The Role of AI Personality in the Game Diplomacy Essay

The Role of AI Personality in the Game Diplomacy - Essay Example The latest version, created by Paradox Interactive, is visually stunning but shackled with an inhuman AI. (Ocampo) This AI is superior to Paradox's. An AI with realistic personality traits is more effective at playing Diplomacy than the logical versions that excel at games like chess. Video Game AI design began almost 50 years ago. Great AI victories, like IBM's Deep Blue defeating world chess champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, were the result of massively powerful computers out muscling their opponents. (Spice) These tactics won't work for PC and video games. Computers and game consoles greatly limit the computational resources available to programmers. A logic based AI makes the same move whenever the same situational parameters arise. A game AI needs more than logic to compete with gamers. A player's emotional state influences how he plays a game. If he is in a bad mood, he will be more aggressive in his actions in order to release tension and frustration. The next generation of computer AI need to include personality variables in its design. (Gambotto-Burke) The Diplomacy AI's personality has 4 components: Emotional Temperament, Risk Attitudes, Aggressiveness and Contempt for Rules. For the two 50 game tests, these parameters had boolean operands. An AI driven by Emotional Temperament ignores larger tactical strategies and other dangers in favor of a "gut" response. It looks at the all of the possible moves in Diplomacy and chooses the one it likes the best. The Emotional Temperament boolean departs from the cold logic of most AI programming. An AI lead by Risk Attitudes takes a defensive posture. Its primary focus is to defend its borders and ot will only attack another country when risk factors are at their lowest. This AI emulates a person with a "Playing it Safe" attitude. When Risk Attitudes is set to "no," the AI will attack more often and focus less on defense. The Aggressive boolean governs how the AI responds to enemy actions. When this boolean is active, the AI is more likely to attack its enemies. This continues for as long a s the AI is in enemy territory. When "Aggressive" is set to no, the AI is more logical and values its allies less. Contempt for Rules is the last personality component. A country using this AI accepts diplomatic requests but refuses to fulfill them. The country "backstabs" it's ally. Risk Attitudes, Aggressiveness and Emotional Temperament affects the Tactics List. Contempt for Rules affects support acceptance. Contempt for Rules and Emotional Temperament AI does not change when boolean is set to "no."The game series begins in 1901 and ends in 1930. Russia begins the game with 4 supply centers and all other countries have 3. Starting army and fleet pieces are determined randomly. No country achieved the 18 centers required for a standard Diplomacy win in either test series. For this test series, the country with the most supply centers by 1930 is the winner. At the end of the AI with personality series, France averaged 6.30 supply centers, England had 5.0, Italy had 4.8 and Germany had 4.54. France also lead the countries in the AI test series. It averaged 5.86 centers, Austria 5.30, England 5.24 and Italy 4.0. France and Turkey (averaged 4.5 centers) were the only two countries to win more supply centers with the AI personality active. Out of the 50 games, France only