Ikalgo: i dont know what happened, like i had mentioned to you before: i had taken a look at those bots who used north america counter, and i usually beat them, but this mweb i took a look at the back logs and i already had losing stats against him, not sure why, maybe couz he still keeps expanding from australia into africa so i cant even get a safe africa when managing to hold up against the north america counter which i usually manage just fine. this is especially saddening couz mweb has such horrible managment of troops, attacks with 1 on first action, doesnt distribute properly to finish super region. and yet still manages to easily beat me. :(

Edited 6/4/2014 13:15:31

condolences to trogabot, you deserved to be in the finals imho!

It's the way the chips fall. I knew Dbag (and Webmartino, actually) have bots that can easily defeat mine, so I'm not too upset about it.

Dalek defeats my bot too, so that's not a huge deal (kudos, Norman).

Just irritated about how the pairings happened. In any normal tournament format, I would have played a lower-ranked bot 1st round, and it looks like pedrito second round. Probably lost, but at least made it to top 8.

Just as luck has it, I played the top bot and a scissor bot to my paper bot. It happens.

Anyways, I'm going to be gutting my bot and putting significantly smarter code in for the next challenge. Also, I'm not going to put in a last minute change next time either thinking I'd be putting something smart in (which turns out was my downfall against Dbag and Webmartino) :)

Looking forward to watching the next few rounds! Good luck gentlemen!

I was writing a really long and detailed post about lots of shit and then the browser crashed... damnit!!

Anyways here's the short version without any attempt at literary aesthetics:

-Semifinals pairings silly
BUT
-Rankings not representative of real bot skill anyways because of luck factor

-Why are semifinals minimum 5 games a match, but finals only 3 games? Strange.

-Sorry Trogatog, shit happens :O

considering the luck factor i would hope for _more_ games in the finals, not less :)
but well, let's see how it goes.

feels abit wrong to play against same bot twice on the semifinals, shouldn't we be playing against the loser from one of the other brackets?

Yeah I'm probably going to have to face Blender again, who trumps me with his Europe strategy.

Just as luck has it, I played the top bot and a scissor bot to my paper bot.

Yeah well my scissors are about to be re-featured on an episode of 'will it blend?'. Fracking thing blends like a beast! Wicked scientists and their deviously strong inventions, argh! And yet perhaps I'm no better than a common scientist putting a mouse in a maze. Perhaps if I'd just straight up given them the cheese they would have fought and won for great justice instead of because of my trickery. I have only myself to blame for my coming defeat. I've done wrong by my bot and I don't deserve to win a thing for it! I thought at least I was feeding it delicious cheese, but I wasn't being honest about it. I was a bad parent to my bot, shame on me!

Edited 6/4/2014 20:02:22

considering the luck factor i would hope for _more_ games in the finals, not less :)
but well, let's see how it goes.

I know, right? Why weren't there 50 matches for semis and 100 for top 8? I think I run 100 matches in about 5 minutes. Plus, it would add the the eager anticipation of the outcome :D

Winners that have made it into the finals: [wins/losses/ties]
SupremeDalek (1) -- beats Blender (9) [5/3/2] (who faces Dbagbot (13) next)
Damian_Warlight (19) -- beats Speedy2014 (17) [8/6/0] (who faces Assimilator (21) next)
AdsRiskbot (3) -- beats mweb (15) [5/2/0] (who faces psWarlighter (11) next)
pedrito (4) -- beats Webmartino (16) [5/2/0] (who faces TheeYo (8) next)
Muli (20) -- beats SupremeLeader (22) [5/0/0] (who faces HouplessBot(18) next)
GreenTea (2) -- beats Gadzbot (10) [5/1/0] (who faces KewaKareban (14) next)

I feel particularly sad that my bot basically would have won 2 games extra against Norman had I just finalized my last-added-on-the-last-day strategy of capturing USA and not bothering/amassing on the Asian border against pedrito/greentea (which wouldn't be needed anyway as I now hide income). Ah well.... Norman does have a very solid bot and it indeed shows in chaos.

Edited 6/4/2014 22:12:43

http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74984b5ab23cee6dbcf4
hard to watch without pain :'(

Hah, damn he was doing so well then he fell apart at the end. Looks very similar to one of the stupid things my bot does in Africa that causes him to stalemate a won game as well. Although mine doesn't play as well in the prior respects as shown in that game. Mine would go for North America when it could hold the Africa block, but would probably lose before that letting him take Europe without a proper fight.

Edited 6/4/2014 22:31:27

Game 1: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74984b5ab23cee6dbcf4 DRAW

Like GreenTea mentions... just painful. My bot acts silly in the start but recovers. In the end, my bot is overly concerned with the enemy holding 2 regions in Europe. I was aware of the static nature.


