Multi-Agent Based Modelling: from Social Simulation to Real Time Strategy Games

Simulation has been regarded as the third way to represent social models, alternative to other two symbol systems: the verbal argumentation and the mathematical one. Simulation can be processed by a computer and is particularly suited for complex systems, in which the aggregate behaviour is not necessarily the sum of the sincle parts. Agent Based Modelling (ABM) is for sure the most interesting and advanced approach for simulating a complex system: in a social context, the single parts and the whole are often very hard to describe in detail; by using intelligent agents as basic building blocks, there are formalisms which allow to study the emergency of social behaviour through the creation of models, known as "artificial societies". This paper deals with an hybrid agent based methodology, borrowed from the social sciences application field, which could be succesfully applied to real-time strategy games; this would create a realistic environment and a less deterministic behaviour, thanks to the AI technology enbedded in the hybrid approach.