A bit of history

Before venturing on our journey, I believe that having a general overview of the history of AI and AI in games might be beneficial. Of course, you can skip this part if you are a more hands-on type of person who cannot wait to getting down to programming AI.

What is AI?

This is a very interesting question, which doesn't have a unique answer. In fact, different answers lead to different aspects of AI. Let's explore some (of many) definitions that have been given by different scholars (in chronological order).

Actually, Russell and Norvig, in their book, organized these specific definitions into four categories. Here is their schema:

Russell and Norvig's four categories. Top-left: "Systems...