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From: bane@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Sorabain W De Lioncourt)
Subject: Re: C&C style thinking
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Message-ID: <1996Oct24.115205.795@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>
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Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
References: <3265DFFA.1617@sn.no> <3266677A.4FB3@netonecom.net> <54h44p$r2t@hobyah.cc.uq.oz.au>
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 11:52:05 GMT
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In article <54h44p$r2t@hobyah.cc.uq.oz.au> e3222483@student.uq.edu.au (Diing-seng Toh) writes:
>John W. Sadowski (crink@netonecom.net) wrote:
>: 
>: As I understand it, according to a Game AI page that shows up in a .sig
>: file around here, the next expantion of C&C is supposed to have AI so
>: good that none of the programmers can beat it, when its going all out. 
>	Programmers??!!??  Only one lead programmer at the moment.  The
>basic engine will be similar to C&C but in SVGA and much more detail in
>it.
>
>: That's not to say that the programmers are strategic masterminds, just
>: that they should know of any loopholes in its thinking and they CAN'T
>	Well, for sure they add in some complex paths for those units to
>follow.  This may increase the challange and playability, but we have to
>wait and see.
>
>Diing


	Well, this sounds like the 'classic' problem of when programmer's
evaluate their own work.. of course they wont be able to beat it, because
every tactic that they can think of they would have already programmed
the AI in such a way to respond to it, this is why you need testers outside
of the development team.. to do 'unexpected' things. It is incredibly
similar to the problems of testing/debugging your own software.. you
know how it 'should' work, so it is hard to provide 'unexpected' input,
the same with debugging, quite often you'll be sitting there for hours
looking for a rogue bug, when someone else will come along, take one
glance and spot the bugger.


P.S. This is not to say that the programmer's *aren't* strategical geniuses
P.P.S. Anyway, when i find a 'hole' in the AI I don't exploit it, i try
	to *avoid* it, where's the fun otherwise?

	~Sorabain Wolfheart de Lioncourt

