Here's a paper on an AI technique called dynamic scripting. The authors took a complex tactical game (Neverwinter Nights) with a script-based AI, and were able to show that a learning algorithm can 1.) pick out effective combinations of rules vs. different play styles, and 2.) adjust difficulty to "barely lose, in interesting ways" against human players of different skill levels. They also report that a later, improved AI from the game developer resembled the scripts the algorithm learned by itself at much less effort.
http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/p.spronck/P...cScripting.pdf
I wonder whether this is something that can be applied to Dominions. I don't know whether the strategic AI is rules-based, but a learning AI does seem to be well-suited to Dominions because 1.) tactical combat is AI-controlled anyway, so you don't need to worry about self-trained AIs somehow missing out on tactical "tricks" because of e.g. bad pathfinding, 2.) AIs can easily play games against themselves because the engine is fast, 3.) the strategic space is *huge*, with many different and interesting counters possible to any specific tactic, so even a fairly dumb hill-climbing search may stumble across a good counter to, say, E9N9 Niefelheim (e.g. race for Alt-6 and Iron Bane).
I'm still kind of new to Dominions, but is writing AI rules something that can be done in a mod, or is it something only the devs can do? I'd love to implement "dynamic scripting" and see what kind of AIs fall out.
Also check out
http://rolec.unimaas.nl/.
-Max Wilson
Atten Devs: AI (Rules-based dynamic scripting?)
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