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        Arimaa >> Say Hello >> New Bot developer
        
(Message started by: TheVinenator on Sep 23^rd, 2011, 11:55am)

Title: New Bot developer
Post by TheVinenator on Sep 23^rd, 2011, 11:55am

hi,

i'm starting to work on a Arimaa bot and I could use a little help with the interface.

i'll be using visual studio c++ to develop the bot and was wondering if anybody had any example code as to how to connect to the game server with this development environment.

thanks,

vince

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by rbarreira on Sep 23^rd, 2011, 3:36pm

Welcome!

You don't have to write the connection code yourself, there is a script which uses the AEI protocol to run and communicate with your bot, and does the connection and all the talking with the Arimaa server:

http://arimaa.janzert.com/aei/

I should point out, if you are planning to have your bot participate in the official Arimaa championships, you should make sure that it's not too hard to port your bot to Linux, as you need to submit a Linux binary to participate.

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by TheVinenator on Sep 26^th, 2011, 8:32am

why must the bot be submitted? to avoid possible "human" intervention? what about the bot vs human challenge? are there limitations for that as well?

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by rbarreira on Sep 26^th, 2011, 8:35am

on 09/26/11 at 08:32:01, TheVinenator wrote:

why must the bot be submitted? to avoid possible "human" intervention? what about the bot vs human challenge? are there limitations for that as well?

Not only to avoid cheating, also to make sure all the bots are running on equal hardware in order to make it a fair contest.

Yes, the bot vs human challenge uses the same bot executable and the same hardware as the computer championship.

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by TheVinenator on Sep 26^th, 2011, 9:55am

well, for the sake of the bots, i hope whomever is hosting the platform finds a good one!

are the bots allowed to take advantage of multiple processors if they exist?

perhaps to make things easier here, can you point me to a document that lays out all the rules/regulations regarding this topic?

thanks

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by rbarreira on Sep 26^th, 2011, 12:04pm

on 09/26/11 at 09:55:16, TheVinenator wrote:

This was the hardware for this year's computer championship / challenge match:

http://www.arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/2011/hardware.html

Yes, your program can use all the cores / processors.

You can find more information about the events here:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/wcc/2011/
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/challenge/2011/

Title: Re: New Bot developer
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 26^th, 2011, 1:45pm

on 09/26/11 at 08:32:01, TheVinenator wrote:

why must the bot be submitted? to avoid possible "human" intervention?

Yes, but your bot is allowed to modify itself in an automated way between games, so you can still create a moving target for your opponents (both human and silicon) to deal with even if you can't intervene during the match.

Another reason the bot must be submitted is that after the matches are over, it becomes available for the community to play, running on the arimaa.com server. So if you enter a bot into the Computer Championship you are doing the Arimaa community a big favor, for which we will be eternally grateful. :)