Hi there, im about to start a project looking at AI for university. Primarily, looking at creating a world with hundreds of simultanious AI agents running around gathering resources, bulding settlements etc (focus is on large numbers of AI agents collaborating). and what i am looking for is a relatively 'easy to use the basics of' game engine (would prefer a 3d one to be honest, but a good 2d one would suffice - maybe better in some respects). I would like to be able to code in c++ as that is what i am most familiar with too. Or if anyone knows any good engines that let you concentrate even more on the AI aspect, please mention those too :P i was thinking about Ogre3d primarily because i have used it before and it provides some nice camera functions, and i can easily put my MS3D models into it :P cheers.

I've heard that Irrlicht is easier than Ogre but if you've used Ogre before than you're probably ok. If you want a full-fledged game engine with physics included you could try Panda3d but that would probably be overkill for your usage.

http://www.horde3d.org/ seems to be pretty easy too (and lightweight), but i haven't done anything with it (except working through out a tutorial).