Hello everyone. I was just wondering what you think it takes to have a decent Ai? What type of game do you think is the hardest to make an Ai for?

I'm gonna ask for some help learning to create an effective Ai(or at least a decent one)after there are several posts. Thanks to everyone who posts.

there are a huge amount of factors, and since i haven't done much in terms of Ai, i couldn't tell u exactly which types of games are hardest.

RTS (Real-Time Strategy) comes to mind -- pathfinding isn't usually too hard as there are a couple of standards out there, but i guess having the computer-controlled players think realistically like a human and develop good battle-strategies would be difficult to program.

FPS (First-Person Shooter) -- it depends what you're making; a serious-sam type game wouldn't have particularly tricky Ai, but a squad-based realistic shooter or something else with computer-controlled allies needs to have really good Ai to avoid frustration and maintain the illusion of intelligence.

Driving Game -- particularly when you have someone chasing someone else, sounds difficult. the pathfinding would be made more difficult as you have to take into account the physical limitations of each car. you don't want Ai players sliding or over-turning as if they've never driven that specific car before, but they need the same limitations as any human player driving that car.

those are my three favourite types of games, put in order of what i think would be most difficult to least difficult. i could be completely wrong but i haven't thought enough about other genres to make any guesses at the moment.

julz

I think it's simple rule...
the harder player has to thinking when playing the harder AI is necessary.
F.e. Serius-sam on the one side and chess or Civilization on the other.

OK maybe Civilization is not the best example becouse cpu should think better, be more smart.
So Serious Sam with AI "go straight and kill the player" & chess with milions of combinations depends of difficult level
But I'm still thinking that my rule is ok

perhaps the reason for that isn't a level of intelligence -- to this day i still can't solve a maths question faster than my calculator

civ3's hardest difficulty-Ai is probably just following a specific strategy based on certain factors including the player's decisions, and doesn't deviate from that strategy.
if my youngest brother or my dad knew how to program, and could create their own Ai in "Age of Empires 2: Conquerors", they would very easily be able to make an Ai that no human could beat.

julz

Heres an easy one to program, which is impossible to beat, and completely idiotic. Set the bot's gun to point straight at the player, and when the player comes into sight, kill the player immediately.

Ok, anyway, a decent AI, for an FPS type game in a war situation, needs a bot that reacts like a human. Humans are not always alert and don't always aim straight, are nervous and sometimes react stupidly in war like situations. I think it would be nice to have a bot that becomes afraid when you start shooting at him, or get a freight if you jump out from behind a corner. Obviously, that would be for the more easier difficulties of the game, and they are harder to program. The harder the difficulty, the easier it becomes to program.

EDIT | BTW, in the 3dgs manual they outline a few bot states somewhere, if I remember correctly.

The role of an AI is to look and act like a human, or even resemble something intelligent. Alan Turing shows this as the role of all AI (read about the Turing test and you'll know what I mean).

Why is this important in games? Well, you tell me... Which is more fun? killing a human in multiplayer or simply stopping a few lines of code from running (even if those lines are very hard to stop). Which should we aiming to be more like.

Bear in mind, the AI being researched in universities and labs to mimic human behaviour closely if of a very different breed to the AI you see in commercial AI. This being, commercial AI has to make money for the creators. Research AI has to be smarter than anything ever made before.

How to make one?

I don't have a step by step guide, but what advice I can give you is don't go in there without extensive, extensive planning. plan out all the states, what they do, how to get into them. This way all you do on the computer is translate what's on your plan (write it down!) into code.

About writing AI... just think like the enemy (be the enemy) and write to code what You'll do at his position to kill (win with) You. Let the enemy thinking like human, what to do? maybe run, maybe hide, if hide so were and how (maybe fast or maybe stay down, very slow and quiet), or maybe call my friends, or attack himself if I have good opportunity... etc.
This is the hardest part of programming... to write a really good and natural looking AI.
But if you making a serious-same don't worry... vec_to_angle to player, and go ahead, and if in range shoot until die;) And of AI