Some observations about weeds

Entelect Challenge 2018 Rules
1

Hi there,

I noticed 3 things and was curious about them

A) When I start a trail from my territory, My trail start is in my territory,
Instead of next to it, Would it not be better to have the trail start outside the territory instead?

Very Random info but I feel a valid idea.

That single movement makes a massive difference.

B) Weeds, By assessing the game visualiser, if I play 4v4,
This isnt very uncommon:

weeds

There seems to be an imbalance in spawning,

My opinion is that weeds need to spawn at the same time the same distance from each players,
And that can be random for sure, But let all players get equal weed at least,

C) Again regarding weed,
When I already own territory I have seen weed spawn and theres no way to take.

Im not sure if I extend my land if I break weeds anyways,
I should have results to that test soon.

Rules states:
Weeds will also randomly spawn, and will eventually grow to a maximum size, cleaning a weed will reveal a super power-up. You clean a weed by completely encircling it, but be careful to not run into the weed, as this will cause your bot to respawn.

The issue is, if I own a territory, I cannot get rid of weed and therefor the weeds are kinda useless and immovable,

So my thoughts are that a player should be able to eradicate weeds by running into them.
If they exist in your own territory,

I might have missed something in this regard. I only finished my tests for this years challenge now.

So I feel weed needs to be relooked at,
Just feels like they are spawning unfairly, In my screenshot there were earlier weeds, and they did not expand at all, Only the ones in Quadrant 1 did.

So there’s definitely something up,

If this was already handled,

I do apologize. But did not see it discussed nor in Github. Im stress testing as a competitor, Not really looking at the engine itself :face_with_peeking_eye:

2

@WillieTheron the weeds spawn in the bot with the least amount of territory’s (bot in last place) quadrant to help them, which is why they spawn unbalanced:

Also, yes the trail starts inside your territory, from what I can tell it’s to ensure that the territory & trail geometries overlap so that when you claim, the trail start is linked to a single territory blob.

3

Hi @WillieTheron,

First of all, please don’t apologise. We appreciate you folks bringing possible issues to our attention.

As to your points, I see @kobus-v-schoor has already answered some of your questions. To confirm:
A) Yes, the start of the trail is inside your territory (the last cell you were in before you left your territory). This is really just to make calculations easier when you complete your trail for the game engine to know which territory your trail started from and also, if the protection from the unprunable or trail protection powerups are invoked, for the game engine to know which position to reset your bot to. I’m not sure why you’re saying that that single movement makes a massive difference. Could you perhaps explain what you mean by that?

B) Like Kobus says, the weeds spawn within a quarter of the game world of the bot with the least amount of territory. The idea behind this is to offer some favourable odds to the bot that is trailing behind the others. Maybe we should consider stating this explicitly in the game rules. I’ll look into that.

C) I’m not sure if I understand you correctly but it sounds like you’re saying weeds are spawning inside your territory? This should not be happening and, if it is, it is definitely a bug. Weeds are supposed to spawn only in neutral ground. They may start overlapping with your territory as the grow but at least some amount of the weed should always be in neutral territory so that you still have the ability to surround it. Please let us know if you find this not to be the case.

4

Good Evening,

I only now have a somewhat of a working bot,
From the “it thinks for itself” perspective.

A lot of my earlier tests i decided the bots exact movements.

So thats a nice milestone,

A) I have a risk factor to my AI,
And that trail does make my bot a bit slower. But it makes sense.
It should also be easier for me to calculate the impact of moves this way.

B) Thats not an issue, If I get super powerups id use them, But Im not going to plan for that explicitly.

C) I will assess the exact scenario, Maybe it was just overgrowth.

My bot is only now playing itself,
So I should collect a lot more data now.

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