AI v AI

I decided that during 2024, I'd create one game every month. This month, I've created AI v AI, a game of automated warfare.

In the far future, militaries have discovered that AI can kill better than humans can. But war without death is awfully boring, so militaries chain humans to the front of each AI warrior bot. The friendly AI defends its human's life while trying to kill the human strapped to an enemy bot. It's the best of both worlds. Efficient automated warfare plus an appropriately high death toll.

Rules

Auto war is a solo game. You need a pen and paper, and a handful (or one that you're willing to roll a lot) of six-sided dice (d6) to play.

Setup

On a sheet of paper, draw this game chart in ink:

You use this chart to "program" each turn. You can write in pencil and erase, or just re-draw the chart each turn.

A game round consists of your turn and the Enemy's turn.

Each side starts the game with 5 AI warrior bots. Each bot has a human chained to the front of it. The human is restrained and cannot defend itself, and relies entirely on the bot for protection.

Write 5 in the Live humans boxes for both you and your Enemy bots.

The game ends when your bots, or your Enemy's, are carrying 0 live humans.

Your turn

At the start of your turn, you have 3 Action Points (AP) to spend on effects that provide a Boost, an Overwatch action, or Attack action:

1. Move [Attack] [Overwatch]: Go get a fresh human to attach to one of your bots
2. Learn [Boost] [Overwatch]: +1 pip to any die roll
3. Interference [Boost] [Overwatch]: Cause or Negate Interference
4. Fire [Attack] [Overwatch]: Shoot at a human
5. Overclock [Boost]: Charge your weapons for burst fire
6. Burst [Attack] [Overwatch]: After overclocking, add 1d6 to your dice pool

Enter [Boost] actions into your Boost column.

Enter [Overwatch] actions into the Overwatch box. An Overwatch action is triggered when your Enemy takes the action your bots are watching for, and lets you make an immediate Attack in response. For instance, if you have loaded Learn as an Overwatch action, then when your Enemy takes the Learn action, your bots may fire immediately.

Enter [Attack] actions into your Attack box. Your attacks occur after all Enemy actions have happened.

Move is a special action. It's not really an Attack, but is considered hostile because when a bot performs a Move action, it finds a fresh human, straps it on to its front panels, and returns to battle. When this happens, increase your Live humans count by 1.

Enemy turn

Once your own AI bots are ready, it's time to prepare the Enemy AI.

Roll 3d6, and write the corresponding Boosts and Actions in the Enemy box:

1. Interference [Boost]: Convert one of target's dice to a 1.
2. Fire [Attack]: Shoot at a human
3. Learn [Boost] [Overwatch]: +1 pip to any die roll
4. Overclock [Boost]: Charge your weapons for burst fire
5. Burst [Attack] [Overwatch]: After overclocking, add 1d6 to your dice pool
6. Fire or Move [Attack]: If any Enemy bot is carrying a dead human, Move to fetch a live one. Otherwise, take the Fire action.

If the Enemy rolls a 4 without a 5, or a 5 without a 4, then change the previous or next dice so that the Enemy has both a 4 and 5 in its Action list. For example, if the Enemy has rolled 2 1 5, then change the results to 2 4 5 instead. If the Enemy rolls 4 5 5, then no change is required. In other words, it's never possible for an Enemy to take the Overclock boost without the Burst attack, nor to take the Burst attack without the Overclock boost, regardless of dice rolls.

When an Enemy rolls 6, it defaults to a Move action if it has less than 5 live humans. Otherwise, it takes the Fire action.

Resolve each round

Now that the values are entered, it's time to resolve the data.

• For an easy game, a Boost applies to only one action.
• For a hard game, a Boost applies for the entire round.

Start with the first Enemy Attack.

If you have that Attack in your Overwatch box, then you may attack the Enemy before it takes its action. If you do not have that Attack in your Overwatch, then the Enemy takes the action immediately.

Continue through all Enemy Attacks.

Combat

When you take a Fire action, you roll 1d6 for each bot with a live human strapped to it.

The Burst action is the same, except that you roll 1 extra d6.

Any dice result of 5 or 6 is one hit, and kills one human. Lower your target's Live humans count by 1.

A roll of a 1 is Interference and negates one 5 or 6.

After you've rolled, apply Boost effects:

• Learn: Convert one dice result of 4 to 5
• Overclock: Enables you to take the Burst action
• Interference: One dice result of a 1 counts against your opponent's next roll instead of your current roll. Ignore this if your opponent also has the Interference boost.

Exterminate

This game is tough at first. You have to make hard choices based on what you think your opponent (well, a random roll of 3d6) might do. And sometimes the Enemy fires twice or even thrice and slaughters all your humans before you can even move to get fresh ones. I've definitely lost a lot in the early game.

By contrast, though, as long as you survive the early rounds, you can usually weaken your Enemy and then start spending lots of actions on persistent fire.

I'm finding this a lot of fun, and I think the idea of "programming" robots and using if/then statements (overwatch) is a lot of fun. It's a really good feeling when the Enemy does a thing that catches your robot's auto-routines, and you get to unleash 5d6 of human-killing energy.

There's a lot of context-switching in the game, though, and that's a little bit of a learning curve. It can be diserienting when you first look through the actions and realize you can use them as boosts for yourself, or essentially a bane for the enemy (in the case of Interference), or as an attack, OR as a trigger for an attack. But I really like that you have to decide between Overwatch and Attack, with an Overwatch tempting you with immediacy that might never happen and an Attack tempting you with a guaranteed action but that only happens at the end of the round.

Try it out!