AI has always interested me, and I'm really interested in seeing if I can create a level as an authentic representation of military AI using historical tactics.
I'm not against using a lot of map based triggers in order to give the illusion of the AI being smart, so long as ultimately it is very dynamic and responsive and doesn't feel scripted (FEAR did a good job of this).

I'm considering several modding platforms and was wondering, from an AI programming perspective and mapping perspective, which you might think are best suited to this goal.
Crysis (seems to be the best all around platform, but I have no experience with it)
Half-Life 2 (Flexible and a familiar map utility, but small scale maps not the most conducive to real military environments)
ARMA2 (Poor AI, but I wonder if it has the capability to be made better through modding)
Unreal Tournament 3 (Not sure how much advanced stuff you can achieve through unrealscript)

RTS games are also an option but there aren't a whole lot that seem to strike me as well suited to the task. Aside from men of War, but the stock AI isn't that good so I question how well it could be modded to be more realistic.

Some games like Operation Flashpoint have good AI and were built around this concept, but last I checked the game modding for PC was really not supported.

Civ 4's AI engine is pretty well exposed. I haven't played with it, but you figure it would be good for doing decision-analysis AI.

The crysis AI is already built around a military kind of basis and also they have the ability to pick up on things like sounds and movement so if you wanted something that is half done for you but may need a bit of work then I would go with crysis whereas if you wanted one that you would build up entirely yourself then I would go with Half Life due to its excellent modding support and you have a lot of 'controlability' with the engine and what you can do with it. Have you not looked into any Call Of Duty games? If you are willing to do games as complicated as crysis then I would definitely recommend looking at the Call Of Duty AIs. Hope this helps mate

Civ4 is strategic AI and I'm looking to create tactical AI, which is why I'd looking at games like men of war but not civ style games.

Crysis does seem hard to beat in terms of having everything I need, assuming it's moddable enough to be expanded (It probably is).

That and Halflife2 were my two main ones, because I'm familiar with the HL2 engine already. So I'll look at both of them closer and see which one I should use.

I really like the arma2 engine from a military mod standpoint (especially the scale and numbers of troops you can achieve), if only the existing AI weren't dumb as rocks I'd have some confidence in my ability to mod it to meet my goal.


Call of Duty I hadn't considered. I was never under the impression that their mod support was that good. Especially with later releases that don't even have dedicated servers. Which call of duty should I look at?