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Topic: 2012 Computer Championship (Read 8118 times) |
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aaaa
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Arimaa player #958
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #45 on: Dec 28th, 2011, 3:27pm » |
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In the gamestate file, the wused/bused parameter for the side to move will show how much time has been deducted from the clock already as the communication comes through. My bot, for one, takes this number into account in its time management.
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Janzert
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Arimaa player #247
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #46 on: Dec 28th, 2011, 6:29pm » |
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on Dec 28th, 2011, 2:09pm, aaaa wrote:| The problem then is, that it is, perversely enough, exactly those bots that are programmed to recognize and take into account unfairly lost time, that end up suffering for it in silence. |
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If I'm remembering events correctly, this isn't just a theoretical concern either. I'm pretty sure I found in reviewing logs from OpFor that it had avoided a timeout by taking into account the lost time. While during the same tournament a few games later another bot did timeout because of it and ended up replaying the game. I remember debating at the time modifying OpFor to timeout if it detected the situation arising but deciding it was rather more in the spirit of good sportsmanship to keep the current behavior.
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tize
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Arimaa player #3121
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #47 on: Dec 29th, 2011, 10:28am » |
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Before last WCC I was in favor of having the bots supporting the (w/b)used variable (even though marwin always have ignored them). But after the game marwin vs sharp where sharp lost on time due to not looking at the bused variable I'm more infavor of restarting the games. Because in that game sharp would have lost 2minutes by looking at the bused (the same position was sent to him twice) and the problem would have gone unnoticed.
(Is this problem fixed in AEI, that if the same position is sent twice the same move is sent again directly?)
Also by looking at the (w/b)used variables only half of the problem can be "solved" because all delays from the bot to the server will still tick down on the bots timer.
For casual games it would still be preferable if the bots didn't ignore the (w/b)used as to minimize the timeouts.
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rbarreira
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #48 on: Dec 29th, 2011, 5:11pm » |
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The problem with not taking W/Bused into account is that if a bot crashes half-way through a search, it won't be aware of the used time when AEI restarts it. (not sure if something similar is the case for the older bot interface)
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tize
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #49 on: Dec 30th, 2011, 1:41am » |
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I'm not sure but I think that if marwin crashes an empty move is sent to the server. (I'm using the old interface.)
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tize
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Arimaa player #3121
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #50 on: Jan 2nd, 2012, 6:21am » |
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So the registration period has ended with 6 bots registred, let's all welcome the new bot lucy.
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Hippo
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #51 on: Jan 2nd, 2012, 12:00pm » |
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on Jan 2nd, 2012, 6:21am, tize wrote:| So the registration period has ended with 6 bots registred, let's all welcome the new bot lucy. |
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Hmm, this is third year I miss bot_quad in the championship.
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rbarreira
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Arimaa player #1621
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #52 on: Jan 3rd, 2012, 4:43am » |
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on Jan 2nd, 2012, 6:21am, tize wrote:| So the registration period has ended with 6 bots registred, let's all welcome the new bot lucy. |
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Indeed, welcome to the new bot 
It's nice to see more bots registered this year than last year (not counting Bomb last year since it was not registered by its author).
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Swynndla
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #53 on: Jan 3rd, 2012, 4:27pm » |
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on Jan 2nd, 2012, 6:21am, tize wrote:| ...let's all welcome the new bot lucy. |
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Thanks! I knew that arimaa bot development was difficult, but I didn't appreciate just how d**n
hard it was until now ... kudos to all you developers!
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omar
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #54 on: Jan 6th, 2012, 7:17pm » |
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on Dec 28th, 2011, 3:27pm, aaaa wrote:| In the gamestate file, the wused/bused parameter for the side to move will show how much time has been deducted from the clock already as the communication comes through. My bot, for one, takes this number into account in its time management. |
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When things are working fine the time a bot has when the bots move starts is given by
tcmove+tc?reserve (where ? is w or b). However, if there is problem and the bot is restarted in the middle of it's move it most likely assume that the time it has to make the move is still given by
tcmove+tc?reserve, however the bot has lost some time due to the restart and will time out. So the bots do need to use the ?used parameter to see how much time has already been used up. The time remaining should be:
tcmove+tc?reserve-?used
But this could be off a few seconds due to network delays in receiving and sending the move, so it's good to deduct about 10 seconds from this.
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| « Last Edit: Jan 6th, 2012, 7:42pm by omar » |
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aaaa
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #55 on: Jan 8th, 2012, 5:58am » |
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But you still haven't addressed the potential problem that a bot could unfairly lose because on one or more moves it got less thinking time than it was entitled to and that this is missed because the game didn't end in a timeout. Hence my suggestion that each game is logged in some way that such a thing can at least be discovered after the fact.
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omar
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #56 on: Jan 9th, 2012, 10:07am » |
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on Jan 8th, 2012, 5:58am, aaaa wrote:| But you still haven't addressed the potential problem that a bot could unfairly lose because on one or more moves it got less thinking time than it was entitled to and that this is missed because the game didn't end in a timeout. Hence my suggestion that each game is logged in some way that such a thing can at least be discovered after the fact. |
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If you go to the game's comments page and view the frame source there is a log of how the game appeared to the server.
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aaaa
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #57 on: Jan 9th, 2012, 1:07pm » |
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on Jan 9th, 2012, 10:07am, omar wrote:| If you go to the game's comments page and view the frame source there is a log of how the game appeared to the server. |
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From the looks of it, that isn't enough, and that's not surprising; unless it's communicated back to the server, only the client knows how much time has past between the resumption of its player's clock and its reception of the signal to move.
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omar
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Arimaa player #2
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #58 on: Jan 11th, 2012, 12:25am » |
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on Jan 9th, 2012, 1:07pm, aaaa wrote:
From the looks of it, that isn't enough, and that's not surprising; unless it's communicated back to the server, only the client knows how much time has past between the resumption of its player's clock and its reception of the signal to move. |
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There is also the net log files which the bots keep. These have timestamps of when the bot received the game state and when the bot sent the move.
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rbarreira
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Arimaa player #1621
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Re: 2012 Computer Championship
« Reply #59 on: Jan 11th, 2012, 2:04pm » |
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The qualification page is showing bot_OpFor as a participating bot.
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