Verdict on the AI

[David McMurdo]

Although I've been mostly focussed on having ranked matches to make the most of it while the servers are busy, I have taken the time to have a few matches against the AI on its hardest difficulty setting. Since I'm one of the few people in the Worms community that is primarily concerned with single player, I thought I'd share my observations and thoughts on the AI's behaviour.

First of all, the way the system is set up is perfect. You create a team and can then decide in the game setup screen whether it'll be controlled by a human or one of the five AI difficulties. Simple, but many past Worms games have got this horribly wrong, with Clan Wars not even offering AI opponents at all.

As to the AI itself, well it's quite simply the best that it has ever been by a long shot. And when I say "best" I'm not talking about it being deadly. It's easy to make an AI deadly. They had that nailed back in the first Worms game where the hardest AI would simply never miss a shot.

What makes the AI in W.M.D stand out is really three things: its behaviour is logical, believable, and varied.

I obviously don't know the details of how the AI is coded, but I've noticed that an AI worm that has started to tunnel on one turn will more than likely continue to do so on his following turns, or behave in some other defensive/dark side manner. This is a vast improvement over past games where the AI seemed to only tunnel as a last resort when it couldn't think of anything better to do. It wasn't a conscious strategy and often ended up being pointless. Now it at least appears that there's method to this kind of behaviour.

When I say that the AI behaviour is believable what I mean is that even on its hardest difficulty it will miss shots and make mistakes. We all know that even the best of us human players all do those things on occasion. It's important for the AI to be susceptible to the same thing because it adds to the level of tension. In past instalments if you ever found yourself out in the open and vulnerable on the turn of an AI on the hardest settings there was no two ways about it, you were about to get hit. Now there's an element of chance that I really enjoy.

I'm also very surprised at how many different kinds of weapons the AI is capable of handling. Thus far I've seen it competently employ jet packs, teleports, sheep, magnets, and drone guns as well as all of the standard weaponry. I was delighted to see that it's also capable of handling the new features like the tanks, helicopters, mechs, mounted guns, and even crafting. I haven't seen it employ the ninja rope and I severely doubt that it can. No AI has been capable of this in a Worms game thus far (that I've ever seen) so it's probably really tricky to code. I can live with that though.

What's more, the AI will now go out of its way to pick up crates. It always annoyed me in past games when a severely wounded AI worm would stand right next to a health crate while taking a shot instead of picking it up first.

I'm not sure if the AI cheats at all (it probably does), but if so it's no where near as obvious as it was in, say, Worms Reloaded where its shots would blatantly defy the physics of the game. The AI also doesn't persecute human players like in Worms Reloaded where it would ignore a field full of AI worms just to target you on the other side of the map. I really hated that. It violated the believability that I mentioned earlier and reminded you that you were fighting an AI that was coded in certain ways that resulted in weird behaviour.

All in all, you guys at Team17 have done an amazing job with the AI. I didn't expect this to be the case because you didn't make a point of highlighting it in the run up to release and were vague in your answers when I asked about it. There's always room for improvement of course—the AI will still try to blast its way through a landmass to get to worms on the other side on occasion—but this is exceptional work and well exceeded my expectations.

My one wish actually has nothing to do with the AI as such. I just wish that you added an option to get rid of that five second countdown timer before the start of an AI team's turn, or at least allowed the player to click and skip it. Yeah it's a really minor thing, but it's a frustration nonetheless as it slows the pace of the game down.

Oh yeah, and the campaigns are great too. It's all about the random maps for me and in the past I've only ever really bothered about the campaign mode because I'm a completionist. But this time I'm genuinely enjoying it. There's some really clever map design in there and it's tremendous fun. So kudos.

[Tilen]

Agreed. I also find the AI surprisingly good. It crafts, it's mobile, it uses different weapons (turrets, tanks too) and it "thinks", computes very fast.

However, park your worm next to their worm at the end of you turn and the AI is still helpless. :D

[Ting🍊]

+1
It's good that the AI aspect was not overlooked.

[Jared]

The AI is pretty good. I had a few games with them on the highest difficulty. But If I can recall correctly; they can see through buildings, this might need a fix.

[Koneko]

The AI used a Wormaggedon on me during one of the rounds i did earlier where i still had 6 worms alive. As a consequence, only one of mine barely survived and i lost the game because two of the AI's were still above 90 health. It was very unexpected, but it did make me re-think aobut which worms to prioritize, as the one that called it in was in a tunnel somewhere in middle of the map.

[Tongara de Pepperouchau]

Nice post. I'm really happy to hear the single player was implemented well!

[tobias599]

The AI is crafting the bazooka pie only because they don't have any good resources!
I think the AI is decrafting every weapon they can't use (ropes)

I play with 90 seconds timer and most times the AI attacks about 20 up to 30 seconds if they can't do anything else!

I noticed that the AI is reacting VERY good against turrets! He jumped INSTANT away from my turret or is teleporting away! (or just don't move)

The AI isn't placing RANDOM magnets anymore!

AI is trying to kill the one with the most health first! And doesn't use superweapons only in wurmageddon mode! (but still about 50% chance to use superweapons)

[skyemc85]

Last Worms game I played was Worms: Revolution. Great game but the a.i. was really frustrating to go up against, they rarely seemed to miss. How would you say the a.i. in W.M.D. compares to Revolution, specifically?

[Pentarou]

The AI in Reloaded was better.
In WMD it takes really too long to take a decision.

[Pentarou]

But the AI is way better in this game than in Revolution and Clan Wars.

[Snowcone Guy]

My first impression of the Ai in Single Player was bad. They just skipped like 70% of their turns.
But I realised that it must have been set to a very easy difficulty level.
When it's set to hard, it's quite impressive.
And I do not just mean their perfect shots and throws (They could do that in the old games too) but also how they move around the landscape and how they make use of the different kinds of travel.

Good job!

[Callinater]

Actually, the AI in reloaded DOES use the ninja rope on occasion. Also, the dark siding AI in that game uses the pneumatic drill as well, though more often than not they end up drilling into the water and suiciding in spectacular fashion.

Sorry for the 3 year bump, but I thought this was worth mentioning.