Re: [Stratagus-devel] AI in stratagus

[Crestez Leonard]

Don't we already have that? NEW_AI (the default) is a scheme script that
keeps executing. Please read data/ccl/ai.ccl. There is no need for
individual unit AI, unit actions are hardcoded but work rather fine.
Also, having AI scripts for every unit can get very expensive.
I don't think that we have to make everything configurable, we might
just as well write everything in scheme.

On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 20:13, ludo wrote:
> Hello !
> 
> I had a look some time ago to fr^H^Hstratagus's computer AI. I was wondering 
> how to enhance it...
> 
> I rapidly saw that lots of behaviour were hardcoded ( how workers goes to 
> mines, ... ), and not easy to read, because you have to keep the state of the 
> unit from game cycle to game cycle.
> 
> So I searched a way to make AI more "customizable"...
> 
> I came to the idea that it could be interesting to write units's AI 
> sequencially, as if their code was executing in separate threads. 
> I think it could make AI for unit very simple; for exemple :
> 
> function attak(goal){
>       while (!canFire(goal)){
>               moveNear(goal,fireRange);
>       }
>       fire(goal);
> }
> 
> There we have a problem if the goal can't be reached, but this could be 
> solved 
> by the way of exception : moveNear(...) throw an exception, which the caller 
> of attack will receive. If the caller is the player, the exception will just 
> be printed on the screen (can't attack : can't move to unit). 
> 
> We can also define these function in a kind of "class", binded to UnitType, 
> so 
> that a new unittype could use its own attack function...
> 
> The same approach can be followed for computer IA. It could be possible to 
> write some small script ( ground attack, air attack, mixed attack, ... ) and 
> then make the AI choose between them :
> 
> function transported_attack(attackers,transporter,landzone,attackzone){
>       foreach unit in attackers{
>               // Give some orders...
>               attackers.stand
>               transporter.take(attacker)
>       }
>       
>       while(not all_orders_done){
>               // Wait some time
>               wait
>       }
>       attacker.moveTo(landzone)
>       while((not transporter.underAttack)&&(not all_orders_done)){
>               wait
>       }
>       attacker.unloadAll();
>       foreach unit in attackers {
>               attackers.attack(attackzone)
>       }
> }
> 
> This way, it is possible to go further, by allowing the IA to execute 
> simultaneously multiple functions ...
> So the hardcoded AI would resume to choose which and how many scripts it 
> should execute at a given moment... ( maybe based on its ressources, ... )
> 
> I started working on this approach, by writing the interpreter which would 
> allow such scripts to be executed in parallel, at low cost ( cpu & memory ).
> 
> But before i go further on this direction, I'd really like to know what you 
> think about these ideas ?
> 
> Ludovic