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BF2_Trooper

So which video game actually had the best AI?

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Seems that anytime a new game comes out these days the first major complaints has to do with AI, whether friendly or enemy AI. So has there actually been a game where the AI did not bother you at all or you found really impressive?

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All AI have their weaknesses and their strong points. And it depends on what you class "good AI" to be.

Do you mean extreamly good at aiming? Clever? Realistic? Human?

What one person finds as awsome AI, another player might find it stupid and annoying.

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All AI have their weaknesses and their strong points. And it depends on what you class "good AI" to be.

Do you mean extreamly good at aiming? Clever? Realistic? Human?

What one person finds as awsome AI, another player might find it stupid and annoying.

I guess a friendly AI that's the least annoying and enemy AIs that arent embaressingly stupid but not superhuman sharpshooters either.

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Pacman :bounce3:

Ok, seriously, since I can't say whats scripted and whats intelligent behaviour, I can't judge. But I remember a Mafia II video, where an AI stood in front of a door and tried to get out, while the player closed the door again each time the AI made a move. That video was indeed interesting.

Black and White AI was quite good, too. And there were some suprising moments in OFP:Res

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I liked Ghost Recon 1's AI.

They took cover pretty smart when fired at, and when no cover could be found they would go prone in the shadows of bushes to minimise their exposure as much as they could.

One would provide covering fire while his teammate would run for cover. And they were crack shots. They just werent fun to fight in buildings though, because there they were TOO good. Outdoors they were great though, and a really good opponent. Unfortunately they werent placed randomly so in the end maps still grew old, which didnt happen for me in Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear or Raven Shield but those games had sucking AI.

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What about things like RTS' and Flight-Sims and stuff. Some of them have good AI too.

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What about things like RTS' and Flight-Sims and stuff. Some of them have good AI too.

AIs certainly arent as annoying in RTS games. But I think most of the complaints stem from FPS games.

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I liked Stalkers AI, its nice the way they lob a grenade at You, just when You think You're safe under cover

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A real quality AI is about making the player feel they are facing something that might have a human mind guiding its actions. On this score, a successful illusion is the best you can hope for.

Even a game like Chessmaster - that is clearly very well designed and has a relatively easy time, since the AI only have to act within the constraints of a fixed set of squares - fails pretty badly on this score. Try playing against an AI 'character' who is supposed to be rated 1400: amateur level. The AI will make some virtually-random moves in the early stages of the game, trade pieces aimlessly in the mid-game and then act like a mathematical genius with killer-instinct once there are only six significant pieces and pawns left on the board.

It's got to be the toughest thing to get right in a game, and a good AI tends not to get you as much publicity as DX11 graphics.

I don't tend to use it often, but I remember playing A2 with the SLX mod installed. Somehow, I'd got it running so that both friendly and enemy units appeared on the map. You could watch as the enemy units became alerted and then sent out radio commands for backup before pursuing where they thought we had last been. I was pretty impressed and just lay down and watched how the AI's actions unfolded.

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The original Far Cry had some real devious AI.

For an open world game, Far Cry 2's AIs were pretty good IMO.

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You might not agree with me, but I was very impressed by the Counter Strike: Condition Zero AI (not the overhaul version where everyone looks like a dwarf [which was in my opinion a failed attempts at a new engine], I'm talking about the initial release that was pretty similar to Counter Strike 1.6).

The AI used the right radio chatter just at the right time, making you feel they are actually humna. They were pretty smart too:

-When too many of us encountered few enemies, the enemies retreated (whilst calling for help to allies), randomly firing in our direction to keep us back.

-Used corners well. They would come out of the corner, shoot a bit and run back behind the corner.

-Flanked well. If they saw you, they wouldn't necessarily attack straight forward, sometimes they took a detour and came up from behind you. This was especially effective on me when I started playing. For example, I would see and AI around the corner, and would immediately retreate back and crouch behind some creates, whilst aiming at the corner, and waiting for the AI to show up. I remember being confident that the AI couldn't possibly be smart enough not to follow me around the corner, and when I got shot from behind (because they flanked me) the first few times this happened, I thought that it was just a coincidence.

