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AI Question


Lorian
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I've just become the number one nobody on WFG and relised that I need to do something constructive here. So anyway I looked on the application form and the AI Scripter seems to be the only one on there that I would be able to do. I was just wondering what kind of skills it would take etc. for it? Thanks

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I've just become the number one nobody on WFG

Congradulations! :P

Lets see, the AI scripter position is basically a position for the design and writing of high level AI scripts. If you know the AI scripts in AoK and AoM that modders mod... basically the individuals writting AI scripts will be making those from scratch.

Before the actually writing of the scripts can be started though, the AI system needs to be farther in development than it currently is. However, it is going to require much preperation in design. Which possibly could be be started now. Basically it invovles studying other AI scripts in other games then figuring out how they work. Then you would need to decide how best to make high level AI scripts work in our game. You'll need to probably define all the needed functions, conditions, variables, etc... and create a "high level AI design document."

This way, the development of the low level AI can be guided by what is needed by the high level AI. Also, this document can be used to assist AI modders when the game is released.

The languages the AI scripter would be working with would mainly be Javascript and XML.

Hope that helps :P

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Sounds interesting, so at the moment the AI scripters that are already 'employed' are looking at AIs from other games? I have a bit of experience with the AoK AI but this will be done in XML so it might not be too helpful. I do have one question, how will the JavaScript work?

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Sort of, we don't really have any AI scripters employed at the moment because it needs to be designed first, and nobody has been interested in helping design the AI, they have only been interested in scripting.

Actually, AoK scripting knowledge will help because we would like to have our AI scripting friendly and easy to use. AoK was that way, but AoM was not as friendly to modders. And we want to be friendly :P

About the javascript... that one is out of my relm of knowledge... You'll have to get one of the programmers to answer that one for you.

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I don't see any AI scripters? There is 2 AI programmers... but thats totally different than scripting. That is low level AI work that will be programmed in C++ and hardcoaded into the game engine. Scripting is the high level 'scripts' that utilize the low level programming. Scripts will be availible to modders for tweaking.

As far as designing the AI goes... I'm not totally sure on this, so if somebody can correct me - feel free to do so. Basically your scripting the entire actions of the computer player. From the start of the game till the very end. They need to know what to build and in what order. They need to know how to attack and defend. They need to know what units to train and when to train them. They need to know what technologies to research and when to research them. They need to know how to use formations, how to explore, how to ambush, how to seige...etc... There needs to be three varying levels of difficulty. There needs to be different types of behavior... boomers, rushers, turtlers... etc... We are basically trying to simulate human players with artificial intelligence scripting.

Now, there isn't a how-to guide about how to go about this. This is something that will need to be researched, well thought out, planned, and written down. This is what I mean by 'design'.

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Just to point out the work would be solely design at this stage - implementation of the CP AI won't begin for a while yet. There are also a couple of other people who are interested in working on the AI scripts when we get to that point.

Also worth considering is the bit in the contract about having to surrender your immortal soul and becoming a puppet minion of the AI div lead, but... anyway...

I do have one question, how will the JavaScript work?
In roughly the same way as JavaScript programming for the web works - the engine the scripts run in present you with a set of objects and functions that you can manipulate. It's just that instead of objects like pages and buttons, our engine includes objects like units and players. You could, hypothetically, do something like some_army.attack( some_players_base ) - part of your job would be (in concert with the rest of us) devising the means you'd use to control things like this.
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