I have a course in my current semester in which I'm required to do a project on application of AI. I have decided to do this on game AI. I have 2 basic ideas: implementing an FPS bot(s) or implementing soccer AI.

I'm quiet a noob at AI right now, I've implemented basic pathfinding algos (A*, etc), and have studied about Finite state machines, some First Order logic, basic Neural Network stuff(Backpropagation ALgo), and am currently doing a course on Genetic Algorithms.

Our main focus is on the bot right now. Our plans include:

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  Each 'bot' would be implemented using a Finite State Machine (FSM), which would contain the possible states the bot could have; & the rules for the action/state changes that are going to take place when it receives an input.
  


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  In bot group movement, each bot would decide whether to strike, ways to strike; based on range, number of bots, existing fights using Neural Networks.
  


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  By using genetic algorithms the opponents next move could be anticipated based on repetitive moves.
  

Although I've programmed a few 2d games till now in my free time (like pacman, tetris, etc), I've never really gone into the 3d area. We will most probably be using a 3d engine.

We want to concentrate most of our energy on the AI part. We would like not to be bothered with unnecessary details about the animation/3d models, etc. For example, if we could find a framework which has functions like Moveright() which just moves the bot to the right, it would be really awesome.

My basic question is : is it too ambitious to go about it in the way we have planned, considering the duration of the project is abour 3 months? Should we go 3d and use a 3d game engine? is it easy to use such engines, if you have no experience with them before? If yes, what kind of engine would be suitable to our project?

I came accross another idea, given in the book AI Game programming by example, where the player would have a top down view of the bots. Would that way be more appropriate?

Thanks .. sorry about the length of the question .. it's just that my problem is a bit too specific.

If you're in school and taking other classes then building more than the simplest of 3D games is going to be hard to do in 3 months. Top down would be a lot easier and the AI parts will be roughly the same. If you want to focus on AI then I would suggest not writing the game at all, and instead write AI for a preexisting open source game such as Sauerbraten or BZflag.

A friend and I once wrote AI for BZ Flag which would interpolate bullet (bullets are slow) and player movement and determine if a shot fired at the current position was likely to hit an enemy, firing automatically if a hit was detected. Using the same formulas bullets could be detected that you were likely to be hit by and dodged. I'm sure it thoroughly pissed off everyone we played with online, but it did provide a pretty good platform for playing with AI.