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Author Topic: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"  (Read 82681 times)

x4000

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #15 on: August 29, 2009, 07:35:07 pm »

I checked this game out last night/today and I have to say its quite impressive. Im working through  the intermediate tutorial, and Im liking how it is so far.  I am currently reading through the AI blog and I am very impressed . Im going to play it a bit longer, and see if it really hooks me in.  If it does, Ill buy it, and mebey a bunch of us could get a campaign going!

I really love that emergent behavior too, and really wanna take a peek under the hood at that ai code. :D

There is some AI code on the blog, but not a whole lot.  I'll probably post some more at some point in the future; if you're working on a game of your own (or have questions you'd like me to address on the blog), I'm always happy to discuss techniques and methods, too.

Oh -- and if you want to see some pretty shocking improvements in the AI, check out the 1.201 prerelease versions from our forums.  That will be going live hopefully next week.  The AI is way more aggressive in certain ways in that update, but it also does things like tactical retreats, regrouping, and other tricky stuff like that.  It's also much better about coordinating for attacks on large fortified targets.  Still an extremely emergent system, but basically increasing the decision space (by adding more "behaviorlets") leads to even more varied and intelligent-seeming high level strategies.  I've actually had to increase the economic capabilities of the human players a bit to compensate for the increased difficulty of just making the AI smarter in general, which is cool.

Edit: After poking around on the orgional forums for a bit. I seen that no one has beaten 2 lvl 8s or 1 lvl 9 or 10 AI yet. That excites me.

Actually, I believe some people have beaten 2 level 8.3s, but I don't know about anything higher than that.  I know no one has beaten 2 9s or 10s, though.  There's definitely a level of challenge there for anyone. :)
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Grishnak

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #16 on: August 29, 2009, 09:38:31 pm »

Well, I dabble in game programming, and I have a large intrest in AI, espically after reading your blog. I have only written EXTREMELY basic FSM's for toying around with a game called Grobots, which is a small little programming game where you program robots.  I also really enjoy looking at code.  If you have any good resources on AI programming and or theory I would gladly accept them.

As for the game its self, the tutorial is great, gives a pretty good feeling of the overall game.  The whole one hour for the demo feels a bit short though to be honest. Espically after reading up on alot of the game. I played a few of the campaigs and 1 hour barely gives enough time to mass a decent defence fleet in your home base and take over a planet. Mebey a slightly extended time period would be a bit better to hook people in. Something like 2 hours, so you can get rooted in a bit more, and experience something that makes you go "WOW" even in the demo. In the one hour you can play it doesnt seem likely that you would get that.

But regardless, I am so intrested in the AI and how it will play out in longer games, that Im going to probably buy a key on monday. Which is a big thing for me, as I RARELY buy games, because most are not worth it. The last pc game I bought was Halflife 2 and Episode 1 something like 3 years ago.

I also registered on the forums, but I figure since Im already writing a rather large post here, I might as well ask this:
Do you have any plans for any user submitted art?  That might help out on the whole "game has no feeling" problems people have. You could end up getting alot of style from various people, and possibly have whole "faction" looking ships and such.  I ask cause if you do, I do some pretty awesome pixel art, and would be willing to lend a hand. :)
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KaelGotDwarves

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2009, 01:11:06 am »

Looks like a good game to try and pretend to be Ender Wiggin. :)

Nilocy

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2009, 07:27:14 am »

Heh, thats quite a good idea acctually.
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x4000

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #19 on: August 30, 2009, 09:11:18 am »

Well, I dabble in game programming, and I have a large intrest in AI, espically after reading your blog. I have only written EXTREMELY basic FSM's for toying around with a game called Grobots, which is a small little programming game where you program robots.  I also really enjoy looking at code.  If you have any good resources on AI programming and or theory I would gladly accept them.

Cool stuff!  The main resource that I used when familiarizing myself with AI basics was the O'Reilly book AI for Game Developers.  It covered a lot of topics at just the right depth to let me evaluate them and then mostly do my own thing.  There's also always a lot of good articles and content over at aigamedev.net, as well as a lot of people (professional developers, indie developers, academics, and hobbyists) there who are discussing AI of all sorts.  Pretty cool community.

