3 ms·

Has anyone built better AIs for this?

by JumpCrisscross 4mo ago

logdahl 4mo ago
I might suck but I found it really hard iirc :^(
- dogma1138 4mo ago
  AI in strategy games always cheats I haven’t seen a single game where the AI wasn’t built around cheating. Once you figure out how it cheats it’s usually a combination of resource multipliers, build time multipliers and not having a fog of war it becomes much essier to beat at any difficulty.
  - invader 4mo ago
    Often, but not always. I hate the term "AI" applied to games, since AI means so many things and usually implies something smart, "intelligent". But in reality, it is more like a "bot" or a "computer player". And the main goal is not to be super-smart, but to be plausible enough and provide an appropriate challenge to the human player. There are some "fair" bots in games - like in my favorite turn-based Mechanized Assault and Exploration from the mid 90s. Computer players follow the same rules as the human ones - e.g., if something is not visible to the radar, the computer will not see it. The only "cheat" is the resource boost computer players can have on the higher difficulty settings, but it is totally optional. And as an experienced player, you always let the computer have it, since you want a challenge, and without that boost, it has no chance whatsoever.
    - Sharlin 4mo ago
      Real-time strategy AI is absolutely AI in the standard Russell & Norvig sense of AI. There's nothing about the computer science concept of AI that implies "super-smart" or always trying to outsmart the player (rather than trying to be entertaining). Continuously shifting the goalposts of what "AI" is is, of course, a well-known phenomenon, giving rise to what's called the AI effect or Tesler's theorem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
      - invader 4mo ago
        Maybe it is, given that the classical AI definition is so broad, it can mean almost anything. But for me, there's a fundamental difference between something that "tries to be intelligent" and something that "tries to appear to be intelligent". That is why I prefer to call them "bots" or "computers" - just to separate them from a shifting mess of definitions of what "AI" actually means. It reminds me of "Destination Void" by Frank Herbert, where the main characters were trying to build artificial consciousness and were struggling to define what it actually means.
      - stephantul 4mo ago
        Thanks for introducing me to the article! I’ve experienced this myself but didn’t know it had a name.
  - ben_w 4mo ago
    Not always. For a lot of games it can be surprisingly easy to make an AI which beats the median player even when limited to just basic strategies, simply by not getting distracted by the gut feelings that humans have. Even for more complex strategy games like say Starcraft II where that's not enough, there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software)
  - jtolmar 4mo ago
    There's a whole scene around making bots for Starcraft: Broodwar, using an API (BWAPI) that doesn't allow cheating. They're quite good now, better than most humans. But the top bots still can't beat a pro, or even a high ranked ladder player.
9dev 4mo ago
Pitching in on this with a tangent - how good are LLMs with RTS games these days? As someone without friends into that genre, it’d be pretty cool to play eg. AoE II against a capable computer that play like a real human…
- HeavyStorm 4mo ago
  It's improving but sota models are now too slow for a real time game. Training a specialized neural network would be more effecient.
- clates 4mo ago
  Depends on what you mean, LLMs can probably _make_ pretty good AIs. It'll have all the AI scripts in the base game, including the three iterations (base, FE, DE) all the user generated ones ( including barbarian ) and then able to consume the language schema. Rig up a baby model that takes the matchup during loading and hot swaps one of your pregenerated AI scripts. If you meant _playing_ raw based on LLM input - that's probably the wrong tool for the job. The latency for you to react to a mango shot is faster than a billion tok/s lol
- yard2010 4mo ago
  Instead of driving the agent with an llm, it might work to use the agent to hard code heuristics, and use some kind of a simulation to benchmark its skills? Then feeding the results back to the agent so it can improve the heuristics?
egeozcan 4mo ago
When I was a teen I was mostly writing RA2 custom map scripts and rules/units for my friends and watch them battle with my rules in internet cafes. When that was not possible, I was creating custom RA2 AIs, but it was very hard. These days, I'm having incredible fun developing good old AI scripts with LLMs, for my own vibe-coded RTS game. Just choose all AI players here to make them battle each other: https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ I even let the LLM generate a tournament script to make AI scripts from different LLMs battle (headless): https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/scripts/tournament.ts https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/script... GPT-5.5 leaves all in the dust currently. I cannot beat most in the game I set the rules myself :) If you are like me, you can just make LLMs create your personal RTS game and also develop custom AIs. It's so much fun.
- wahnfrieden 4mo ago
  Were you familiar with my modding site RA2Factory?
  - egeozcan 4mo ago
    Yes! I downloaded a lot of shps voxels and map packs from your site! I think it was the beginning of 2000s? Anyway, a very delayed thank you!
    - wahnfrieden 4mo ago
      Amazing! You're welcome. Yes it must've been around 2000, I was around 13-14 when I built Tiberian Sun Factory and then RA2 Factory. To be honest I didn't play with mods much myself because I was consumed enough with the joy of building tools (such as for INI editing and voxels) and the websites, and connecting with the community and other site/tool builders. I did play the vanilla games a lot though. I contacted the community manager at Westwood Studios and was granted the chance to visit once during a trip through Vegas. I remember him and others being very friendly, giving me a tour through the office, seeing the reality of the life of game testers, having some time with the Yuri's Revenge expansion before release, and being given some merch - a Dune II box, a C&C poster, which I still have in storage. Just to share some more of what I can recall from those days.
singpolyma3 4mo ago
Does the project allow AI?
- tremon 4mo ago
  Old-skool AI, aka cpu opponent.
apitman 4mo ago
I know you meant player AI, but now I'm imagining an RTS where every unit is running a small reasoning LLM.
- doublerabbit 4mo ago
  It's already in the works. NDA but the studio I gig at, their Ai love to send NPCs off cliffs. Because there is no collision between the sky and floor it determines that this is the quickest route. Even with zoning it does something you'll never think of. Using LLMs as NPCs can be hilarious to watch.
  - _superposition_ 4mo ago
    I need to hear more. That or start my own NPC circus.

