Hey guys,
I'm the creator of WarLight.net, and I love the idea of doing a Risk-like competition for the next AI challenge.
If you do decide to use WarLight-like rules, I can provide the code behind the game engine for use. I've already made a fully-functional demo of this you can see here:
http://blog.warlight.net/index.php/2011 ... challenge/In WarLight rules, each army can move to one adjacent node each turn. This is different from Risk, where armies can cross the entire map in a single turn. I think moving one node at a time provides a much better platform for an AI challenge as it emphasizes location. That is, which regions of the map you have access to is often more important than the number of armies you have.
I'm also a big fan of the 1v1 format. Having more than two players increases the complexity of the AI significantly, as these games are more decided by who attacks who than army-moving strategy.
If I can do anything to help out, I can be reached at
fizzer@warlight.net. Thanks!