Yes, Dwarf Fortress is a good shout and I have played it. The depth of AI in the dwarves is very impressive. A bit like Close Combat, in that they have minds of their own and don't always follow your orders :-)

tictac is way too simple game

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. no doubt A-life was and still is incredibly complex and maybe Enemy unknown and terror from the deep.

Honorable mention for Dark Reign, which let you adjust operating parameters on a per-unit basis. You could set a unit to have a health threshold, after which it would automatically flee for repair. Or set it to have a deeper/shallower pursuit radius, or tell it not to engage unless the enemy engages first (so you can have some hidden scouts out there on the map), etc. Screenshot: https://giantbomb1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/11/118253/2273292-orders_menu.jpg

Also, sadly, honorable mentions to Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. Part of their greatness, that newer ARPGs still don't have much (if any) of, is that different enemy units had different behavior models, from skirmish and then hide, to "stay together and attack at once" and some others. Most (all?) games that have followed have an AI that is "melee rush and attack" and "ranged stand and shoot", with some pattern [random, scripted order...] to use abilities they have. But no "oh this foe feels different and fights differently than others".

Stars in Shadow (4x game) has pretty fun AI. It's not "the best", but it's certainly fun. One diplomacy example: "Give us [a star system] or we will age war over it.". If you reject, they'll declare war, and do everything in their power to reach that objective (often having built up around that particular system already). Then, in most cases, they'll offer peace after it, with a snarky dialog of "Our objective has been achieved. There's no need to keep this war going." It's FUN. The developers have talked about this in forum posts a little bit that their AI goal is to try to make it "believable" for a player to form an internal narrative. They're also on record that they intentionally have not taught the computer players certain potent but vile techniques (such as keeping your fleet as widespread as possible, your ships always moving everywhere but close to where you need them to be -- goal of making your power hard to gauge, but also flexible to counterstrike if you need to). Such a thing would be basically impossible for a sane human player to manage, and it's just frustrating (rather than fun) to play against, despite it being an optimal(ish) strategy that they said wouldn't have been too hard to code.

I always thought that the Halo games had a very well executed AI. Its also coincidentally one of those games where your AI teammates have competence and can actually help you. Even veterans of the games sometimes notice things the AI does unexpatably. There is also tons of unique dialogue you may hear which depends on what the AI does.

In many other online shooters, such as Quake 3 Arena, the AI works through simple patterns (and you can read the navmesh clearly by just looking at the map if you have some experience). That means you can predict what the AI does next, because the navmesh will stay the same regardless of the difficulty setting. What is fun about that game though is that AI actors can trash talk to each other, which is a great touch.

Back in the day, banzAI 3.0 was the best AI avaiable for any game, it could actually read your strategy and had patience. That was in 2001. I remember being really good at Total Annihilation, turtling myself in while making a giant army. The enemy did held off and tried to produce an army which would counter the base. I was really impressed. From what I understood, LOUD AI/Project does a similar thing.

The Alien AI picks up on your patterns as you play - if you use the same strategies to escape it, it'll catch on. It also seems to have a fair amount of variability built into it, so when/if you replay a section, it may move and act completely different -one time it may actively stalk you, others, it may patrol points of interest, or it may wait in a vent to ambush you. And it can, at any time, decide that it wants to change up its approach; I've had sections that felt relatively "safe" in one playthrough turn out to be nail-biting chases in other attempts. Often, you aren't the only human in the area either, and the Alien also hunts them, leading to still more "organic" unpredictability.

@topic: It's a bit sad because it's so old, but the original Unreal. Has a good variety of different AIs - some stupid and single-minded (Brutes, for example), others more agile and reactive. What helps sell the AI is that most of your weapons are not hitscan, i.e. the AI can (and does) dodge your attacks. The fights feel like you're actually up against hostile creatures of varying threat levels rather than zomboid puppets.

Enough to complete the game without the players input. :D

There's a good YouTube channel about AI in games called AI and Games. Anyone interested in this stuff should check it out.

One interesting thing they 'could* have done, as an alternative, is to teach the AI those potent but vile techniques, but only allow the AI to use them at the higher difficulty levels. Basically, save the most potent but vile techniques for the highest difficulty level.

