Catering for a 20*20 map will be a bit more complex. Theres a few things that I need to change in my bot now… nothing major. Even thinking a 10 * 10 map (Which I believe will be the end map) will be a bit more difficult than the current version. 20 * 20 will be amazing though.
Will you maybe please consider adding a size configuration option to the config.json file or similar, so that I can see how much smoke comes out of my bot at the bigger sizes?
For fairness, I assume that a whole tournament will have to be played at the same size. Varying between matches won’t give a fair comparison between multiple bots at all.
They could always do something like the best of three between each pair of bots, with each of the three matches being played at a different size - I think that would be quite interesting, and keep bot writers on their toes. They wouldn’t even have to release the set of sizes until submissions were in.
I do think that knowing a range would be helpful, though, and would also very much appreciate being able to change the board size when running the game engine.
There is also this quote:
I think there is a (very) over powered approach that could be used for this game, but which falls down if the size(s) for the tournament aren’t known in advance. (Hint: pretty sure, though not certain, that a NN can’t be trained for an arbitrary size board!) So that may be one of the things they are trying to prevent by not just having a fixed size or set of fixed sizes like last year.
We are currently working on making the map size configurable via the config.json file for local matches. As for the size that the tournaments will be run in, the map size will be predetermined and will stay fixed throughout the entire tournament. We will finalize a tournament map size in the next two weeks or so, but we are still deciding on a map size that will balance the various possible strategies, and any input from you guys will be appreciated.
Maybe keep an eye on the following topic in regards to any game configuration changes:
No, one would not be able to build multiple buildings in a single round. The reason for this stems down to the way that commands are processed and used.
Remember that on a bigger map, it would take missiles longer time to reach the other side (we might need to balance this in the coming week as well)
As mentioned in that thread, we will have final numbers for the map sizes on the 27th of May. If there are any balancing feedback, it will be really useful
I did build a game tree but having a larger map drastically weakend my bot. On smaller maps like 10 x 5 it never loses (based on the reference bot) but going up to 16 x 8 it starts loosing alot. I can’t get it past a depth of 2 on larger maps.