Algorithms for realtime strategy wargame AI

Question

I\'m designing a realtime strategy wargame where the AI will be responsible for controlling a large number of units (possibly 1000+) on a large hexagonal map.

A unit has

Answer 1

If you read Russell and Norvig, you'll find a wealth of algorithms for every purpose, updated to pretty much today's state of the art. That said, I was amazed at how many different problem classes can be successfully approached with Bayesian algorithms.

However, in your case I think it would be a bad idea for each unit to have its own Petri net or inference engine... there's only so much CPU and memory and time available. Hence, a different approach:

While in some ways perhaps a crackpot, Stephen Wolfram has shown that it's possible to program remarkably complex behavior on a basis of very simple rules. He bravely extrapolates from the Game of Life to quantum physics and the entire universe.

Similarly, a lot of research on small robots is focusing on emergent behavior or swarm intelligence. While classic military strategy and practice are strongly based on hierarchies, I think that an army of completely selfless, fearless fighters (as can be found marching in your computer) could be remarkably effective if operating as self-organizing clusters.

This approach would probably fit a little better with Erlang's or Scala's actor-based concurrency model than with Clojure's STM: I think self-organization and actors would go together extremely well. Still, I could envision running through a list of units at each turn, and having each unit evaluating just a small handful of very simple rules to determine its next action. I'd be very interested to hear if you've tried this approach, and how it went!

EDIT

Something else that was on the back of my mind but that slipped out again while I was writing: I think you can get remarkable results from this approach if you combine it with genetic or evolutionary programming; i.e. let your virtual toy soldiers wage war on each other as you sleep, let them encode their strategies and mix, match and mutate their code for those strategies; and let a refereeing program select the more successful warriors.

I've read about some startling successes achieved with these techniques, with units operating in ways we'd never think of. I have heard of AIs working on these principles having had to be intentionally dumbed down in order not to frustrate human opponents.