My current hobby is to try out different AI techniques to improve the autonomous behavior of creatures. In this thread I’ll keep a public log/discussion of how it’s going.

As an initial modification I implemented a ‘Charge’ command which sends the members of your team charging in a given direction (e.g. I can use it to send a pet raven in the fog of war to see if it comes back). I figured that MinionController was the right class to add the team command functionalities. When I give a command, then it is translated to a task for the minion. However, minion tasks are only executed if getTeamMemberMove() returns no move, unless it’s a priority task (see Collective::getMove). Therefore, I added a setPriorityTaskFor function to TaskMap that inserts the task in the priority list and added a corresponding function for Collective.

Question 1: Is using priority tasks this way a good way or is there a better way to do this?
Question 2: TaskMap seems to never remove priority tasks. Isn’t this a potential memory issue?

On a second note I’ve started working on a mod friendly approach for specifying AI. The idea is that you will be able to change easy to understand specifications into efficient easy to execute decision trees. The repository can be found here. An example specification looks like this:

Heal is an action.
Shoot is an action.
Move is an action.
Hit is an action.
You can heal if you have a potion or you have a healing spell.
You can shoot if you have a bow and the enemy is in sight.
You can hit if you are standing next to the enemy and the enemy is in sight.
You are wounded if you are critically wounded or you are lightly wounded.
You are not wounded if you are not critically wounded and you are not lightly wounded.
You should not attack if you are critically wounded and you can heal.
If you can heal then you should.
If you are not wounded then you should not heal.
If you can shoot then you should.
If you should not attack then you should not shoot.
If you are standing next to the enemy then you should not shoot.
If the enemy is in sight and you are not standing next to the enemy then you should move.
If you should not attack then you should not move.
If you can hit then you should.
If you should not attack then you should not hit.

Which is converted to:

you are critically wounded?
|-y->you have a healing spell?
|    |-y->[heal]
|    L-n->you have a potion?
|         |-y->[heal]
|         L-n->the enemy is in sight?
|              |-y->you are standing next to the enemy?
|              |    |-y->[hit]
|              |    L-n->you have a bow?
|              |         |-y->[move,shoot]
|              |         L-n->[move]
|              L-n->noMove
L-n->the enemy is in sight?
     |-y->you are standing next to the enemy?
     |    |-y->you are lightly wounded?
     |    |    |-y->you have a healing spell?
     |    |    |    |-y->[heal,hit]
     |    |    |    L-n->you have a potion?
     |    |    |         |-y->[heal,hit]
     |    |    |         L-n->[hit]
     |    |    L-n->[hit]
     |    L-n->you are lightly wounded?
     |         |-y->you have a healing spell?
     |         |    |-y->you have a bow?
     |         |    |    |-y->[heal,move,shoot]
     |         |    |    L-n->[heal,move]
     |         |    L-n->you have a potion?
     |         |         |-y->you have a bow?
     |         |         |    |-y->[heal,move,shoot]
     |         |         |    L-n->[heal,move]
     |         |         L-n->you have a bow?
     |         |              |-y->[move,shoot]
     |         |              L-n->[move]
     |         L-n->you have a bow?
     |              |-y->[move,shoot]
     |              L-n->[move]
     L-n->you are lightly wounded?
          |-y->you have a healing spell?
          |    |-y->[heal]
          |    L-n->you have a potion?
          |         |-y->[heal]
          |         L-n->noMove
          L-n->noMove