Larry Holt
Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000 From: Atlanta, GA 30068 Status: offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
...We are limited in many ways by the AI , as we don't want different rules for human and AI, so incorporating some "easy fixes" for human vs human play get hard because the AI has to be programmed to know how to use it too. That's been a problem with complicating the OPfire "doctrines" - the concepts have to be taught to the AI! ...
Its good to see that you are focusing on the AIP as a player that must fight by realistic rules and not putting in cheats to work around the limitations of artificial intelligence.
I know that some game developers are heavily into adaptive intelligence as it simulates human thinking patterns better than rules based designs but IRL humans don't make every decision from scratch. The whole concept of tactics is that we have a prepared situation/response database. We train our troops to be innovative but with in strict limits of tactics, organization, doctrine, etc. We want initiative, not innovation in our tactical leaders.
It seems to me that green troops are much like the AIP. Although since they are humans they can make leaps of knowledge, almagmating disparate known facts into new knowledge and decisions, they don't know enough facts to come up with good tactical judgments. Because of this SOPS, battle drills, tactics, etc. are established to minimize the thinking required to obtain quick, functional action in combat. I don't just willy nilly randomly choose which target to fire at. Instead I consider can the potential target kill me, can I kill it, etc. I make a rank ordered list of criteria that easily translates into a list of cases for making decisions. Its kind of like preparing business logic or an access control list for a router, most restrictive cases first then more general with a final default case. Loop through all the targets and see if any meet the logic criteria. E.G IRL the immediate action drill for ambush of a dismounted force is: if the ambush is less than grenade throwing range ( a close ambush), turn into it and assault through it, turn around and attack the ambushers from the rear. If the ambush is beyond grenade throwing range, take cover and maneuver against it. This might not be the 100% best action in all cases (in a close ambush if only a small part of the force is caught in the killing zone but assaults the ambushers, the larger part can not effectively fire on the ambushers for fear of friendly fire) but its good enough that the world's strongest military uses it. This would easily convert into programming language logic (if range < 1 hex do ... else do ...). I can see that other battle drills can readily be developed for the AIP.
Then again I didn't design the most awesome tactical game out there while Matrix did so whatever is going on under the hood, keep it up!
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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.
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Never take counsel of your fears.
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