Part 5: AI

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DarnYak
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Part 5: AI

#1 Post by DarnYak »

Long before EotA I was into programming, and one thing I've always enjoyed tinkering with was AI's. The AI was never intended (and, as far as I'm concerned, never will be) a core feature of EotA and merely remains an amusing sideproject I would occationally find time to play with. It was never intended to make up for a lack of players, although that did turn out to be an unintended benefit.

I don't remember the specific details of how EotA got its first AI - quite possibly a side effect of AA's familiar. I do however remember a version in beta where spawns were replaced with heroes just to see how the wc3 engine would handle it, and found the result fairly hilarious. The idea of hirable merc heroes was conceived and thrown in. Originally they were essentially suicidal spawns that gained levels. I decided to see if i could make them a little less suicidal and made them try to heal. They got a few extra improvements but nothing significant.

After a while, beta testers requested that that the AI take over for players who left instead of relying on shared control. I initially resisted, but eventualy decided an AI hero was better then an unused hero (alas, feeding...). They then got a few more additional behaviors, such as tring to leech exp to avoid taking damage, and defending bases. Eventually they were given the ability to focus fire heroes. I don't know exactly what happened, but for a while they were...kind of insane. Obviously not intelligent, but pretty accurate to say relentless. Shortling and I still remember many tests where we would try to assault bases only to have the enemy heroes show up and stop us - I'm sure some of it was a fluke, but not all of it. Unfortunately, I decided to re-write the AI from scratch and somehow that particularly lethal behavior got lost.

Currently Infiltrator is the only hero with a unique AI tailored to her and in my experience it's one of the better AI's as a resullt. The rest have a generic melee or ranged AI. The new Avatars also have a unique AI, one written from scratch (again) but I'm not sure its any better. Odds are there will be one last additional AI written in the final version, a unique one for Time Cleric.

At one point I intended to write an overarching AI to both manage a team without players (spawn towers/upgrades/etc.) and to coordinate any AI heroes on teams, but it was never even close to completed. Not really an important feature, but would have been nice because there seems to be quite a few poeple who play EotA alone.

jamn455
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Re: Part 5: AI

#2 Post by jamn455 »

Infiltrator has good AI? Yak be trollin.

I have seen her run up and attack towers at level 1.

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DarnYak
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Re: Part 5: AI

#3 Post by DarnYak »

I said better.

DarnYak

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