I''m a fairly experienced programmer, but not when it comes to AI. I really want to play around with some AI programming -- I think there are some real great challenges awaiting me! I would like to start in writing some AI for a simple Ultima-like game I''ve been tinkering on. If any of you remember the battle screen in Ultima (3-5 specifically), you''ll remember that the battleground was pretty much just a square grid, with a group of monsters at the top and your player characters on the bottom. I''d like to create some AI just for the battles (for now). I need to figure out how to make the computer move when it should, attack long distance if it can, who it should target, etc. Since I''m a beginner with AI, what are some good references/books for programming this type of AI. As I see it now, I''m just imagining a huge set of if statements, and there''s got to be a better way! Thanks in advance.

use cases

I honestly haven''t found any dedicated books on real beginner AI. I bought AI Techniques for Game Programmers thinking it was for newbs like me, but it only had genetic algorithms and neural networks and completely skips over Finite State Machines, Fuzzy State Machines, A* and some other basic stuff. The articles on gamedev and my book on data structures for game programming(the one from premier press) are where I learned the basic stuff. What you''re describing is a finite state machine(FSM), and it actually _IS_ implemented using a bunch of if, else if, commands or just switch/(cases) as johnnyBravo suggested. Fuzzy state machines (FuSM) are a little bit different and you can google that for some more info(though for what you seem to want to do FSM''s will work just fine). Also, if you want to start thinking about pathfinding, this site has some great articles on A* and you can google even more good articles on A* and other pathfinding algorithms. Once again, if you want a _book_ on basic AI, you''re better off with a more general book I think, like LaMothe''s windows game programming book, or the data structures book from Premier Press.

Hope this helped
-Mak

I recently picked up a copy of "AI Game Programming Wisdom 2" edited by Steve Rabin. $70 at Borders but it was the best $70 I have spent in a long time. It is not for the total newbie, as it is a collection of papers from something like 50 different authors that have worked on AI in commercial games. But if you are well experienced in programming and have some fundamental grasp of graph theory, it could be what you are looking for. It covers a lot of practical ground, and doesn''t go too far into the more esoteric methodologies that havent proven to be real effective. Almost every paper is based on methods used in shipped commercial products. I haven''t peeked in the CD yet as I have so far been able to adapt the parts I am interested in pretty easily from the descriptions and code snippets in the book, but it sounds like the CD has a lot of nice code included. It has several papers on RTS battle AI which would probably apply fairly well to the ultima style of game.

Peace

Thanks for the replies everyone. I''ll be checking out the book mentioned, as well as starting on my FSM.

Just my $0.02, but if you''re really interested in AI also pick up a copy of Russel and Norvig''s AI - A Modern Approach. It is the basis of many Fundamental of AI courses and would serve as a good complement to AI Wisdom 1 or 2. In fact, a LOT of articles in AI Wisdom cite Russel and Norvig.

-Kirk

Don''t let AI scare ya. It is nothing mystical or mysterious. No more or less than anything else really. It can be complicated at times, or can be simple as hell. You said earlier all you imagine is a bunch of ''if'' statements. Go with that for your first try. Nothing wrong with that. If the guy is more than 100 meters away from me, use my rocket launhcer, if he is less, use my machine gun, if I am low on health, use a health pack, if I have more points than the user taunt him with degrading messages. Simple, easy, and can produce quick results. Not horribly powerful, but again, start simple.

7 years of experience is behind me. So you might have a lot to do.
I would recommend to start by looking to the source of roguelike games especialy on AI part, if you''d be able to find it. Usenet archives might be a nice resource too. There is very little reasonable resources about game AI, becose games needs more often a strong AI.

Ultima AI is more in the category of the difficult AI. Of course you might simplify it. Look around for AI for fighting game and try to learn from that threads.