Lots of progress on the AI yesterday

March 21, 2003 by Adam in NWN1

Lots of progress on the AI yesterday. I made one fairly major change, and that was to no longer allow the elven troops to be turned into henchmen. If I gave them an order to attack the enemy's position, they'd stop being henchmen and attack. If I told them to follow, they'd turn into henchmen and tag along. As henchmen, however, they have a big advantage of not being vulnerable to area of effect spells that I'd cast. That seemed to punish people who chose one path, which I didn't like. So, now they're just normal NPCs. In general, though, I'm pretty happy with where things stand. I'll probably need to tweak things some more, but it's fun to command troops about. It's not for the entire game, but a goodly chunk in the middle.

The AI is getting pretty complex as it stands. There are a lot of commands, most of which are dependant on the situation. For example, you can't tell them to attack the enemy's position until you've had the area scouted or you've seen it yourself. You can tell your healers to heal the wounded, but only if you've got healers and only if there are wounded. So, it keeps the list of commands down to a reasonable amount. I'm also having a good time having the elves "talk smack". They'll say something when they kill an enemy or defeat all in the local area. I need to add more so that the short list of phrases doesn't get stale.

I've also been working on adding new custom content. I added a slew of placeables yesterday and this morning, along with a new creature. The good news is that I got up before 4 am and got a lot of work done. The bad news is that I have a bad cold and I couldn't sleep.