Battle for Wesnoth, I believe, has a pretty sophisticated AI. While this may work fine for normal gameplay, it falls apart in situations like Survival Extreme, where you might have single digit units (possibly only 1 per player) but the enemies have hundreds of them, and the AI has to carefully choose which of its units would be best to attack your units. The problem is that this AI takes a fair amount of computational power, and when there are a lot of them, the enemy tern will take too long. For the special case of Survival Extreme, it would be better if the AI were dumb; having enemies charge to be slaughtered by your units seems about right, and it would keep the game going at a reasonable pace even in the most intense portion of the game. (The beginning isn't so bad because there aren't that many units, and I think by the end you may be able to get rid of some of the enemy teams (IIRC), but in between it can be a problem.)

I'm still a bit doozy about how the a.i. managed to setup an attack over 3 different fronts, 2 other factions ( all around the same powerlevel )decided on the height of the assault to suggest alliances, which i wholeheartedly accepted of course which in turn led to 2 of my 4 assailants after the capture of one of my territories to seek peace, leaving the remaining 2 adversaries ripe for conquest .... in total war three kingdoms ( i9 appreciated though )

It sucks in most games, bc the focus is more on the visual presentation. And exciting AI is as much a question of good techical implementation as one of the right design decisions. But mostly it's technical like AI is just too dumb to go even through the simple chores to "play it right".

But I have to say when I played Messiah I was quite impressed a couple of times. First, near the beginning, there is a sort of a second storey platform, where if you start a fight there's a squad of local SWAT or something that'll attack you and they immediately disperse behind some columns and what not. And if that could be scripted, there was another encounter - some courtyard filled with boxes (ah the boxy design...) and when I was walking "naked" with just the Cherub not possessing any character a sewer mutant (or whatever those guys were) attacked me. I've hidden behind a crate and what we expect AI to do in such cases? Mostly to bump erratically into boxes and just wander around. But I remember him hopping onto the crate I was hiding behind, aiming down and unloading a magazine into me. Impressive.

From purely technical POV, Kingpin has AI recruits which will follow you EVERYWHERE, unmistakably and tenaciously. Traversing ladders/activating drawbridges and what not. VERY impressive for an old game in a fully 3d world. Many other much more high-profile games should hang their heads in shame (and I'm not even talking about Daikatana)))).

I've played A:I and while I'm not sure I've seen enough to commit behind the "picks on your patterns", I do remember the thugs's behavior when you're hiding in a locker and they come looking for you was somewhat amusing. The Alien itself was IMO a disaster tho. Just the worst combo of scripted/maxed out senses stuff imaginable. You just end up standing behind a lampshade for minutes while he does the rounds, and if you so much as make a small silent and smart move he immediately "retargets" and starts homing on you. Almost if the designers were self-aware what a shitty experience they've ended up with, you're blessed with a repellent for the bothersome insect in a form of a flamethrower and things start moving a tad faster.

I've only ever been impressed by an AI once and that was in F.E.A.R.

Although the AI subroutines were in essence ridiculously simple, they're resulted in behavioural patterns that felt so human it was almost scary.

See also: [url=http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/gdc2006_orkin_jeff_fear.pdf]This PDF[/url]

I'd like to mention F.E.A.R., too, and Half-Life.

Pretty good AI, though I'm not sure what's considered the best.

Starsector

A space combat game in a world filled with human factions and fleets. All of it using complex AI behaviors.

Seems that a lot of impressive scripting has gone into the game to allow AI like behavior during gameplay and ship battles.

The ship battles for example include things like:
- Battle tactics that require complex strategies or set it up to let the AI control the ships for you based on weapon settings and loadout.
- Do you want to play decoy and soak up the damage while your other ships maneuver behind to fire their torpedoes up its tail pipe?
- Or maybe you just prefer a good old slugfest. Using the right strategy can be as epic as David vs Goliath.
- There are plenty of options once the battle starts to command additional ship behaviors.
- Though if you can master control of the ships and weapons manually, then the battles go up another level.
- Imagine bringing down enemy shields with one set of weapons and then taking out the hull with another set before shields are back up.

Then there's the world itself or rather the galaxy.
- The world is alive and constantly in motion.
- Human factors constantly warring against each other.
- Pirates raiding everyone throughout the sectors.
- And all throughout, scavengers, mercenaries, smuggles and whatnot go about their business.
- Even the economy is alive. One that is affected by in-system raids, commodity price changes based on supply and demand.
- Colonizing your own worlds and competing with your neighbors on trade goods. But don't do it too fast or those same neighbors may get jealous.

There's a lot more and the game is still evolving.

It'll be a long while before true AI features are part of games. But there are games that do a pretty good job of simulating it. And this one does a pretty good job for the type of game it is.

Here's a nice video that may give a better idea. There are also some tournament style videos out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acqpulP1hLo

Here's the official site - Starsector
.

is that starsector a good game?