As for the game its self, the tutorial is great, gives a pretty good feeling of the overall game.  The whole one hour for the demo feels a bit short though to be honest. Espically after reading up on alot of the game. I played a few of the campaigs and 1 hour barely gives enough time to mass a decent defence fleet in your home base and take over a planet. Mebey a slightly extended time period would be a bit better to hook people in. Something like 2 hours, so you can get rooted in a bit more, and experience something that makes you go "WOW" even in the demo. In the one hour you can play it doesnt seem likely that you would get that.

Did you play the intermediate tutorial?  It's a similated campaign that lets you play for 3+ hours, and I get a lot of emails with people going "WOW" not about the AI, but just about how fun the game is from that.  For a demo, we actually have a pretty extreme amount of content, but that's mostly through the intermediate tutorial.

But regardless, I am so intrested in the AI and how it will play out in longer games, that Im going to probably buy a key on monday. Which is a big thing for me, as I RARELY buy games, because most are not worth it. The last pc game I bought was Halflife 2 and Episode 1 something like 3 years ago.

Episodes 2 and 3 are also very much worth it.  And Portal, if you have not played that, is an absolute must.  The Orange Box is a steal these days, frankly.  But point taken, glad you're so into the game, and thanks for your support!

I also registered on the forums, but I figure since Im already writing a rather large post here, I might as well ask this:
Do you have any plans for any user submitted art?  That might help out on the whole "game has no feeling" problems people have. You could end up getting alot of style from various people, and possibly have whole "faction" looking ships and such.  I ask cause if you do, I do some pretty awesome pixel art, and would be willing to lend a hand. :)

We do have some user submitted art already in place, actually -- the explosions and one of the starfields.  We also have an artist on staff now, who is busily revamping, well, about everything, which just takes time.  If you look at the 1.201 prereleases versus the 1.013 release (or look at the older 1.010 release), you can see an extremely striking difference in those jumps.  We're basically working up towards a bit "2.0" release in a month or so where visually it's going to be like a whole new game.  There are also a number of players who have been doing little art mods of various things, and floating them on our forums to see what others think.  Some of those have made it into the official game, with the permission of the creators.  I can't promise that every mod will make it into the game, but if you're interested doing that sort of thing, it's certainly always welcome!  Thanks again for your interest!
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x4000

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #20 on: August 30, 2009, 09:12:05 am »

Looks like a good game to try and pretend to be Ender Wiggin. :)

Oh yeah, I myself feel that way many times as I play.  Best book ever. :)
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Nilocy

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #21 on: August 30, 2009, 10:15:21 am »

Well, I've just played the intermediate tutorial for the last 2 hours, so far I've taken over 4 planets and not lost too many units. I 'm very much liking the tutorial and its teachings, especially since it doesn't just put you on rails and forbids you to do stuff. Free form for the win! :D

Anyway, I'm very much liking this game, and I havn't even played it with friends yet. We all decided (about 4/5 of us) that we'd get together and try this out at lans, since we're pretty much always looking for new games. So even more enjoyment shall be coming about.

Thanks again for making such an awesome game.
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Grishnak

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #22 on: August 30, 2009, 10:59:04 am »

Yea, I ran through the intermediate tutorial, and thats what really caught alot of intrest and is very good, but from reading it says that the tutorials ai is very limited, and the flow of the actual game is kind of misleading, since the attacks are kind of scripted, and you can just wait to proceed.  And the fact that the AI is the main focus of the game, playing one hour where the AI isnt limited by the contrants of the tutorial, doesnt give the ai time to shine.  Like I was saying before, one hour is barely enough time to take over one planet, so you cant really provoke the AI into doing stuff to you.  The "WOW" moments I was more or less referring to the AI doing its fancy stuff to you that makes you *facepalm*.  This is all just personal opinion of course, just giving my input. ;)


And thanks for the links! Im going to go poke around right now. As for that AI book, I think I have that already.  And I do have the orange box, which I bought for my 360. I do buy 360 games because I already know not to expect 100% awesome gameplay tons and tons of content cause its a console.  PC games I hold to higher standards though.
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I'm a saint when it comes to pirating.  I've ripped and burned many a .iso, went .rar at my maties and sailed the .7z's.
Blog for my new roguelike Lost Horizon. <- kind of on hold
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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #23 on: August 30, 2009, 08:40:43 pm »

Well, I've just played the intermediate tutorial for the last 2 hours, so far I've taken over 4 planets and not lost too many units. I 'm very much liking the tutorial and its teachings, especially since it doesn't just put you on rails and forbids you to do stuff. Free form for the win! :D

Anyway, I'm very much liking this game, and I havn't even played it with friends yet. We all decided (about 4/5 of us) that we'd get together and try this out at lans, since we're pretty much always looking for new games. So even more enjoyment shall be coming about.

