If you are going forward with the learning AI, do you need extra help teaching it? Because I'm volunteering
Yes, We will need help teaching it, we're thinking of feeding it snippets of recorded games. So if you're playing without a skin and would not mind hitting ';' every now and then to record some gameplay, that would be great! When we're ready for that I will set up a public ftp/dropbox/something to upload them to so stay tuned.
You mentioned in the OP that you were looking for people who play on Linux to help teach your AI. As I play on Linux, my interest was piqued. What exactly would this involve? As I understand it, you are looking for recorded video of me playing DF? And I expect it would have to be DF without mods.
See above.
This would be great! And while a good AI would be hard, I'd be happy to just get something capable of making short-lived forts with some artifacts for adventurers to find. Learning AI must be difficult, but the ability to dig, build and equip would go far regardless of inefficient designs.
Agreed.
A veyr interesting proposal, especially considerign just five minutes previous to clicking this link I was pondering on how I might be able to set my fortress up to run for nonspecific, nontrivial amounts of time with little or no oversight.
This would be an obvious solution, were success in this endeavor achieved.
Pretty much the same reason I decided to start this project. It just...made sense.
Could we see a copy of the AI as it currently exists, or is it a bit worse than a toddler plopped down at the keyboard?
Somebody else beat me to this answer, but yes, it is still a bit worse than a toddler pooping on the keyboard at the moment. We haven't gotten to any 'intelligent' point just yet, but we're working on it.
When we get to a point where we have something working, we'll see. =)
I agree, being able to put a fortress on autopilot for a while would be nice when nothing exciting has happened lately.
For the discussion of training, I would like to cite the approached used by PS2 "Virtual Fighter 4" AI system. In this game you could give feedback during the fight if your AI fighter was doing 'good' or 'bad' after every action. It could be done during the fight, or afterwards during a replay.
If the VF4 appoach is applied to this DF project, we would be able to give feedback (using 'y' and 'n' ?) during gameplay to let the AI know if we are happy with the choices it is making. These lessons could be stored and transmitted back to the developers for review and possible integration for the next release. Or it could be kept local, so one player's decision to never build traps would not skew the overall desicion process on trap setup for everyone.
A very good Idea. I'm glad I thought of it. =P (I kid, I kid.) Thanks for the input.
Let me try to name all the things that the AI would need to be able to do to survive:
(Things that would be the most difficult have a *)
Build workshops *
Build dining rooms
Manage dwarves *
Manage stockpiles *
Build bridges *
Build Traps
Build bedrooms
Designate bedrooms *
Mining *
Military *
Build Baracks
Do the massive amount of things you can do with workshops **
Deal with nobles **
Deal with insane dwarves *
Build doors
Build Walls
Deal with aquifers *
Mine adamantine **
Using adamantine
Weaponise magma **
Deal with animals
Deal with forgotten beasts *
Avoid HFS when mining adamantine
Kill elf caravans
Trade with fellow Dwarves
Kill fellow Dwarf caravans
Kill humans
Deal with sieges, Invansions, ambushes and thieves
Deal with fey moods
Create a simulation of itself with a dwarfputer
CONQUER HFS ITSELF
Maximise Fun when losing
Agreed with most of the points there. Although we're not yet at that phase in development, when we hit it, we're expecting to REALLY hit it.
Are you going to be doing this for adventurer mode too?
Perhaps. The idea is to be able to port this AI to ANY Curses based roguelike game when we're done. =)
If you guys could make an AI to play DF, I really wanna see an AI to play Minecraft.
One step at a time there buddy!!! =)