When we created Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, we felt we were really taking a risk by creating a true squad-combat game. We didn't simply create an accessible method to issue orders to squadmates; we created a gameplay system that required you to use them to be successful. You have to fix the enemy in place by suppressing them with your fire team's weapons, then you have to move your assault team around to the enemy's side to kill them on their exposed flanks while they are pinned down.
These are real military tactics of fire and manoeuvre. The U.S. Army spent two years training the paratroopers who dropped into Normandy on the night before D-Day, and we expected our users to use these tactics with just a few minutes of instruction. So, we designed the A.I. system in Road to Hill 30 to not be very aggressive. We relied upon a system we called "situational A.I." that called upon our designers to plan out the enemy actions based on what we anticipated players to do. It worked very well, but it did have areas for improvement.
On the A.I. side, players will notice many improvements in Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood. Besides an improved combat chatter system and a new situational conversation system, this game features a completely new enemy A.I. combat system that allows the enemies to better analyze and react to the player's movements. What this means is that in Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, the enemies will be looking or ways to flank the player and will try to counter any tactics the player uses against them. This new system allows for amazingly dynamic and exciting fire fights.
Specifically, we discovered that players were much smarter than we expected. We discovered that players really wanted to feel that they were fighting for their lives out there in Normandy -- that they were really fighting against these German troops.
So, we were compelled to re-think our A.I. system for the enemies. We wanted to make sure that the German squads would think and make more decisions for themselves, and we wanted the player to feel the pressure of them firing and moving. We wanted the Germans to fight like they wanted to win -- especially the better trained, elite German units that paratroopers encountered as the invasion rolled on.
Our goal for Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood was to create a system that allowed the enemy A.I. to think independently and react to the tactics that player uses against it. The resulting system creates gameplay where the player must be ever aware of where the enemy is and what it is doing. The Germans are always looking for an opening to out flank the player
