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Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

battlecode.org

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Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#11

Post by hislaziness »

dvorak42 wrote: post #7
sagichmal wrote: post #3

Looks fun! > What are the supported programming languages? Java and Scala. Oh. Nevermind. What's the most interesting version of a competition like this which doesn't place restrictions on implementation language?

We're not happy about the restriction either, and hopefully we'll run a Battlecode that doesn't have a programming language restriction, but we haven't found a way to deal with limited instruction count execution that we are happy with that is machine independent, and counting Java bytecode has worked for us so far. If there are other JVM languages people want supported, we'd be happy to take pull requests on Github…

So any language compiling to Java bytecode is OK?

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#12

Post by Vintila »

vertis wrote: post #2

While some of it is open to non-MIT students, it looks like to continue through to the finals you need at least 50% MIT students on your team. Should be fun anyway.

Nope

>In order to be eligible to compete in the seeding, qualifying, and final tournaments, at least half of your team members must be current students (any school).

http://www.battlecode.org/tournaments/

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#13

Post by Houshalter »

dvorak42 wrote: post #7
sagichmal wrote: post #3

Looks fun! > What are the supported programming languages? Java and Scala. Oh. Nevermind. What's the most interesting version of a competition like this which doesn't place restrictions on implementation language?

We're not happy about the restriction either, and hopefully we'll run a Battlecode that doesn't have a programming language restriction, but we haven't found a way to deal with limited instruction count execution that we are happy with that is machine independent, and counting Java bytecode has worked for us so far. If there are other JVM languages people want supported, we'd be happy to take pull requests on Github…

Why not just time the execution instead of counting instructions?

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#14

Post by x0054 »

I do remember back in the day playing AT Bots, it was a similar concept, only you would write the bots in assembly, which was kind of fun, because on top of the strategy, you also had to figure all the ways to profile your code. Like for instance bit shifting instead of dividing, and such. You had to keep the code light because the speed of your bot directly correlated to the how fast the code would be executed. So, each processor cycle counted towards making you faster, but speed up too much by cutting down your code, and your bot would get dumber.

It would be interesting to see a game where only the API for the bot is exposed, and the actual computation takes place on a separate machine (or same machine, but separate processor). That way you can experiment with all kinds of languages, or even possible hardware combinations. For competition your code would be loaded on a VM instance or a physical machine which has identical characteristics to all the other competing machines, and you go at it. This way you are not limited to a given language or a set of libraries, and can really explore all the possibilities.

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#15

Post by ConnorBoyd »

Houshalter wrote: post #13
dvorak42 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not happy about the restriction either, and hopefully we'll run a Battlecode that doesn't have a programming language restriction, but we haven't found a way to deal with limited instruction count execution that we are happy with that is machine independent, and counting Java bytecode has worked for us so far. If there are other JVM languages people want supported, we'd be happy to take pull requests on Github…

Why not just time the execution instead of counting instructions?

Maybe because that would give an advantage to people using faster languages, and they want it to be more about the machine learning algorithms

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#16

Post by jzwinck »

dvorak42 wrote: post #7
sagichmal wrote: post #3

Looks fun! > What are the supported programming languages? Java and Scala. Oh. Nevermind. What's the most interesting version of a competition like this which doesn't place restrictions on implementation language?

We're not happy about the restriction either, and hopefully we'll run a Battlecode that doesn't have a programming language restriction, but we haven't found a way to deal with limited instruction count execution that we are happy with that is machine independent, and counting Java bytecode has worked for us so far. If there are other JVM languages people want supported, we'd be happy to take pull requests on Github…

Can you explain in more detail what you mean by "limited instruction count execution that is machine independent"? For example:

- Is it measuring the count and making sure it doesn't exceed some threshold, or is the client API designed to actually give each client a specific number of instructions and terminate if that is exceeded?

- Does "machine independent" mean it needs to run outside of x86/amd64?

- Would it offend your sensibilities if CPU cycles used by C programs counted the same as those used by JVM programs?

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#17

Post by xorcist »

dvorak42 wrote: post #7
sagichmal wrote: post #3

Looks fun! > What are the supported programming languages? Java and Scala. Oh. Nevermind. What's the most interesting version of a competition like this which doesn't place restrictions on implementation language?

We're not happy about the restriction either, and hopefully we'll run a Battlecode that doesn't have a programming language restriction, but we haven't found a way to deal with limited instruction count execution that we are happy with that is machine independent, and counting Java bytecode has worked for us so far. If there are other JVM languages people want supported, we'd be happy to take pull requests on Github…

Why the JVM? Why not run your own bytecode, or even use Redcode straight up?

edit: Perhaps I should explain. I dabbled in rec.games.corewars a few times, and what I found most rewarding was all the tricks you could play with the bytecode. I've never found the Java variants as fun, as one fun part of the game seems lost. I feel like I'm missing something.

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#18

Post by entropy_ »

dvorak42 wrote: post #6
vertis wrote: post #2

While some of it is open to non-MIT students, it looks like to continue through to the finals you need at least 50% MIT students on your team. Should be fun anyway.

You can also compete for the top of the scrimmage rankings, and we are considering adding an Open tournament again to allow all teams compete for fame and glory.

I definitely would like to see an open tournament. My friend and I are going to be participating but neither of us are students. Just doing it for the fun and educational value.

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#19

Post by ryusage »

x0054 wrote: post #14

I do remember back in the day playing AT Bots, it was a similar concept, only you would write the bots in assembly, which was kind of fun, because on top of the strategy, you also had to figure all the ways to profile your code. Like for instance bit shifting instead of dividing, and such. You had to keep the code light because the speed of your bot directly correlated to the how fast the code would be executed. So,…

theaigames.com does this by running the game engine and bots as console apps and communicating by sending simple commands through their input and output streams. They generally provide some "starter bots" for a couple languages, in which the message parsing is already handled for you, but they accept bots in any language.

Re: Battlecode 2015 – AI Programming Competition

#20

Post by dvorak42 »

chrishare wrote: post #10

This looks awesome. Are the winning bots' source available after the tournament is concluded?

We don't explicitly require teams to open source their bot after the tournament, since sometimes teams have special restrictions on publishing their code. But some of the top teams have published their code or framework online in the past.
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