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From: hodsdon@scoot.netis.com (Steve Hodsdon)
Subject: Reference Books
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Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 01:52:55 GMT
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Very interesting threads here.  Keep it up!

I must confess that my "AI" design is still in the notebook stage.
I'm in the process of writing the design document:  what I'm hoping to

accomplish.  I'm using a couple of older books for inspiration (along 
with this crowd).  :)

The first is the Empire Deluxe Strategy Guide.  There is a chapter on 
"Project AI," a description of the seven levels of AI the game
designers came up with.  (As an aside, I have a copy of this chapter
as a text file.  I pulled it from Compuserve.  Anyone interested in
seeing it?  Should I post it?  It's only 275 lines, 14K or so...)  I
think this group could add to, and refine it.

The other book is the manual from UMS II.  Now before you laugh, I 
always felt that the game had great potential, even if it was a dog.  
There is a chapter on the AI and "Designing a computer general's 
personality."  (This sound kinda like a thread or two around here?)

There are seven personality traits that you can change.  (BTW, these
are slider control.  You can figure that the traits are based on a 
percentile.)

Diplomacy, (Single - Multiple enemies)
Behavior, (Passive - Aggressive)
Campaigns, (Land - Sea)
Strategic Posture, (Defensive - Offensive)
Objectives, (Territory - Enemy Armies)
Division of Forces, (Multiple Wings - Horde)
Production Goals, Factories-Ports - Military Units).

Whew...

Of course there is also the Master Control Panel which lets you futz
with just about any other variable in the game.

Perhaps this is what the average game player is looking for.  A
(simple) way to customize the computer player without having to know
how to program.

Steve