Game 2: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74ad4b5ab23cee6dbcf5 DRAW

We have to admit Dalek sucks here. My bot basically expects enemies when he arrives in North Africa. I have not had enough experience with Europe when choosing a region in SA (which slows down the enemy a lot). I know that I should have my bot now to be waiting until it meets a big stack in SA, then problems solved. He was now able to just walk into Europe. Fortunately, my walking around in Europe made this a Draw (it happens when big stacks are 2 regions apart, Ad uses this as well)

Game 3: A painful round 53 - http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74be4b5ab23cee6dbcf6 DALEK

This is where I refer to with my incomplete last strategy. It wasn't implemented well and now instead my bot gets to "I win - just destroy any enemy near you" rather than try to destroy Australia.
Also, it's painful to lose in round 99, let's not add this one to the "funny games" thread -

Game 4: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74ce4b5ab23cee6dbcf7 DALEK

Very solid of Norman. My bot does quite badly generally when enemy holds North Africa, it's difficult to capture SA and protect of course

Game 5: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74dd4b5ab23cee6dbcf8 BLENDER

Standard succesfull Europe game

Game 6: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74ed4b5ab23cee6dbcf9 BLENDER

Standard succesfull Europe game

Game 7: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c74fe4b5ab23cee6dbcfa DALEK

Dalek is too slow, my bot should instead wait/build up for the big stack in SA like mentioned for Game 2. This really sucks, it would be so simple ;/

Game 8: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c750c4b5ab23cee6dbcfb BLENDER

Standard succesfull Europe game.

Game 9: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c751e4b5ab23cee6dbcfc DALEK

This is again watching a repeat. My bot's last strategy is not implemented well and my bot just does ridiculous things in Asia while being ahead.

Game 10: http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c75304b5ab23cee6dbcfd DALEK

Well done by Norman, again North Africa attacking SA is such a great move like in Game 4.

---

Perhaps now you want to do your version of these games, Norman?

Edited 6/5/2014 08:22:07

Hello

OK, I knew that the match against Blender was closer than SupremeDalek's record against him pointed out. Also I knew that fighting against Blender would make my bot look stupid since Blender fights at different terms.

However if you look at the low ranked pairup Muli <--> SupremeLeader you clearly see especially SupremeLeader having no idea how to expand properly. So it should be obvious that you can't say that there are rock paper scissors bots and since most bots are rocks the scissors bots lose most of the time. Those low ranked bots are just weaker, plain and simple.

Same goes for the low ranked pairup Speedy <--> DamianWarlight. Taking a bonus with maximum army usage (given current armies on board and armies to expand) is a mathematical problem that my bot algorithmically solves in linear time. Most bots (including Blender) however can't solve this problem. (It's possible to construct situations where my bot doesen't find the best solution but I never saw my bot running into such a case).

SupremeDalek <--> Blender (game 1):
Blender plays to passive. Once you have income advantage + stack advantage finish the opponent off by killing the maximum amount of his armies with your attacks. Not much to say about Blender hiding his income since this only works on this map. Don't defend your bonuses with more than necessary.

SupremeDalek <--> Blender (game 2):
Some like dead piggy say that they can define a bot being able to beat a top player while others say that it's far to complicated since there are billions of different situations. The truth is probably in the middle. With his computing power a bot can play far more precise than any human could do. Furthermore I believe that you can model solid warlight play with a reasonable amount of parameters and if you stick them together then the whole is more than the sum of it's parts. My bot consists just of a couple simple heuristics that I never minded fine tuning but working together they result in relatively solid play. However the downside of a bot is that he has no common sense. If you specify good warlight play not precise enough then your bot will stick to your specification even in situations where a human sees without problems that this is nonsense. I specified my bot in a way that if he has no chance defending a certain spot he doesen't even try. However in a situation where you have a huge income advantage + stack advantage and the opponent is facing elimination you have to play differently than when the game is still open.

SupremeDalek <--> Blender (game 3):
Here you see the difference of a hardcoded bot and a bot who is really dynamically analyzing the map. Round 53 Blender should have gone strong towards Australia. Round 54 he didn't bother hiting Australia strong.

SupremeDalek <--> Blender (game 4):
No, this wasn't good play of SupremeDalek. Round 10 SupremeDalek left South America. This is because all the hatred inside SupremeDalek leads him to be an always attack when possible bot. That North Africa spot was the only spot that he was capable of attacking so he attacked this spot although he knew that this spot is unimportant.

SupremeDalek <--> Blender (game 10):
Hiting South America isn't a hardcoded strategy. SupremeDalek knows that South America is generally a good bonus (not many territories) and that there are 2 neutral spots and 2 Blender spots there. That's why he ranks Brazil as a better attack target than the Africa spot. Since he is bordering Blender in two spots he has no idea where Blender will place his defence armies so he doesen't bother about Blender defending. This was one of the last things I changed in my bot about a month ago. The old SupremeDalek would have attacked that Africa spot since he would have assumed that Blender defends the more valuable South America spot.


Edit: OK, maybe SupremeDalek hasn't got the most sophisticated AI of all bots. But I completely stopped updating him over a month ago and he is basically the same bot as almost two months ago. This was in the old days where there wasn't any real competition. I was alredy specifying a big update a month ago to make him play at human level but then I ran out of time and lost interest a bit since this was the time where all those hardcoded bots began to rise.

