-man? It teaches you AI. The ghost behavior is actually fairly complex. One ghost wanders randomly, another tries to get on the opposite side of the board from wherever pac-man is. The other two form a hunting pair: one tries to cut off your escape while the other goes for the kill.
I never thought that the ghosts would be so complex!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Well, one of the greatest experiences (And still is), AI wise, is Stardocks XXXX-type space strategy game, Galactic Civilizations 2. I especially like, when on easier levels, you do something, and the AI race sends a message "It seems that you are making a massive buildup for war. However, with this difficulty level, I pretend not no notice it until you actually make your strike." or something to that effect.
I am constantly amazed at how bad the AI is in this game, after years and years of developement you would think that the Ai would have developed alittle more. While very advanced in speech capabilities, the AI relies on taunting you by claiming you are a noob, cheater, or a camping f**ktard, and will even call you GAY. In game play the AI is still weak and just does the same thing over and over again, and will constantly be baited into sticking its head around a corner, or runs into flashbang grenades on a very regular basis, failing to learn from its past and how it got owned over and over. Finally the AI deems you are a cheater and runs to load another AI called an Admin that will ban you because it cannot understand how you are so much better then it.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Personally, while enemy AI is something that's pretty neat to see in action, it's the friendly AI that gets my attention. Most games seem to put all their effort into the enemy, while you friends turn out to be schizophrenics with an IQ of about 40. I haven't played, but I have heard that something that people complained about in Gears of War was was the poor team AI.
I don't play many games any more, but Halo 2 was one that I thought pulled ahead of the pack a bit. Friends that can drive vehicles was pretty cool (albeit not always the safest drivers...) allowing you to man the gun in the back. They also seem better at not running right in front of you when you're in the middle of launching a rocket, and also do little things like take advantage of available cover (or in other cases jumping up on top of said cover and getting blown to bits). Halo 3 is supposed to have even better AI for both friendlies and enemies, and that's one of the things about it I'm looking forward to.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Ive noticed that AI is not designed to beat your next move but is designed to cheat you without the player noticing. Command and Conquer and Gears of War are two games that have two well hidden cheats. Command and Conquer is twelve years old almost, the enemy AI was programmed to always have full resources as long as one harvester made it back. Therefor what would take you five harvesters would only require them one. Most players would of never noticed this unless their strategy was to cut off enemy resources instead of an full out assault. Gears of War was praised for having AI that used the environment to their advantage which helped cover a little cheat they had. The AI had a weird tendency to know exactly where you were as long as your cross hair covered them or came close to them. For example if you were to pop your head out and just happen to have your cross hair on an enemy turret that was always firing at a covered friend, it would immediately start firing at you, this would also goes for the regular grunts/guards. This is very noticeable on "Insane", since that mode requires you to use cover 90% of the time and better tactics then rush in and shoot everything that moves. AI is not designed to outsmart/out think/or consider your next move, in my opinion most AI is designed to defeat you by using small cheats in the programming that give it an unfair advantage and hopefully designed so that you wont be able to notice it.
GalCiv II has given me the worst beatings I've ever taken in a strategy game. Shogun: Total War managed to spring a tactical ambush on me once (although in fairness my grip on tactics was much worse back then). Both of those AIs gave me a challenging game experience as a player, which is what "good" AI should be judged by.
However, if we're talking about "impressive" AI, nothing I've seen in the gaming world can compete with Paradox's EUIII. Yeah, I know, each individual AI nation makes a lot of bonheaded moves. But the game is managing the armies, navies, economic, religious, colonial and foreign policies of up to 300 nations, every game day when a game year can go by in a minute or two, on a 1.9GHz processor. Considering the number of cycles and the amount of memory avaiable for each AI opponent, it's simply amazing to me. I really think that should be the basis of comparison, not so much the level of play the AI achieves, but the level of play it achieves with the resources available to each AI player. If nothing else, that standard makes it meaningful to compare old games against new ones.
Here's a short article on the A.I. in the game F.E.A.R., "F.E.A.R.'s AI Demystified", (in more detail here). Having played through F.E.A.R., what impressed me so much was that a lot of what is called A.I. is actually audio and animation. You can make enemies seem way more intelligent than they really are by doing stuff like have detailed animations for stuff like hopping over barriers or diving through windows that's triggered when they are in certain spots. They would also have the enemies shout stuff, if you had your flashlight on they would scream "Flashlight" and dive for cover.
That's because it *is* cheating. The hole in my wall next to my computer can attest to this well established fact. :)
That's why the "best" game AI isn't necessarily the smartest or most responsive - it's the most human.
Writing an AI that makes the occasional "human error", or responds in a reasonable time is harder than writing the "best AI possible", but makes for a more believable (and of course, enjoyable (since who likes getting beaten all the time)) game experience.
Other things like the fact that if another civilization is dependent on you for a large amount of trade income, they won't just randomly attack you because it would hurt them too.
That AI is smarter than most Earth leaders.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't know where you're getting that bullshit from, but it's completely untrue. You don't even have to enter the CD key unless you want to download updates.