Re: [glob2-devel] Upcoming release (0.8.16?)

[Bradley Arsenault]

My new AI, people on IRC should know about, may be ready in time for
the next release. There are three things that need to be finished
before it can play the game: attack, defense, and building
construction. Obviously, building construction is the major one. I can
cover basic attack and defense in a day, maybe tommorrow if I get
enough time. Building construction is somewhat larger ... I probably
won't finish that before the release. However, the AI still plays very
well with an existing settlement, its control is excellent, it can
keep 150 workers with an average starving number of 7, not bad.

The AI is devided into modules. Not litterall modules, as in class
AIHelper_Module, but in theorie. A module is a group of functions
inside the AI that serve a particular purpose. It is very important
that each module is self dependant, the only interaction one module
has with another is by inhibbiting factors. Probably the most
important factor to make the AI run smoothly is every module telling
the swarm control module how many units it needs to do its job, with
priorities. Less important factors would be something like the defense
module telling the construction and upgrade-repair modules not to do
anything in an area that is being attacked.

The AI works by using an iteration system. It circles around in a
number of ticks, and given times throughout that iteration, it runs
certain functions. So the AI remains pretty fast, 80% of the time its
returning null. However, isntead of directly returning commands, it
puts them in a queue. This allows one function (for one action) to
queue up several commands. And at the start of each of the following
ticks, it checks to see if anything is in the queue, if so it returns
it.

Its systems are very statistically based. They always reads in,
stores, and recovers statistics. It always records what it does, not
permamently, but untill its done doing it. So, unlike the other AI's,
it knows exactly what it was doing, rather than figuring it out each
time, which is what allows the iteration system to work. I try to
minimize threshhold algorithms, and use reletive statistics whenever
possible. However, if you examine the code, I don't *always* do this,
I haven't had enough time to fine tune the AI.

Perhaps the most innovating part of the AI is its configurability.
Everything it does, how many units it assigns in certain situations,
grid sizes and overlap, is all defined by constants. I try to put as
much into constants as possible, this allows, in the future perhaps,
the ability of multiple difficulty levels! I thought of 5. There are
the general three, easy, medium, and hard. And then there would be
training, which would bassically play hard except it never attacks, so
it can't win. Would prove very usefull to a new person to try out
different things while there getting accustummed to the game.
Impossible mode would bassically be the most fine tuned I could get
it. Try everything, do everything, attack everything! It is what I'm
aiming for right now, the most difficult of AI's. Of coarse, difficult
changes would require changes in the gui.

Another thing my AI does that may be of interest is use grids. It has
a simple, abstracted set of functions for operating on the grid in
chunks. For example, the AI will go through each grid sectiont to find
one that has the most hidden spaces, then put an explorer flag on
that. Andrew thought that using grids may be of use to lighten the
load of the wavefront algorithm dramatically. Rather than having a
path for each resource and building, just have paths for each section
of the grid, and the globs can move between grids. This would allow
for section checks as well, meaning if a section hasn't changed, don't
recompute it.

Last couple of thins I'm going to mention. I try to document the code
very well and fully, on each function and member. Hopefully, this will
allow other developers to understand the code fully. As of right now,
the code does not conform to Glob2 style guidelines. Thats not too
hard to fix though, I just change my bcpp settings to use tabs and
stuff. As well, I use std::random_shuffle, which doesn't use sync
rand. I'm trying to find a way around this, the one apparent solution
is to make a RandomNumberFunctor and use it for the random_shuffle,
but later I want to do weighted random shuffling, so I'm considering
writing my own algorithm implementation. A weighted random shuffle
shouldn't be too hard, I've already thought of a way to do it. However
it becomes more difficult when you use multiple weightings (say
increased weight because a building is an inn, decreased weight
because its near enemy warriors). I'll have to do that before the next
release. The AI's individual modules are explained on
http://www.globulation2.org/wiki/AIHelper. I would welcome any
comments.

On 11/18/05, Andrew Sayers <address@hidden> wrote:
> It looks like we're going ahead with another quick release in the next
> few weeks, which I assume we'll call 0.8.16.  Could people who have code
> they would like to see included (which is ready or almost ready for
> inclusion right now) speak up?
>
> Also, we need people to make binary packages of the game.  Making a
> Linux tar.gz shouldn't be too hard, but is there anyone out there in a
> position to make a Windows or Mac release?  TMM created an autopackage
> version of 0.8.15 a few months ago - can you make one for 0.8.16?
> Vincent Deffontaines <address@hidden> is registered as having
> created/uploaded glob2 into Debian - Vincent, are you still around?  Is
> there any chance of an update for 0.8.16?
>
>         - Andrew
>
>
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