The Entelect R 200k A.I. Challenge!

StormGameDev

Hey everyone.

So Entelect is hosting their annual 200k A.I. challenge.

- You get a game.
- You code an A.I.
- Your A.I battle to the death with other competitors' A.I.
- You could win cash prizes based on your A.I.'s standing!

Link here


Previously there was also a GUI competition, I'm not sure if it's still a thing but I will find out.

Tuism

Battleships? Looks like it relies really really heavily on luck. Like really. Yes I know there are more efficient ways to find the rest of the ship once something hits, and possibly "better" placements, but really it seems like the luckier hit will usually win.

StormGameDev

That's what I also thought, till I read this:

During the first phase a player has to place their ships

So you could try and confused the enemy A.I. based on how you place your ships.

francoisvn

Tuism said:

Battleships? Looks like it relies really really heavily on luck. Like really. Yes I know there are more efficient ways to find the rest of the ship once something hits, and possibly "better" placements, but really it seems like the luckier hit will usually win.

I tend to agree. You could mitigate this with very large maps and many ships, or by having a few games as part of a match between two players, but as it currently stands, I foresee randomness being a very large factor. Initial placement doesn't really change that much, because once again, you have to have a lot of randomness present, otherwise other players can predict your placements more easily.

These challenges have always been interesting, but it also feels like they always ignore some pretty important aspects - I always get excited when I first see them and then disappointed after I learn more :/

SkinnyBoy

I thought entrants had to write their own custom AI but its not, meaning competing depends on luck and not experience in AI.

StormGameDev

You do have to write your own AI.

SkinnyBoy said:

I thought entrants had to write their own custom AI but its not, meaning competing depends on luck and not experience in AI.

Tuism

Yep. Even initial placement is down to luck. You can cluster it all or you can spread it out. You can potentially attempt to confuse the AI by joining ships up so that it appears you have more of a ship type than you do, but that just means you've clustered your ships. Either way... Getting a first hit is luck, placing out of reach is luck.

If anyone's played Captain Sonar the boardgame, THAT is a more interesting take on AI and non-luck decision making.

StormGameDev

With moving ships? yea that would be quite cool!

Tuism said:

Yep. Even initial placement is down to luck. You can cluster it all or you can spread it out. You can potentially attempt to confuse the AI by joining ships up so that it appears you have more of a ship type than you do, but that just means you've clustered your ships. Either way... Getting a first hit is luck, placing out of reach is luck.

If anyone's played Captain Sonar the boardgame, THAT is a more interesting take on AI and non-luck decision making.

francoisvn

Yeah, moving ships is a great idea that they could should wrangle into this challenge.

I don't mean to be a complete downer, but part of my disappointment comes from the fact that I never look at the rules for the challenge and get a feeling like "Oh cool, that's a great little idea, it has so many possibilities..."

vince

I think there is a possibility of movement being added, although slim since that would completely change the way your bot would need to function.

As I saw they did say that, as the competition moves forward, after each event they will introduce new elements to make the game harder. So we will see what elements they add, I saw in the samples they provided that each bot has an Arsenal property, currently set to single shot. So they will likely add different weapons. (Backed up by the trailer showing a targeting missile being fired)

Tuism

Uh... So either you have to write new stuff between rounds out of sheer surprise, or you have to write 4 different bots ahead of time?

Thats... Weird. I guess then they're embracing game jam culture hard :)

mattbenic

Please note that as the competition progresses, the game engine will change. After each battle event, we will upgrade your ships to make the game a bit harder.

It seems like they've definitely left the door open for changes, so maybe turn based movement will be one of the "engine changes"