I've really become hooked on the Delta Vector blog site. The author, evilleMonkeigh, deals a lot with rule design, often from the standpoint of solo gaming. Recently, he has been discussing non-player character AIs. I've been playing around with AIs for a while, but it got me tinkering again, especially since I am getting closer to having a game.
I have been focusing on building AI for battles involving battalion level and higher micro armor games. This decision tree is what I've come up with so far:
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| Click on chart to better read it. |
A lot things on the chart are very loosely set up. For example, final actions, those in the light green boxes, have more than one possible action to take. It might be that which one to take would be decided by die roll, or it might be that several actions could be taken based on available unit command pips. Even some of the early decisions may not be automatic. A percent dice might be used for the "Yes," "No," and "No, but..." decisions.
What is meant by Scurry? I borrowed the word from Ivan Sorensen's various rules, particularly from his Fivecore Company Commander rules. In his rules, it has a more positive meaning (move to a better firing position or gain ground) but right now, I'm using it as a place-holder term to mean, go to ground, redeploy to take cover, or fall back to a safer position.
This is in the very early stages of development. I don't know how fluid this tree is, but guess is that its probably not in its present iteration. Also, I don't know what then happens after a fire fight. Does it go back to the intital state at the beginning? Does it fall into some sort of loop at or past the "Yes" state until there is no more enemy? Bizarre results might be entertaining, but that is not what I am going for!
I still have not decided what rules to use. It might be a mash up two or several. That discussion is for another post. The hope is that the AI will be generic enough to be used with any rules.
Any thoughts or comments are welcome.
I really like this Chris, very much food for thought!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm glad you found it useful. I will probably post more on this subject as I progress.
ReplyDeleteDelta Vector blog is an excellent site for discussions like this as well as rule reviews. If you haven't already done so, check it out.
Idea is great. Maybe AI should take decision it can destroy enemy after taking casualties
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking more about using AI, and am looking at the Two-Hour Wargames engine. I always liked how it worked and I think its adaptable to the above decision tree.
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