The Role of AI Personality in the Game Diplomacy - Essay Example

1William Council May 5, 2008 The Role of AI Personality in the Game Diplomacy Diplomacy is a board game created by Avalon Hill. Seven players play as leaders of the European countries: Austria, France, Russia, England, Germany, Italy and Turkey. It is impossible for a player to win the game on strict military power. Regardless of the country, every military unit is equal in strength. Balancing war and political alliances, the players try to become the first person to control 18 supply centers. The first to do this wins the game and controls the entire European continent. (Calhamer, 3-4) Heralded as one of the best strategy games, several companies have attempted to create computer versions of Diplomacy. 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 as 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 ended the game once with less than two supply centers. It had 0 centers and Italy was the winner with 8 supply centers. Out of the seven countries, France is in the best position geographically. To the West it has the Atlantic Ocean. In Diplomacy, England, Germany and Italy lie along its other borders. Players can not play as Spain. Other countries will have to pass through one of these countries to reach France. The Risk Attitudes AI personality is France's best protection. While this personality AI is active, countries are more conservative in their movements. This means France is less likely to be attacked. France's geographical position also protects the country when the Aggressive AI is active. Most countries will have to cross either the ocean or France's border countries. The border countries are less likely to attack France since they have to worry about their neighbors as well. France, Italy, Germany and England had the most supply depots with the Personality AI active. Turkey takes 5th place. Like France, Turkey also has fewer countries touching its borders. It is flanked by Russia, Austria and Italy. The Black and Mediterranean Seas make the country more accessible by water than France. Unlike France, Turkey experienced 4 games where it ended with 1 supply center. The Risk Attitudes AI is Turkey's weakness. One of its starting supply centers (Istanbul) is easily accessible by its neighbors. Two of Austria's supply centers flank Istanbul. Turkey will lose Istanbul if it consistently plays it safe. On the other hand, the Aggressive AI and 1 Army supported by a Fleet unit helps Turkey take at least two supply centers in Austria. Austria and England's average improved the most in the non-personality AI test series. They are the only two countries that did not capture more than 8 supply centers or end the game with less than two centers during the Personality AI tests. Austria's averaged improved by 0.86 going from 4.44 supply centers to 5.30 centers. This jump exceeds France's 0.44 increase in the AI with Personality games. During the without personality AI test series, Austria had three games of more than eight centers (10, 10 and 11) and three games with less than 2 centers. (0,0 and 1) Austria's three supply centers: Vienna, Budapest and Trieste are surrounded. Turkey's Constantinople, Russia's Sevastopol & Warsaw, Italy's Venice, Germany's Munich are all within 2 moves of an Austria supply center. Risk Attitude and Aggressiveness are set to no in the non-personality AI tests. Countries are more aggressive when Risk Attitude is turned off. Alliances, which have already been negatively influenced by Contempt for Rules, becomes even harder to make when Aggressiveness is off. Austria is in a sink or swim position. It's closeness to all of these supply centers make it easy either to advance into many countries or be invaded on multiple fronts. In the games where Austria had more than eight supply centers, Italy either had 0 or 1 center remaining. It is highly likely that Austria acquired Venice early in the game and then captured Naples or Rome. Italy had 5-7 supply centers when Austria had 0 or 1. Without the Personality AI, more countries ended the game with less than 2 Supply Centers. This occurs 21 times in non-personality AI games: Germany 7 times, Italy 5 times, Russia and Austria 3 times, France twice and Turkey once. It only happened 13 times with the personality AI. The Risk Attitude AI encouraged countries to defend their supply centers. This reduced the number of times a country had less than 2 supply centers. Conversely when Risk Attitude was turned off, countries often left their borders to take advantage of opportunities. The resulting warfare forced countries to defend themselves from several attackers. Germany is the best example of this. Geographically Germany's supply centers are well protected against one invading army. Unfortunately the 7 times that Germany ended the game with less than 2 supply centers, it was attacked by at least two countries. Austria (8), Russia (7) and France (8); France (9) and England (9); England (8), Italy (6) and Austria (7); England (6), France (7), Turkey (7) and Russia (8) and France (10) and Russia (6) are some of the coalitions that attacked Germany. England also benefitted from its geological positioning. All three of its supply centers were well within its borders. England is the only country not to end a game with less than two supply centers. Between both test series, it only ended 3 games with two supply centers. In the Personality AI tests, England ended two games with more than 8 supply centers. These Diplomacy results indicate that England has the greatest stability over time when compared with the other nations. France is still the most successful expansionist nation but regardless of who wins, England always maintained at least 2 supply centers. Under the Personality AI, France won 7 games with more than 8 supply centers. (11,10,10,9,9,9,9) It was almost as successful in the tests with a standard AI by winning 5 games with more than 8 supply centers. (10,10,9,9,9) Diplomacy is the most challenging game for a realistic AI. The art of diplomacy is oftentimes illogical. The difference in results between the two game series illustrate this. Larger testing series (200 or more games each) should bear similar results. The AI with Personality series depicted a more balanced European continent. The AI without Personality game series had more ending with countries having either more than 8 or less than 2 supply centers. Personality AI games ending with neutral supply centers only happened 4 times. (5 times without personality) The AI with Personality works for Diplomacy. Each nation's personality is drawn from history. Some nations have been more militant than others. They act that way during the game. Refining this AI (moving from boolean to integer values, adding percentage chance for the "Super Leader - Churchhill, Hitler etc) to arise during a game) will revolutionize the gaming industry. Works Cited Calhamer, Allan B. The Rules of Diplomacy. 2008: 1-24. Albuquerque, NM. Gambotto-Burke, Alexander. "Technology: The hard-thought race for intelligent gaming: Artificial intelligence is the holy grail for game designers, but just how smart are current methods and what's in the pipeline " The Guardian [London (UK)] 19 Apr. 2007,5. Alumni - National Newspapers (27). ProQuest. Columbia University, Albuquerque, NM. 5 May 2008. Ocampo, Jason. "Diplomacy for PC Review." Gamespot.com. 5 May 2008. Spice, Byron. "Artificial intelligence experts bring gaming to a new level in Pittsburgh. " Knight Ridder Tribune Business News 12 July 2005 1. Alumni - ABI/INFORM Complete. ProQuest. Columbia University, Albuquerque, NM. 5 May 2008. Read More