Edited 6/5/2014 01:15:00

Although pedrito and GreenTea have good AI they fail in many situations that SupremeDalek plays out properly.

http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c766e4b5ab23cee6dbd16
Here you see pedrito going after the far away Australia bonus while it was far more important to protect the entrance to his South America bonus.

http://theaigames.com/competitions/warlight-ai-challenge/games/538c76f74b5ab23cee6dbd24
Here you see GreenTea playing bad facing the opponent in multiple spots from the start. Instead of trying to win in one of the important spots (South America or Australia) he tries to defend all 3 of his spots. In fact looking at the games GreenTea <--> Gadzbot Gadzbot could maybe have pushed GreenTea to the loosers bracket if he only had a more conservative / better stalemate detection.

Edited 6/5/2014 02:54:53

However the downside of a bot is that he has no common sense. If you specify good warlight play not precise enough then your bot will stick to your specification even in situations where a human sees without problems that this is nonsense. I specified my bot in a way that if he has no chance defending a certain spot he doesen't even try. However in a situation where you have a huge income advantage + stack advantage and the opponent is facing elimination you have to play differently than when the game is still open.

I realized this flaw in my own bot and gave it some conditions to try to solve it. My bot has an attackratio variable it uses in its attack checks to see whether or not to attack such that I only attack when it is advantageous to do so (generally). However I realized my bot would be stupid and I'd see games where I'm surrounding an enemy with stacks of armies. Enemy is pretty much defeated, but none of my stacks attack because they're all to small individually to attack to individual advantage even though if they all attacked together they could take the spot. So I actually coded in some conditions to change the attack ratio such that it's substantially lower in the main case which then allows my bot to make all the attacks it can with minimal check for strict advantage. I called it 'panic attack' mode. I was thinking 'I'm winning but haven't won, hurry up and attack everything and kill it quick!' Not sure how many games that has come into effect, but it's one of the things I was glad I had time to put in.

My bot has a lot of hardcoding, but it also has a fair amount of general coding that would work regardless of map or spot. It deploys randomly most of the time too in a controlled randomness. I use various means to define which spots can be deployed to and then it randomly deploys among them with +2s/1. Although I also added in some checks late that checked threat level for standoff situations to determine when I need more armies to keep a spot so you'll occasionally see larger deployments. Also there is a check to see when I can spare armies to take a bonus. Although I hardcode which bonuses to go for given various situations. Which basically doesn't tell it to attack the bonus, but allows it to.

I think random maps will make things a lot more challenging and interesting and people will be forced to program more general behaviors if they're going to do well in the next competition (assuming it's setup well). I was too much of a noob programmer and had too little time to make my bot I figured hardcoding a lot was my only chance of getting something reasonably decent up in time. But I built it around that random core of the starter bot. Not sure if I'll participate in the next one, but I might. I'm trying to learn how to program in the mean time for other reasons which may then help me if I do decide to do it.

I was thinking after the next competition Randy should get someone to 'donate' their bot to Warlight and make it an official AI to play against in the game. It could finally be the challenge after insane that I've wanted. For the final (new) single player challenge, you must beat this evil SupremeDalek bot! And then he will devour them all and make them cry and things will be right with the universe. You'll have your true victory then! Because really, what is SupremeDalek if it's only killing bots? It needs some non-bots to truly release its hatred upon the world.

"Here you see GreenTea playing bad facing the opponent in multiple spots from the start."
This if feature of scoring function in v63, which try to find income distribution with max average score by all regions. In current version (which I have locally) bot tends to find income distribution which maximize scores reather for one region, then for all. Except this I fixed many bugs in v63 (almost all strange moves, visible in lost games), but to late to update..

I belive that will not win this finals, because you guys had created very good 'Small earth' bots which exploite 2-3 effective strategies on this map. But when organizers will implement random maps.. Im 99.99% sure that any of current top bots will not be even close to GreenTea ;)

Edited 6/5/2014 09:25:21

blargh, facing mweb again, ok, i'm dead, this sucks, losing against a hardcoded bot with no proper troop managment :(

i'm amazed at Muli, was not thinking it would make it to the finals.

To the guys who are so proud of their "true AI": this is a competition in which some form of hardcodedness can certainly outperform general AI. It is just a too restricted map. I have always more seen it as a collaboration of me and my bot... combining the strengths of a human with the strength of the machine!

I'm not sure if I will compete in the next Warlight competition (first poker, then I'll see), and agree that there will be fewer hardcoded bots (none perhaps?). However, the competition won't be less fierce. I (and probably other hardcoded bots) also have complex algorithms in place, and I also really like the excitement of writing a more general smart AI. It's just that this competition favors a little bit of hardcoding here and there.

Edited 6/5/2014 13:07:02

why such hate toward hard coded bots?

No hate, just making general AI requires more efforts from coder, and then it sad that bot was beaten by some simple hardcoded strategy, on which your opponent coder spend far less time and efforts, then you on your general AI.

i'm amazed at Muli, was not thinking it would make it to the finals.

To be honest i'm quite surprised too and don't think I deserved it, there are far better bots around.

I was actually missing some time to update my bot, so the Version that is playing is from 10th of April and not updated since then. The bot is quite bad and basically just spends his armies attacking territories with lower IDs first because they appear first in the 'foreachs'.

Edited 6/5/2014 16:59:53