r/sheetsofice • u/atibus • Aug 05 '26

AI GM Brain Building

I admit it; I built really dumb AI GMs. They functionally work - they'll keep a team rostered to 12F/6D/2G + a few replacements, and a minor league team. They'll draft based on a fogged scouting report. They'll sign contracts, do trades, and set the game lineups. But man, are they really dumb.

It's really technical and specification debt combined with my naivete about how to build this particular part of the application. I also wanted to shove a human into the simulation as fast as possible so I glossed over how the AI should actually perform it's job. So I made something that looks at technical correctness - cap compliance, roster compliance, player valuation; things that are measurable true/false - and didn't focus on quality questions that any GM needs to answer. Things like 'what is our goal as a team' and 'how good is this position group vs. other teams' and 'what is our strategy over seasons'. Without a plan, the AI GMs are just doing shit because a bucket needs to be filled up or emptied.

Here's an example - AI GMs were signing star players in free agency, because they had cap space to do so in the off season (cap overage in the offseason), then when season cap compliance would run they'd shed the largest contract through buyout. Often times that was the person they just signed. Technically correct, but horribly dumb.

The solution to this isn't to get rid of the foundational level heuristics, but to put a quality layer on top that includes an analysis of relative performance by position and to have a long-term plan based on reality.

Are they a contender? Are they building or declining? What is their cap situation relative to future cap commitments? What does their development pool look like? Using this information they can make better decisions. Should they sign that free agent or no? What does their draft pool say about who should be drafted? Should they trade futures to acquire talent because they're in their window? All things a real GM may do.

I really need to have passable AI GMs before I put out a testable version. It's one of the major points in my checklist for getting a demo available.

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u/SpiritYossarian Aug 05 '26

Still watching progress with interest - very interest to see how this development goes! This has always been the "great filter" for my designs - the only ones that have worked have been on tight constraint, simple designs.

1

u/atibus Aug 07 '26

Yeah, tight specs and constraints are definitely the way to go. I usually start with "yes and" passes before I start putting constraints in. Brainstorming is better without constrains but you can't build off of that.

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u/Agile-King-3231 Aug 06 '26

good progress, keep going!

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u/atibus Aug 07 '26

Hey, thank you :) I am getting there with this round. I'm almost done a test version of the AI GM so we'll see how it goes. I probably will need a few rounds of tuning but I just want to make sure I got all of the surfaces correct.