-Cooperated very well, both with the player and each other. Responded to each other's calls for help and suppot, covered the bomber/hostage rescuer and etc.

-The difficulties were balanced well. The expert difficulty was the only one where it seemed like they were cheating (insane accuracy and etc.), but I guess it was there to challenge people who played the game non-stop.

-Displayed many human like behaviour, most notably unpredictability. Sometimes they were skilled, sometimes they were not so skilled. Sometimes they (usually) would come to help you when you called for help, sometimes they would respond, "No sir" and go rambo style.

ARMA 2 AI is quite good as well, but there are some really annoying problems. The major ones for me are getting them in a vehicle (can be a real pain sometimes) and the medic AI.

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Mount and Blade AI is pretty impressive to me. The fact that when the Total War series arrived, how many people wished that those battles could play out in real time as real actions rather than pre-rendered dice roles. M&B does just that. Up to 1000 medevial warriors, archers and cavalry strong ;)

The sheer amount of lightening fast melee action, blocking, archers finding proper trajectory and horsemen trying to cut that perfect angle to swoop in on is imho, pure brilliance.

Edited by froggyluv

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Mount and Blade AI is pretty impressive to me. The fact that when the Total War series arrived, how many people wished that those battles could play out in real time as real actions rather than pre-rendered dice roles. M&B does just that. Up to 1000 medevial warriors, archers and cavalry strong ;)

And here I was thinking Total War's appeal came from the fact that it was one of the first big empire building series that did feature real-time 3D combat, rather than plain statistics and dice rolls :confused:

If you're refering to the possibility of assuming 1st/3rd person control over a single unit in these battles, I'd remain rather sceptical myself. First of all due to the horridly unadaptive Battle AI featured throughout the series (Campaign AI as well for that matter). Secondly, the individual gameplay spectrum would be far too limited: Combat in M&B appeals to our sense of involvement due to its limited scale and rather lenient "free for all brawl" approach to combat. In a Total War battle, you'll find yourself restricted to a very tight formation, slugging away on one spot as line infantry, endlessly hurling projectiles at range, or repeatedly charging static enemy lines as cavalry. You're a nobody with a one-button task, along with 10.000 others around you. There's far too little room for "interactive expression" to justify it as game, rather than a mere re-enactment fantasy.

That's IMO also where the definition of a good AI comes in. Its sole purpose is to stimulate the player's use of said interactive expression. Punishing the player for the repeated use of a single tactic, and forcing them to re-evaluate their interaction options. Identifying and adapting interaction patterns is our evolutionary forte, not their repeated use ad infinitum.

I've always quite liked the Half-Life games' AI, probably due to the rather simple yet unique behaviour patterns to each unit class. Because Valve created such a wide scala of classes, the combination (Combine :p) of two or more types of enemies can radically change the combat gameplay from one moment to the next.

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And here I was thinking Total War's appeal came from the fact that it was one of the first big empire building series that did feature real-time 3D combat, rather than plain statistics and dice rolls

Compared to other RTS Empire type games, it does in that troops are moved in real times and ballistics I believe, are somewhat simulated. But in terms of actual combat of AI troops, it can't hold a candle to M&B's combat system. M&B troops have to actual manuever in their attacks, with every sword swing happening in real time as well as blocks, horse archery and dodging cav in and out of attack range at lightening speeds. Thats a lot of calculations happening in real time, physics and ragdoll not withstanding. In Total War, those arent real attacks, feints, dodging and blocking going on -they are dice roles played out graphically.

If you're refering to the possibility of assuming 1st/3rd person control over a single unit in these battles, I'd remain rather sceptical myself. First of all due to the horridly unadaptive Battle AI featured throughout the series (Campaign AI as well for that matter). Secondly, the individual gameplay spectrum would be far too limited: Combat in M&B appeals to our sense of involvement due to its limited scale and rather lenient "free for all brawl" approach to combat. In a Total War battle, you'll find yourself restricted to a very tight formation, slugging away on one spot as line infantry, endlessly hurling projectiles at range, or repeatedly charging static enemy lines as cavalry. You're a nobody with a one-button task, along with 10.000 others around you. There's far too little room for "interactive expression" to justify it as game, rather than a mere re-enactment fantasy.

