- Part 1: introduction
- Part 2: debugging tools
- Part 3: interacting with the game
- Part 4: under the hood
We recently added a feature to Powargrid we are very excited about: a framework/interface that allows you to program your own AI to pit against yourself, your friends, and other AIs!
User AIs are written in the Lua programming language, a very popular programming language for scripting and modding games. Famous examples include Civilization V and World of Warcraft.
Add-ons (just user AIs for now, but maybe we'll add custom maps later!) are loaded from the Addons directory, but you have to enable this first. To enable add-ons, go to the Settings menu, select Add-ons, and check the "Enable add-ons" box. This lets you run AIs you've put in the add-ons directory. If you want to write your own AI, also check the "Enable dev tools" box. This enables the debugging console in skirmish games with user AIs.
There's a button to open the directory in a file browser; it's located at .../path/to/Powargrid/Add-ons/AI. Inside you'll find a directory containing "Daft Wullie", our example AI. It's named after a Discworld character, because we are both huge Terry Pratchett fans :)
The next posts will discuss the debugging tools we've included to help you write your own AI, the functions you have available to do so, and a bit about the technology behind the user AI framework, for those that like to take a look under the hood. Stay tuned!
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