Has anyone built better AIs for this?

logdahl 4mo ago

I might suck but I found it really hard iirc :^(

dogma1138 4mo ago
AI in strategy games always cheats I haven’t seen a single game where the AI wasn’t built around cheating. Once you figure out how it cheats it’s usually a combination of resource multipliers, build time multipliers and not having a fog of war it becomes much essier to beat at any difficulty.
- invader 4mo ago
  Often, but not always. I hate the term "AI" applied to games, since AI means so many things and usually implies something smart, "intelligent". But in reality, it is more like a "bot" or a "computer player". And the main goal is not to be super-smart, but to be plausible enough and provide an appropriate challenge to the human player. There are some "fair" bots in games - like in my favorite turn-based Mechanized Assault and Exploration from the mid 90s. Computer players follow the same rules as the human ones - e.g., if something is not visible to the radar, the computer will not see it. The only "cheat" is the resource boost computer players can have on the higher difficulty settings, but it is totally optional. And as an experienced player, you always let the computer have it, since you want a challenge, and without that boost, it has no chance whatsoever.
  - Sharlin 4mo ago
    Real-time strategy AI is absolutely AI in the standard Russell & Norvig sense of AI. There's nothing about the computer science concept of AI that implies "super-smart" or always trying to outsmart the player (rather than trying to be entertaining). Continuously shifting the goalposts of what "AI" is is, of course, a well-known phenomenon, giving rise to what's called the AI effect or Tesler's theorem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
    - invader 4mo ago
      Maybe it is, given that the classical AI definition is so broad, it can mean almost anything. But for me, there's a fundamental difference between something that "tries to be intelligent" and something that "tries to appear to be intelligent". That is why I prefer to call them "bots" or "computers" - just to separate them from a shifting mess of definitions of what "AI" actually means. It reminds me of "Destination Void" by Frank Herbert, where the main characters were trying to build artificial consciousness and were struggling to define what it actually means.
    - stephantul 4mo ago
      Thanks for introducing me to the article! I’ve experienced this myself but didn’t know it had a name.
- ben_w 4mo ago
  Not always. For a lot of games it can be surprisingly easy to make an AI which beats the median player even when limited to just basic strategies, simply by not getting distracted by the gut feelings that humans have. Even for more complex strategy games like say Starcraft II where that's not enough, there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software)
- jtolmar 4mo ago
  There's a whole scene around making bots for Starcraft: Broodwar, using an API (BWAPI) that doesn't allow cheating. They're quite good now, better than most humans. But the top bots still can't beat a pro, or even a high ranked ladder player.

