In Elimination, we have 4 general categories: flee, attack, defend, move. We move forward until it is no longer safe, then we start firing, this is called defensive fire. As we move forward, we increase the damage potential of our bots, until there is a point where it is better to trade in that potential for damage, this is offensive fire.

For example, our shotgun might start shooting at short range, so that it can sustain fire until the enemy is at medium range again. Fleeing should be self-evident, we usually only do it just in time to avoid damage.

When this AI came out, it caused some ripples in competitive play, because it was the first publicly available AI with a dynamic threat counter, and it was beating Grand-masters left and right. As you can see, compared to the basic version, it mostly has more sophistication.

There are two parts to pay attention to: note the hard-coded retreat section, and the partly, but not fully, dynamic threat detection. We look at the non-fleeing allies at medium range and compare them to enemies at long range, to get a rudimentary idea of our threat level. If the threat level is too high, we start firing. This alone, without a sophisticated attack section, is enough to apply tremendous (and even) pressure onto the enemy.

At some point, the community started working on more dynamic retreats as well. Markolainen wrote an excellent guide about it here:

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496668612

And then Marko, Pege and Gilberreke wondered: what if we would make entire AIs based on counters? The result was documented by Marko:

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2561140662

I then did the next logical thing, I took the OG dynamic champion, smART, and made it fully dynamic and unified (aka the threat counter is based on earlier data from the retreat section). The result was BRaiNY, one of my favorite creations. Unfortunately, while pretty, it was not that special in ranked play.

Here we come to the final incarnation: the AI was split into 4 parts, one for each bot. It was simplified even further, there's almost no hard-coded exceptional rules anymore, the movement was kept simple. What's more: it was battle-tested in ranked and can hold its own against the strongest opponents in the game. This is truly my magnum opus, it even does well in campaign.

I hope it also shows that AIs don't need to be that complicated. Once you understand counters and this system of dynamic threat, it shouldn't be too hard to read these AIs, and in essence, they still very much look like basic strategy.

Now go out and become a Master, you see it's possible!