Hard Rules of war: Another look at AI

[Tamur]

congrats on finishing up finals, summer is Not the time to be in school

Regarding the case you mention (sacrificing a unit to the larger objective), this is relatively straightforward. The AI needs a single overriding goal, which breaks into multiple meta-goals, which each translate into a sequence of individual unit moves. If one of the meta-goals is to draw the enemy out of a defencive position, the AI will have a few options to do this with (advance a unit who will obviously be butchered, run cavalry at the archers in front and then withdraw, start up the long-range missile fire, etc).

This is not quite theoretically anymore, since I've got a good ways into designing both a campaign and battlemap AI API. Quite the enjoyable summer project --- no graphics to deal with, so it moves quickly.

[BDC]

Perhaps, one day but not yet... hehe, then it would be the precursor to Cyberdyne, the Terminators, John O'Connor, etc... "Oh no we taught the computers how to fight and learn and conquer and now they've come for us."
(Sorry, I just finished my summer finals and feeling elated here)

At least they'd be limited to medaeval era weaponry. Oh no the musketeers have cunningly outflanked us. Ah well. Shoot them anyway.

[DensterNY]

congrats on finishing up finals, summer is Not the time to be in school

I agree completely. The mind is closed off to studying when it is hot and beautiful out. I will try and avoid summer studies in the future.

Regarding the case you mention (sacrificing a unit to the larger objective), this is relatively straightforward. The AI needs a single overriding goal, which breaks into multiple meta-goals, which each translate into a sequence of individual unit moves. If one of the meta-goals is to draw the enemy out of a defencive position, the AI will have a few options to do this with (advance a unit who will obviously be butchered, run cavalry at the archers in front and then withdraw, start up the long-range missile fire, etc).

This is not quite theoretically anymore, since I've got a good ways into designing both a campaign and battlemap AI API. Quite the enjoyable summer project --- no graphics to deal with, so it moves quickly.

Well then I am looking forward to seeing the fruits of this project if you're going to share this with the community. Also, I am glad to see that someone has taken effort into dealing with the frustration that we have with the AI. Its easy enough to complain about an ineffectual AI but to actively work on designing a good one is a different thing altogether.

I like your idea though to break up the AI's single overriding goal into a series of meta-goals which makes more sense. Perhaps that's the problem the AI has too much to handle in a completely open field but if it tried instead to follow steps such as draw out enemy, nullify their archers, smash one flank, etc... then it would be more successful.

[sunsmountain]

Its easy enough to complain about an ineffectual AI but to actively work on designing a good one is a different thing altogether.

What would be even more helpful, I think, is creating battle replays showing CA where the current (RTW) AI goes wrong.

[poo_for_brains]

Have you seen Ituralde's thread about the german magazine article? Allegedly, the AI's been worked on extensively, so perhaps CA already know where their mistakes were in RTW

[Tamur]

yes, it's definitely heartening.

sunsmountain's post made me think it would be good to do just that -- collect replays that specifically show bad AI behaviour and analyse what could be happening to cause it.

Is this being done by anyone? If not, I'd be happy to host them on my own server, as long as the bandwidth demands don't become too large. I'll look around a bit and see if there's anything like this happening on the web.