Pokemon Battle System A.I

Question

For my newest project, a Pokemon fan-edition, I need to collect much information on the game mechanics. So I need to know a few things about the A.I. implemented in the games. For the sake if simplicity here are my questions:

1. Do today's Pokemon games (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White) include an A.I. or is everything more or less random?
2. Has anyone information or even resources on that topic so that I can reuse this to build my battle system?

Answer 1

It's not exactly Pokemon, but I think I've got just the thing for you. There are a couple of Final Fantasy VII FAQs down at GameFAQs that might be useful for understanding how this sort of behavior might work. In particular:

• THE FF7 ENEMY MECHANICS by Terence Fergusson
• THE FF7 BATTLE MECHANICS by Terence Fergusson

The first one is probably the most interesting for you, because it presents (in pseudocode) the AI for every enemy in the game. For instance, here's part of the AI for one of the enemies (as you can see, it's a mix of scripting with random probabilities):

AI: Main
{
   If (Stage == 0) Then
   {
      Choose Random Opponent
      1/4 Chance: Use <Bodyblow> on Target
      3/4 Chance: Nothing
   } Else If (Stage == 1) Then {
      Choose Random Opponent
      1/6 Chance: Use Bubble on Target
      1/6 Chance: Use <Bodyblow> on Target
      1/3 Chance: Nothing
   } Else If (Stage == 2) Then {
      Choose Random Opponent
      1/4 Chance: Use Bubble on Target
      1/4 Chance: Use <Bodyblow> on Target
      1/2 Chance: Nothing
   } Else If (Stage == 3) Then {
      Choose Random Opponent
      1/2 Chance: Use Bubble on Target
      1/2 Chance: Use <Bodyblow> on Target
   } Else {
      Choose Random Opponent
      Use Bubble on Target
      Choose Random Opponent
      Use <Bodyblow> on Target
   }
}

The second one is mostly about the formulas used in the game. Damage formulas, elemental weakness formulas, etc, which you might also be interested in. For instance:

Base Damage = Att + [(Att + Lvl) / 32] * [(Att * Lvl) / 32]
Damage = [(Power * (512 - Def) * Base Damage) / (16 * 512)]

If anything, I think at least these will serve as inspiration.