Harnessing Agent-Based Games Research for Analysis of Collective Agent Behavior in Critical Settings

Abstract

This paper presents an AI architecture that has been developed specifically for controlling complex multi-agents interaction in games. The model is based on previous research into Emotional Societies and presents a realistic and believable environment for games. In response to a perceived lack of depth and realism in the team relationship dynamics of modern gaming, we developed a human agent architecture, multi-agent system, and demonstrative game application. The agent architecture was based partially on research into social psychology, and utilized emotion and belief representations to drive action selection. Agent interaction and relationship development was produced on the basis of the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD), through which a team’s success came to be determined by its members’ choices to cooperate or compete with its leader. A produced game application illustrated the operation of the developed architecture within the context of a political street protest. A set of evaluation scenarios were devised to test the success of the project work within this game application, and ultimately found it to be successful in achieving a good level of realistic team-based reasoning and interaction. Beside the potential application of the model and architecture to a computer entertainment environment, the model is generic and can be used as well for “serious” application which involves distributed emerging behavior, scenarios based simulation, complex agent-based modeling including emotional, reactive and deliberative reasoning.