Assessment of the Influence Caused by Random Events within a Real-Time Strategy Game Engine on a Game Bot Gameplay

DOI: 10.5176/2251-1679_CGAT15.27

Authors: Damijan Novak and Domen Verber

Abstract:

Real-time strategy (RTS) games are one of the more complex types of games when developing game artificial intelligence (AI) bots for them. Bots have to deal with imperfect game information, the complexities of hundreds of game objects and they must not make obvious battle mistakes that an average human player would never do. Another complexity aspect of game engine operation is randomness. Randomisation is a good way for game engines to be dynamic and that a game world can be diversified. However, this can be a very difficult challenge for bot developers to crack. In this article, we have analysed what kind of impact game engine randomness has on a game bot gameplay. In order to do so, we constructed experiments for measuring the random effects that a Spring game’s engine has on a game bot whilst the bot is conducting unit movement scenarios and simple battle tactics.

Keywords: random; randomness; game engine; Spring; AI; game bot; rts