Framework Ideas for Next Contest

[amstan]

[McLeopold]

Opponent selection:

The ability to create ad-hoc groups would be great. You could give any person the ability to create a group name, with a password. Then, they can invite people to join the group and authenticate with the password. People would be able to join multiple groups.

During the run up to the deadline, you would want a scheduler to bias toward playing bots in the same group more often. After the deadline, you would want to focus only on the overall contests, then move onto round robins within the group. Maybe with a schedule of when the group final will be run. ( Or for suspense, you could do the overall contest last. )

TCP Server

I'm going to continue working on my tcp server. I plan to move entirely to python. I will be open-source, so you can use it if it seems good enough.

[antimatroid]

Code Sharing:
At the end of the contest, most people are happy to share their code, which last time (and I assume will be the case again this time) involved a huge mess of forum posts. It would be great if people could select whether they are happy for other competitors to have a copy of their submitted code, then once the final tournament is run and results are decided (I think it would be bad to release code before results are finalised, in case of any unforeseen problems such as all data being lost and people having to resubmit), people can download the source from peoples profiles if that user allowed it.

[Zannick]

Backend API

Generic engine code. Rather than have to rewrite a whole new engine from scratch, have a generic engine handle all the external interaction with the player, while player actions and game state changes are handled by game-specific classes.

Code cleanup, modularization, and documentation. The backend folder currently contains 21 python scripts, 4 shell scripts, 4 SQL schemas/tables, and 3 RSA key pairs. Some of these are scripts that are run repeatedly, some are run intermittently, and some are only included as APIs in other scripts. Most of the scripts are poorly documented, nonmodular (as in, they are many lines in a row with no functions or classes encapsulating parts of the process), or convenience scripts for other scripts. This folder should be reorganized and the code should be rewritten, modularized, and clearly documented. This will enable contributors to more easily pick up what code is performing what role in the server.

Language. We will continue to use python, hopefully after an upgrade to a more recent version.

[amstan]

Oh yeah, for sure. I really think it's a bad idea to have such ancient Ubuntus, they should be at most 1 year old.

[Terr]

Multiple submissions within accounts

Currently the answer for this is "use third-party servers", but it may be worth officially supporting 2-3 bot "slots" for an account. The "primary" slot is the version that will be used for all official contest purposes. A user can choose which "slot" to overwrite when they upload, and the "primary" flag is automatically moved to that slot. This allows before/after testing for incremental changes, while also preserving the "one submission per person" rule and even allowing the server to allocate games on a per-account rather than per-version basis.

[Terr]

[CryBaby]

Normalize Website URIs

At the moment, there is no indication in the URI that, for example, the page http://ai-contest.com/visualizer.php represents the PlanetWars visualizer. Unless the plan is to migrate to a new domain name for every contest, there should be some indication of which contest a page is part of. That way, links will not be broken.

[Torquemada2]

First of all thank's to all organizators for such a great contest! I'll be participating for sure in the next event.

If you'll implement all that changes that you wrote above it'll remove all the small problems that were present during this contest - old compilers versions, problems with recovering password, profile changes, problems with scalbility and etc. And this will bring your competition for the next level of popularity. I have some ideas how to help you conquer the world.)) They don't concern to the framwork, may I should make new topic, if it is so please move it to the new topic concernig general suggestions.

1) Try to work intensively with potential sponsors. I think many famous IT companies and organisations would like to become your sponsors now: Facebook, Microsoft, DARPA, etc and support top competitors with the real and valuable prizes.

2) It'll be good to add a bit more advertising about the contest. I find your contest occasionaly. Now you have more than 4600 participant, it is a very good result and with good promotion many new people interested in programming and AI will join this army.

3) Сhoice of game is very critical for succes of the competition, it have to be rich and difficult enough to be interesting for AI programming on different languages, not only on C++ with optimisation insertions in assembler. Galcon was a very good choice, I hope next game will be at least as good.

4) Allmost all participants have ideas that they haven't realized in time. May it'll be interesting for old and new competitors to return to Galcon in 2011 year and make short contest (for a month for example) with extended rules, for example more random maps with larger constrains on size of the map, number of planets, density. topology of the maps (make it like torus or sphere) or etc.

Good luck guys!

[Rocksteve]

Choice of fearless is very scholarly for succes of the rivalry, it love to be robust and awkward enough to be riveting for AI programing on contrastive languages, not exclusive on C++ with optimisation insertions in program. Galcon was a rattling goodness selection, I outlook incoming courageous leave be at littlest as saintlike.Allmost all participants someone ideas that they harbor't realized in indication mulct repugn (for a period for representative) with considerable rules, for admonition statesman ergodic maps with larger constrains on situation of the map, classify of planets, denseness. topology of the maps (play it equivalent moulding or domain) or etc.

EDIT BY MCLEOPOLD

This was spam until I removed the links. This is also a very cool example of a markov chain text generator. I'm leaving it here as an inspiration to others.