Hey everyone. I am working on a project that will eventually have to have an AI for the player to go against. Now, it's a fighting game, and I've heard that state machines are the best for this, is that so? I've done an AI application before, but it wasn't done using any particular method (one flaw about how I work: I just program for programming's sake - I rarely know exact terms for what I am doing), so I don't really know much about AI. This demo of mine should be capable of pretty complex move combinations and should be able to move around the player in three dimension. Can anyone give me some tips so I can start looking for information on your suggestions? Also, do any of you have any examples or know where I could find examples on how these ideas may work? Any good sites on game AI? I used to go to AI Depot, but for some reason, they don't seem to be as.. well, 'lively' as they had used to be about 2 years ago when I had first started my last AI project. Anyway, any help would be greatly appreciated, as always.

gameai.com might be a good place to start. You should also take a look at the gamedev articles section. There is a ton of information about AI there.

Finite state machines are probably the best bet for the game you are making. This method works by creating a set of states and a set of rules for transitioning from state to state. States might be something like duck and block, attack, defensive mode, attack combo mode, etc. Rules can be as simple or complex as you want. For example, you might want to transition into a defensive state if your health is below a certain threshold.