The AI is commonly seen as something that was tacked on to Battlefield 2 as an afterthought. EA/DICE probably simply ran of time or decided to concentrate on marketing the multi-player experience. Despite this there is an extremely sophisticated AI engine underneath with most, if not more, features that were originally available in Battlefield 1942. Maybe it's because many are used to the AI bots in more traditional FPS games that the praises of Battlefield 2 AI are not sung more often. More seriously, the player can see the AI bots as servantile droids. Players expect the AI to respond to every command, or be available to every controlling whim of the player. Here is one example taken from the ESAI page...
Someone wrote: AI, bot commanders are retarded as before. I especially hate when I'm the commander, my team bots become exclusively retarded. They dont know how to use their weapons anymore, dont engage the enemies and what is most annoying- disobey my orders... Most of my time as a commander I spend on killing insubordinates. Seriously, whats up with that?
Here the player is making this classic mistake of treating his AI soldiers as slaves. Players who do this are like bad squad commanders belligerently ordering around their squad rather than just letting them get on with it. In a recent FH game I used minimal commands and sometimes did nothing and my AI squad behaved perfectly. We started moving as a true squad (you have to keep up with them), keeping distance from one another just as real soldiers do to lower causalities from grenades and so forth. Each bot was actually covering a different quadrant of the 360 degrees around us. Squad members even paused at cover while another bot moved forward. Why ? Because I was allowing them to be what they are - their natural selfs - a sophisticated AI that can "think" for itself without endless commands and demands being fired at them. It is this demanding approach to the AI that can make them seem "retarded". Actually this is really due to ignorance of what the AI is, and it simply just spoils what can be fun a fun game for the player.
Forgotten Hope (FH) is a wonderful mod, and funny as well. Where else can you hear Australians calling for artillery support in typical Australian fashion ... "Drop some artillery here will you, mate ?". This is probably one of the reasons why it won the Mod of the Year Players Choice. FH game play is semi realistic. The knock around instant-access Battlefield game play is there, but there can be more to learn for the beginner than many mods. It would be a shame if that put off new players. One of the ways that this mod could improve this is to have the technicalities of some of the game play used more by the AI in the single player and co-op mode. That way the AI could be used to train players for multiplayer as well as in the mechanics of FH game play. For example it's not immediately obvious how to rearm positions with ammunition, but seeing a bot dropping ammo boxes in front of an artillery piece might cue the player into noticing the nearby ammo class pickup. A more dramatic example is related to the semi-realistic/tactical nature of Forgotten Hope. New players often rush forward with tanks and then wonder why they only last a few seconds. Or worse, they get frustrated and don't use tanks at all, or even abandon their curiosity in FH altogether. But seeing the AI in single player holding back with tanks so they remain well protected by infantry from anti-tank soldiers and guns might reveal more of the tactical brilliance that is Forgotten Hope. There are many other examples of this like, making the AI respond to being suppressed by enemy fire.
Overall FH single player is already well implemented. There are plenty of FH maps that can be run in this mode. The AI uses most assets and can create fierce and interesting battles. Obviously many prefer multiplayer. No AI opponent is going to compete with a sentient enemy (at least not for a few decades yet). Humans are just too inventive. It's like the difference between a Chess computer and a real player. But just like a Chess computer the FH AI can be formidable. In fact the Battlefield 2 AI was designed from the bottom up to reflect the behaviour of combined arms and soldiers working together. The AI share spotting information and do things you would expect real soldiers to do on the Battlefield, and just as in multiplayer, no single soldier can win the battle alone; there has to be cooperation. However, I'm still seeing examples out there that show that Battlefield AI is not recognised in some quarters for it's capacity to do this.
Forgotten Hope recently took on a new Single Player developer and there are some interesting plans in the works for applying the ESAI mod to Forgotten Hope Single Player/Coop. ESAI uses Python scripting and the underlying strategic AI system of Battlefield 2 to alter the single player experience. Further development of the AI could provide an impressive Single Player/Coop experience that we have not seen up till now and really let this sometimes neglected side of DICE's creation really shine.
