Atten Devs: AI (Rules-based dynamic scripting?)

[Evil Dave]

Oh, yeah. I watch it think frequently. But to take that and evaluate it against another AI would take simulating the "battle engine".

OTOH, that the game does produce that kind of output suggests that hooks to replace the AI might be in place. It looks like the game evaluates moves (spell choices, etc) for each unit on the battlefield, and then passes them off to other routines to carry out. If the evalution and "do this move" calls can be brought out to an API, it shouldn't be too hard to attach Dom3 to another AI. (He says, knowing nothing of Dom3's internals. )

[Gandalf Parker]

Its written on linux (ubuntu to be specific) and then ported to mac and windows versions. Other than that.. you might look in the mod directory where some people have taken apart bits of it.

But generally, discussion of format internals has felt like it got kinda squashed in the past.

[Edi]

The main discussions on format internals that have been going on here that I have seen have been related to the unit, spell and site formats to enable better modding and nothing integral to the mechanics of the game in the same way as people are talking about in this thread.

The spell modding issue is actually helpful since it allows wider modding of spells without tedious trial and error research to find what you need. The site and unit stuff is mainly useful for making the DB better than it already is and helping modders and mapmakers.

I'm rather uncomfortable with how so many people want to see the file structure for trn, 2h and fthrlnd files, given the abuse potential. I still remember the ****storm Norfleet managed to create when he got found out cheating and if the file format info is widely available, it's going to make similar incidents inevitable since less skilled people will be able to do similar things.

[MaxWilson]

@Evil Dave

I haven't played Neverwinter Nights, but I understand that its tactical space is also pretty large (300+ spells). Also note that they were starting from square one, with all rules equally-weighted, to test out the effectiveness of dynamic scripting itself. In practice you'd probably be starting from a known rulebase that works against "most players." But yeah, it's unlikely that this would produce a truly intelligent AI--I'd settle for merely an adaptive one, so that it's no longer meaningful to talk about how to beat "the computer" but rather "this computer."

Plus, I think the idea of AI programming metagames is a fun one.

-M.D.W.