![]() ![]() Dota 2 is a MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), which demands team coordination, long-term strategy, resource management and also the micro-management of heroes battling on each time. Most recently the OpenAI Five, a team of computer algorithms, beat former pro players of the popular Dota 2, and it wasn't even a close-run thing. Whenever AI beats the most talented human players at a video game, there's some buzz in the news. When you put learning into the mix, that's when it really gets interesting. And that's just with bots following instructions. Easy enough for a novice like me, I saw just how complex it can be to programs priorities, sequences and conditions for relatively video game rules and goals. To get some insight into this I tried Gladiabots, a game where you program a team of robots to fight and score goals in games against similarly programmed teams. In fact, you can have a go at video game AI programming yourself. I can't blame them, since it's difficult for simple AI to present a challenge to experienced humans. Of course video gamers have been battling AI for many years, and the fact is that our AI adversaries have been laughable easy to beat and exploit, forcing game devs to resort to giving the computer unfair advantages in-game. Deep learning, machine learning, and neural networks: AI explained.It took until 2015, when Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program surprisingly defeated Lee Sedol, for an AI champion to emerge. Go has simpler rules than chess, but many more possible rules, and generally requires more intuition than raw brainpower. The ancient Chinese game of Go, which occupied a similar cultural position to the game of Chess, was the next to fall. Sad for the mystique of chess, but humanity was safe from AI competition when it came to most other games. Instead, the machine champion won by sheer brute force to evaluate millions of positions at once. When computer IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a chess match, it was seen as a sign that computer intelligence had surpassed human, but Deep Blue was no genius. ![]() Just hope your AI programs are up to the task ahead because you cannot change anything once the match starts.Back in 1997, a game took place that rocked the world. This is possible because all your control of the game is done once you hit go. ![]() The cool thing about the multiplayer is that both teams don’t have to be on and actually playing at the same time. On top of that, if you start to feel like playing against the computer is getting too predictable, there is a multiplayer mode to pit yourself against other people and all the cleaver that comes with playing against other people. Even if you do manage to get a few standard AI’s figured out that dominate the arena, there always seems to be something you did not think of that stops your team in its tracks. It may seem like this is a recipe for a game that loses its fun after you figure out the perfect program for your drones but that is far from the truth. Maybe you need to prioritize resource collection, or maybe the other team is playing a more aggressive game that requires you to adapt or else find that all your drones are destroyed. Because of this you are forced to make changes to how you program your drones. As you progress to the next level in the campaign, small changes to the way the play field is set up happen, as well as what type of drones are on the opposite team and how those drones are programed. While your goals always stay the same, the conditions to achieve these goals changes, and sometimes in subtle ways. On the surface, this sounds simple but in practice it gets a little more complicated. You program the AI for a team of drones, instructing them to return resources to a base node, all while staying alive and hopefully killing drones on the opposite team. I think the best way to describe it is to use the words of the developer: “AI combat arena”. ![]() Gladiabots is a strategy game developed and published by GFX47 Games. This game offers depth and complexity that might be unexpected by a game of this genre. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that this game lacks depth, in fact the opposite is true. As much as I enjoy these types of games, I’ll admit that at times I wish I had something that didn’t demand such a high level of concentration, something that I can sit back and just chill out while I play. These games are fun, they test your reflexes and your ability to think quickly and adapt to changing circumstances. If you’re anything like me, you play a lot of games that require constant and fast paced input from you to achieve goals. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |