Conditional AI

[Plugger]

Goodaye,

Great game. Appreciate all the developer interaction going on. Getting a grip on all the different aspects and 'issues' of the game is a lot easier when the reasoning behind the design decisions is explained.

I realise that you (dev's) probably have your hands full at present but I'd like to put a suggestion forward for some kind of conditional AI ability. By this I mean the ability (as a scenario maker) to have you units interact in a basic meaningful way with what the enemy does when constructing AI strat plans.

A typical example would be positioning troops in a building. Along come the bad guys, see your troops, engage and in short order blow the bejesus out of said building and troops.

In real life the good guys would 'relocate' quick smart, hopefully before any heavy ordance levelled the place. Currently the scenario maker who sets the AI strat plan really only has the ability to relocate them on preplanned timed maneouvre that may or may not coincide with enemy movements.

What I'd like to see is some basic ability to flag a condition like "Under fire" for instance. If your troops in the building come under fire then they have the ability to do 'x'. Another way it could work would be 'enemy within distance x of troops'.

Whether the above is doable code wise is beyond my remit but hopefully I've got the gist of my thinking across. The main reason I'm suggesting this in order to create a more 'interactive' battle plan that has the ability to adapt to enemy action (on the AI strat level, not the hard coded tac AI level) and provide a more challenging opponent.

If this could be incorporated at some future point it would be great as the strat AI parameters currently available to a scenario maker have a pretty minimal ability to react to what the enemy does.

And who was it that said that any battle plan is redundant once contact with the enemy is made?

Cheers,

PLugger

[JasonC]

That would be Moltke the elder, chief of the Prussian general staff. ("No plan..." I mean)

Funny, he managed to arrange for military victories that turned on full use of railway timetables for intimately choreographed mass mobilizations - but then, that is the plan *before* contact with the enemy! (lol)