Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence - Part 3

OK, OK, I hear you cry. So music and fancy navigation systems are all well and good, but how will the AI really change the way the game plays? Well, there is only one example I can give you, as only one video showing the AI in action has been released. Unfortunately, it was only shown to the lucky few at E3 2000/2001, so I'll leave it in the capable hands of the IGN correspondent to explain what he saw:

"While the demo that we saw was at a very early stage, we got to see some of the AI reactions and interactions that will happen with or without you watching in the game. The Examples of interactions with the gaming world cantered around the player trying to deal with an opponent using religion to try to rise to power. A priest under the opponent's influence was staging soapbox speeches in the city center every day. And that's exactly what we saw. The priest walked out with a soapbox, plopped it down on the ground, climbed on it and started speaking. People started gathering around showing varying levels of interest. Some ignored him, some walked by, and some stopped and stoop raptly while he was talking. After he was complete the reaction to what he was preaching about was gauged by the crowd's applause. There seemed to be a lot of pleased people at this specific speech. Everybody then cleared out and went about their normal business.
Now as the ruling power can't be so happy about this priest spreading words against him, so it was then shown how one might take action against something like this. A meeting was arranged between a tough and the priest at a less trafficked area of the city. When they both wandered up, the tough started threatening the priest by pushing him and roughing him up a little. When the priest looked to be resisting, the tough started to rough him up even more. Apparently at this point players would have the option of how much pressure to apply, but in this case the tough put the priest in a headlock and started doing unpleasant things. After that, they parted ways.

But that isn't where it ends. The priest may end up listening to the tough depending on how loyal he is to his particular leader, but in this case, the call was made to try an assassination attempt, which can only be done during night hours in the game. The door to the priest's building was surrounded by some bodyguards, as it is an option to protect people if they are important enough to you. A pan up to the rooftops showed a sniper waiting for the priest to emerge. When he did come out, the guards walked with him a little ways until the sniper took a shot. He missed the priest but killed a guard. The priest and some bodyguards ran for the building and one last bodyguard started looking around the area for the assailant."

Nice, huh? And the graphics don't look too bad either (check out this page for the pictures which accompany the above story).

Next - The official line