Thanks again for making such an awesome game.

Thanks for the note!  I'm really glad you're getting into it so much, and I hope you and your friends have a blast.  In some ways it is a bit surreal seeing the game taking off in so many directions, since this was for so long something that was just played by around four people.  It's really cool seeing all the different things that other players do in the game, and all the suggestions and feedback they have on ways to make it even better.
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x4000

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #24 on: August 30, 2009, 08:48:04 pm »

Yea, I ran through the intermediate tutorial, and thats what really caught alot of intrest and is very good, but from reading it says that the tutorials ai is very limited, and the flow of the actual game is kind of misleading, since the attacks are kind of scripted, and you can just wait to proceed.  And the fact that the AI is the main focus of the game, playing one hour where the AI isnt limited by the contrants of the tutorial, doesnt give the ai time to shine.  Like I was saying before, one hour is barely enough time to take over one planet, so you cant really provoke the AI into doing stuff to you.  The "WOW" moments I was more or less referring to the AI doing its fancy stuff to you that makes you *facepalm*.  This is all just personal opinion of course, just giving my input. ;)

Very true.  Of course, if you want to crank the AI up to 10, you can see plenty of facepalm moments in that hour, if you survive that long.  So I think there's plenty of ways to experiment with the tactical AI, just not in a longform game.  People generally buy games because they are fun moreso than anything else, and I think we've got enough press and other outside sources saying how great the AI is that most people don't feel too unsure about that aspect.  You make some good points there, but it's just a matter of giving away enough to hook people, but not enough to satisfy their desire to actually play the game.  I've been accosted over giving away too much in the tutorial actually a bit more than I have about not giving away enough (oddly), so I'm guessing the balance is about right on the main.  It's always a judgement call, I guess, as with any game.

And thanks for the links! Im going to go poke around right now. As for that AI book, I think I have that already.  And I do have the orange box, which I bought for my 360. I do buy 360 games because I already know not to expect 100% awesome gameplay tons and tons of content cause its a console.  PC games I hold to higher standards though.

Sure thing!  Yeah, I've started switching to playing more games on my PS3, too, just because it gets me away from the computer (which I work at), and I enjoy the larger TV screen.  PC gaming has always had a special place for me, though, as you might expect given that I'm a PC developer.  So the titles I play there tend to be something more special, too, on the main.  Glad AI War fits into that category for you!
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Nilocy

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #25 on: August 31, 2009, 10:40:32 am »

Right I have a question about Multiplayer games. Is it possible to save a MP game and then return to it later?
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x4000

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #26 on: August 31, 2009, 10:43:22 am »

Right I have a question about Multiplayer games. Is it possible to save a MP game and then return to it later?

Oh, yeah.  They can be saved just like a solo game (by any one of the players, not just the host).  When you want to resume, the host just loads the savegame as usual, and everyone reconnects, and you're back off to the races.  It has frustrated me to no end that other recent RTS games have often omitted this feature.
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Grishnak

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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #27 on: August 31, 2009, 07:35:39 pm »

Ok, I have just purchased this game. Im going in for my first full campaign! If anyone wants to play some multiplayer pm me on the forums so we can trade info and get a game going!
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I'm a saint when it comes to pirating.  I've ripped and burned many a .iso, went .rar at my maties and sailed the .7z's.
Blog for my new roguelike Lost Horizon. <- kind of on hold
My SoundCloud
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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #28 on: August 31, 2009, 07:53:35 pm »

Ok, I have just purchased this game. Im going in for my first full campaign! If anyone wants to play some multiplayer pm me on the forums so we can trade info and get a game going!

Thanks for your support!  And if you want to look for other players, our AI War Meeting Grounds forum is also a great place to look.
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Re: Its called "AI War: Fleet Command"
« Reply #29 on: August 31, 2009, 09:26:47 pm »

I just noticed this thread and checked the game out. Did the frist 3 tutorials and I am going to do the forth tomarrow. So far I am REALLY liking this game. I love space games. I love space strategy games. Homeworld was good but it just didn't feel right.

This, with it lovable 2d graphics and great feel of scale, so far seems just perfect for my liking  :D
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