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Emergent AI In an Indie RTS Game

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-path-found dept.

x4000 writes "My recent RTS game uses a new style of AI that hybridizes rules-based AI with emergent AI logic. As a disclaimer, I'm really not an AI programmer at all — my background is in databases, financial modeling, etc. But it just so happens that database experience, which often involved distilling data points from multiple sources and then combining them into suggested decisions for executives, also makes a great foundation for certain styles of AI. The approach I came up with leans heavily on my database background, and what concepts I am familiar with from reading a bit about AI theory (emergent behavior, fuzzy logic, etc). The results are startlingly good. Total development time on the AI was less than 3 months, and its use of tactics is some of the best in the RTS genre. I'm very open to talking about anything and everything to do with the design I used, as I think it's a viable new approach to AI to explore in games, and I'd like to see other developers potentially carry it even further."

2 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Article summary: by ActionJesus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I just wrote a game. Heres some techy stuff to get it posted on slashdot. Yay advertising!"

  2. Not all that new by The+Optimizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I seem to remember most all of these things were in (or experimented with) the RTS games I worked on a decade ago - Age of Empires/Kings/Mythology (Decentralized Intelligence, Strategic Tiers, Sub-Commanders, etc). Not all of those were exposed to the end-user via the AI script / expert system / etc, and things improved with each iteration.

    I also remember that while some Ai things may have seemed like great ideas, and were neat to implement, they didn't always make for a better game experience.

    And I personally say you should make an economic AI that is bound by exactly the same rules as human players, and doesn't cheat at all. And as I remember, the definition of 'doesn't cheat at all' was an occasional ongoing discussion and subtle things that could be considered as cheating, like 'Can I Path from here to there?' or the reactions times of the computer vs a human sometimes had massive implementation ramifications.

    A good test in my book was 'can the AI handle a wide range of truly random maps / game worlds.

    Humans will always be finding the limits of Computer player AIs, and saying you'll just put in counter code whenever someone tells you of your AI's limits... Hmmm... I think that's weak.

    All this has been done before, and all this will be done again.

    All the above is solely my opinion and recollections, and in no way speaks for anyone but myself.