9dev 4mo ago

Pitching in on this with a tangent - how good are LLMs with RTS games these days? As someone without friends into that genre, it’d be pretty cool to play eg. AoE II against a capable computer that play like a real human…

HeavyStorm 4mo ago
It's improving but sota models are now too slow for a real time game. Training a specialized neural network would be more effecient.
clates 4mo ago
Depends on what you mean, LLMs can probably _make_ pretty good AIs. It'll have all the AI scripts in the base game, including the three iterations (base, FE, DE) all the user generated ones ( including barbarian ) and then able to consume the language schema. Rig up a baby model that takes the matchup during loading and hot swaps one of your pregenerated AI scripts. If you meant _playing_ raw based on LLM input - that's probably the wrong tool for the job. The latency for you to react to a mango shot is faster than a billion tok/s lol
yard2010 4mo ago
Instead of driving the agent with an llm, it might work to use the agent to hard code heuristics, and use some kind of a simulation to benchmark its skills? Then feeding the results back to the agent so it can improve the heuristics?

egeozcan 4mo ago

When I was a teen I was mostly writing RA2 custom map scripts and rules/units for my friends and watch them battle with my rules in internet cafes. When that was not possible, I was creating custom RA2 AIs, but it was very hard. These days, I'm having incredible fun developing good old AI scripts with LLMs, for my own vibe-coded RTS game. Just choose all AI players here to make them battle each other: https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ I even let the LLM generate a tournament script to make AI scripts from different LLMs battle (headless): https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/scripts/tournament.ts https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/script... GPT-5.5 leaves all in the dust currently. I cannot beat most in the game I set the rules myself :) If you are like me, you can just make LLMs create your personal RTS game and also develop custom AIs. It's so much fun.

wahnfrieden 4mo ago
Were you familiar with my modding site RA2Factory?
- egeozcan 4mo ago
  Yes! I downloaded a lot of shps voxels and map packs from your site! I think it was the beginning of 2000s? Anyway, a very delayed thank you!
  - wahnfrieden 4mo ago
    Amazing! You're welcome. Yes it must've been around 2000, I was around 13-14 when I built Tiberian Sun Factory and then RA2 Factory. To be honest I didn't play with mods much myself because I was consumed enough with the joy of building tools (such as for INI editing and voxels) and the websites, and connecting with the community and other site/tool builders. I did play the vanilla games a lot though. I contacted the community manager at Westwood Studios and was granted the chance to visit once during a trip through Vegas. I remember him and others being very friendly, giving me a tour through the office, seeing the reality of the life of game testers, having some time with the Yuri's Revenge expansion before release, and being given some merch - a Dune II box, a C&C poster, which I still have in storage. Just to share some more of what I can recall from those days.

singpolyma3 4mo ago

Does the project allow AI?

tremon 4mo ago
Old-skool AI, aka cpu opponent.

apitman 4mo ago

I know you meant player AI, but now I'm imagining an RTS where every unit is running a small reasoning LLM.

doublerabbit 4mo ago
It's already in the works. NDA but the studio I gig at, their Ai love to send NPCs off cliffs. Because there is no collision between the sky and floor it determines that this is the quickest route. Even with zoning it does something you'll never think of. Using LLMs as NPCs can be hilarious to watch.
- _superposition_ 4mo ago
  I need to hear more. That or start my own NPC circus.