I am confused by what your saying here. In M&B, you can already set up formations similar to Total War, and lead the AI as a commander, yet they have the ability to "duke it out" very much like a player when the Charge orders are given or even fight autonomously if an enemy gets to close -again, in real action time. New formations schemes and controls are quickly building in the mod scene as well adding a deeper element to the battle screens. I played an MP match the othe night against 1 other human commander in which we both controlled very large bot armies, the experience completely obliterated any Total War experience I've ever had - with some battles lasting a full 45 minutes.

Of course, the human player can jump in the fray and is sometimes forced to at any given moment, the hallmark of this stellar AI being that I'm not always sure if I'm fighting a bot or human until the death meassage pops up.

The fact that a Turkish Husband and Wife team built this entire combat engine with a small Indie budget pretty much cements my undying loyalty :)

Edited by froggyluv

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Contrarily, I find the AI in ArmA to be at once the best and the worst.

It's simply the best in terms of the number of advanced features they are capable of doing, and quite probably the absolute worst in terms of the amount of gametime spent on trying to manage them.

Other notable favourites of mine would include Unreal AI and in particular the FEAR AI.

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Compared to other RTS Empire type games, it does in that troops are moved in real times and ballistics I believe, are somewhat simulated. But in terms of actual combat of AI troops, it can't hold a candle to M&B's combat system. M&B troops have to actual manuever in their attacks, with every sword swing happening in real time as well as blocks, horse archery and dodging cav in and out of attack range at lightening speeds. Thats a lot of calculations happening in real time, physics and ragdoll not withstanding. In Total War, those arent real attacks, feints, dodging and blocking going on -they are dice roles played out graphically.

They aren't the same genre. Or rather, M&B is fairly unique and Total War should be compared to other games.

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They aren't the same genre. Or rather, M&B is fairly unique and Total War should be compared to other games.

Yes, I realize that :p

The point of bringing up Total War at all was that it is quite amazing to have basically a Medieval FPS/fighter, give us a similar heroic grand battle sized warfare experience as a game such as TW, albeit with a high complexity level of individual AI. The comparison ends there.

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Mount and Blade AI is pretty impressive to me. The fact that when the Total War series arrived, how many people wished that those battles could play out in real time as real actions rather than pre-rendered dice roles. M&B does just that. Up to 1000 medevial warriors, archers and cavalry strong ;)

The sheer amount of lightening fast melee action, blocking, archers finding proper trajectory and horsemen trying to cut that perfect angle to swoop in on is imho, pure brilliance.

Mount and Blade is a great game :D. And I agree with you froggyluv. Mount and Blade's combat is very well done. The best part is when you take part in a cavalry charge at the enemy formations... it feels very real.

Besides, back in the medieval times, it would have been very difficult for one commander to command a large army, and keep them highly organised like they are in Total War. Most tactics and formations were worked out/set up before battle. In total war, say all of a sudden you realize that an enemy force is flanking your formations. Then you can dragg half your army (who are in the middle of battle) very quickly to go and encounter that army. Now this is something that realisticly one man would not be able to do, or be fast enough to respond to the falnking army in time. Of course you'd have certain ways of communication, such as displaying certain flags or etc, but you have to much control over you troops in the middle of battle in Total War (though this is not necessarily a bad thing). So M&B combat isn't all together that unrealistic.

Furthermore, there are many mods (I'd imagine there are very few people who play the game without mods) that give more formations options. Though as I said, you can set up formations before bettle, but doing it in the middle of battle is not very easy (which I think is more realistic).

Oh, by the way, has anyone played Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War? I have a feeling that its kinda like M&B, though I'm not sure as I haven't seen much of the game, and nor have played it.

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For my money, and the excellent AI of BIS notwithstanding :) I was pretty impressed with the AI in Hidden & Dangerous 2. Those bastards would sneak around sometimes, I've often been very nastily surprised by some German creeping around a corner to me :)

And, on the whole they acted very effectively ingame.

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