FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION
Artificial Opponents
Single-player strategy games often present the fiction that the player is opposed by another player like himself, who makes moves just the way the player does. In war
games, it's fun to think of pitting one's wits against an enemy general. The old Electronic Arts war game Patton vs. Rommel explicitly encourages this fantasy; the player takes the role of one general and the computer takes the other. However, it is only a fantasy, of course; the opponent it provides is artificial, implemented by AI techniques. This section includes a brief introduction to some of the AI used to create artificial opponents in strategy games. As the designer, you won't have to write the software, but you should be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of several approaches.
