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mleise
06-10-2011, 02:03 PM
There is a new challenge about to start at http://beta.aichallenge.org/
This will be the first time that FreePascal 2.4 is supported there and since I first heard of the (last) challenge on DelphiGL.com I though here would be a good place to make an announcement.

So here is the deal: You write a program that controls a population of ants. You get a number of ant hills and explore the map with your ant horde looking for food to produce more ants and enemy ant hills that you can raze for points.
There is fog-of-war and obstacles. Moving ants in groups gives them better chances to survive by outnumbering enemies. The map is on a grid and ants wrap around if they move over the edges. A match usually has between 2-8 players and is turn based. The players make their moves simultaneously within a time window of 500ms. Oh yeah and it is free to sign up and requires no previous knowledge in AI programming. :)

Feel free to ask questions on the IRC channel #aichallenge on Freenode.

Ingemar
06-10-2011, 07:38 PM
Sounds interesting, and a bit scary. So I should start by downloading a starter package? Nice to see FPC on the list.

User137
07-10-2011, 12:13 AM
I am participating :) Starter bot is uploaded on nick Zaflis.

mleise
07-10-2011, 01:05 AM
Sounds interesting, and a bit scary. So I should start by downloading a starter package? Nice to see FPC on the list.
You can start by downloading a starter bot package:
http://beta.aichallenge.org/starter_packages.php
and the tools:
http://beta.aichallenge.org/tools.zip (Windows)
http://beta.aichallenge.org/tools.tar.bz2 (Linux/Mac)

Included is the engine, a visualizer and other goodies. Take a look around the website to read more about it.

Ingemar
07-10-2011, 05:38 AM
I don't quite get it yet. The starter package compiles, so far so good. But I havn't understood how to test it locally. The quickstart guide doesn't cover that, and the FAQ doesn't mention it either. Or should I test on-line?

Edit: Wait a minute... mleise's link to the tools, I missed that. That might be the answer.

mleise
08-10-2011, 06:04 AM
The help page for the tools is here by the way:
http://beta.aichallenge.org/using_the_tools.php

Also check out the links in the right menu bar to other topics, like the contest rules or problem description.

User137
08-10-2011, 07:11 PM
I have also bit of trouble testing my bot. Submitted version online where it crashes without knowing how.

I also have the tools which successfully visually play with sample bots, but i don't know how to add my bot to start script... I see that it requires 4 bots in the commandline, so i replaced last one "python %~dp0sample_bots\python\HunterBot.py" with "%~dp0ZaflisBot\project1.exe" but it doesn't even seem to start the app. It does start if i manually run the exe and waits for readln input.

Fixed. Must not type .exe in the script but just the path and name.

Stoney
11-10-2011, 04:08 PM
I got the starter bot and the tools working. Very nice :)
Unfortunately I'm rather busy at the moment, but I probably try to improve my starter bot in a week or two.

code_glitch
11-10-2011, 04:10 PM
Had a look at this, does indeed look like quite a good concept.

mleise
21-10-2011, 04:16 AM
...and it just officially launched! Have fun the next two months.
http://aichallenge.org/

imcold
26-10-2011, 09:44 AM
I just tried making a bot at a sleepless night; it's challenging and a lot of fun! The visualizer is just great.