AI CONTEST #1 | July 3rd - July 19th

[Andrewgosu]

AI CONTEST #1
July 3rd – July 19th​

I'm proud to present - the first AI contest thehelper.net has ever seen, at least as far as I know.

Take part in bloody battles and perfect your coding skills! NOW!

Anyway, to the important part.

How are the battles organised?

They're organised in a quite simple manner, actually - all contestants will fight each other once. The winner of each battle is the hero who kills the other. When no-one is dead after 7 minutes, it's called a draw and no points will be awarded. This ensures fast matchmaking and gets rid of neverending battles.

When two or more contestants have the same amount of wins at the end of the tournament, a sudden deathmatch regime will follow - their heroes will be put together on the duel arena and the last man standing wins.

Illustration of the system:

Duel Arena Map:

1&2 - Graveyards that spawn corpses
3&4 - Mana Fountains
5&6 - Life Fountains

What does the game-play look like?

In the beginning of the match, the heroes are randomly spawned on the map. Their goal is to kill the other hero.

The heroes spawn at level 1 but that doesn't mean the heroes cannot use all of their spells - both of the heroes will get equal amount of experience through triggers periodically. The amount of received experience rises with each level until the heroes reach max level. It will take 25 seconds to gain a level, no matter what the current level is.

The heroes will fight bare naked - there are no creeps that drop runes or shops to buy items from. However, the duel map features two healing and two mana fountains.

Are there any rules?

Of course there are. To provide an equal proving ground to all contestants and make the contest fun through balanced battles, here are the rules. Any violations will results in being disqualified.

Thread specifications
- The regular forum rules apply, no spamming, flaming etc.

Map specifications
- You are not allowed to alter the duel arena map in any way. This means the terrain, doodads or triggers in the Trigger Editor etc.

Hero specifications
- You are not allowed to alter your chosen hero in any way in the Object Editor to give you an advantage over your opponent.
- You can choose from all the heroes Warcraft 3 features in the melee maps, you are not allowed to compile a custom hero.

AI script specifications
- The AI must be explicitly made by you - no AI systems allowed.
- Attaching systems are allowed, MUI is not a necessity.
- GUI and JASS are both allowed.
- Converted GUI is strictly not allowed.
- Custom script in GUI is allowed as long as it's not used to achieve pseudo code: locals in GUI, for example.
- The AI must made to work on any map, not specific to this map only e.g the AI can't know that the fountain is 4 blocks away from a tree on the left, which can be blocked. etc

- You are only allowed to gather intel from the enemy hero which you can see when clicked on it (stats, health, mana etc.).

- You are not allowed to do pathing checks. You must issue your hero to move to the desired location - if he cannot move there, he cannot move there.

- You are not allowed to alter your nor your opponent's hero in any way via triggers. That includes but is certainly not limited to:

• Change the mana or life state
• Change intelligence, agility or strength attribute points
• Add items via triggers
• Breaking their script in any way
• etc.

- You are not allowed to “ping” your opponent's location on the map unless your opponent is in the sight of your hero.

• Stats – Sight radius (day), Stats – Sight radius (night) in the Object Editor

HINT: (whichUnit is visible to (whichPlayer)) Equal to True​

- You are not allowed to check whether a target is an illusion via triggers.

- You are allowed to check what spell and where it was cast as long as it was in the sight of your hero.

NOTE: We, the judges, leave ourselves the option to add/remove or change the rules at any given time to make this contest as balanced, entertaining and difficult to win as possible.​

Who are the judges and what do they do?

The JUDGES are me and Romek. We'll make sure every god-damn rule is strictly followed.

What kind of awards are there?

CHAMPION AWARD- the AI who collects the most match wins, the overall winner

CORSAIR AWARD - the AI who gets the fastest kill

CLOWN AWARD - the AI who performs the most funniest, peculiar or stupid thing by mistake

More to be added...​

Why is the deadline only 2 weeks?

Because it is known that 90% of the triggering takes place two days before the deadline, really...


Happy AI-making!
​

 

[DonRoman]

You are not allowed to “ping” your opponent's location on the map unless your opponent is in the sight range of your hero.

I dont really get this^^, does it mean i cannot check with a group loop or whatsoever check where my enemy is (on the entire map) and give a direct command to my hero to go to his location?? Instead i have to make my hero walk over the map until the enemy gets into his range of vision?

 

[13lade619]

...there must be videos of each battle that commenced.. for proof /bragging rights/.
either by wc3 replay or by some other video capture software.

 

[Andrewgosu]

does it mean i cannot check with a group loop or whatsoever check where my enemy is (on the entire map) and give a direct command to my hero to go to his location?

Yes. You can only give the direct command if the enemy is within your line of sight.

This makes the AI more realistic and gives coders extra headache.

...there must be videos of each battle that commenced.. for proof /bragging rights/.
either by wc3 replay or by some other video capture software.

I was planning to post the replays and possibly upload them in another format to youtube.

 

[Artificial]

> who gets a higher game score
I'll just choose some hero that can spawn lots of units and make it spawn 'em in some corner - I'll get nice points for units created and win. x)

> in the sight range of your hero
Shouldn't peeps use Boolean comparison -> Visibility - Unit Is Visible To Player (aka. IsUnitVisible) instead of that range thingy? The range one will likely result in knowing where the enemy is though you can't see it (the other hero might be behind some trees or invisible or something).

And I can't understand why you don't make each hero fight itself, too.

 

[Jesus4Lyf]

I'm picking Archimonde.

 

[No_exit]

Rules questions:
- Doesn't the "range check" mean that you can ignore line of sight blocking? Smells like some sort of cheat .
- Are we allowed to ask the enemy hero ability levels (if he is in range).
- All heroes allowed? Archimonde ftw! Please recheck this rule . I hope that the hero list will be severely shortened since else it will be impossible to try to counter stuff.
- Are we allowed to add Regions to the map (prolly with some suffix)?

 

[Tom Jones]

When we submit, how should we inform you on our chosen hero?
You and Romek are in charge of the battles? Or do we get an opponents script and then try ourselves?

 

[emootootoo]

are you allowed to code ai based on the position of things on the map or does the ai have to be generic and work just as well on any map?

it seems too easy to code if you are allowed to incorporate code specific to the duel arena maps terrain

 

[Andrewgosu]

Sorry about the all heroes.

I meant all heroes used in a melee map including the ones you can buy from the tavern (neutral heroes + 4 from each race).

No, you cannot place regions and no, you cannot gather "intel" from the opposing hero.


We put 2 scripts in the map when it's time to battle AIs, there is no need to do that yourself.

 

[Tom Jones]

No, you cannot place regions and no, you cannot gather "intel" from the opposing hero.

We can't even compare our opponents stats? Some heroes are skilled diferently depending on which main stat their opponent has.

 

[Samael88]

I'm picking Archimonde.

To prevent such a thing to occur perhaps you should add that it should only be the standard 4 heroes from each race and perhaps the ones in the tavern?

 

[Jesus4Lyf]

Suggestions:

[DELETED]Make it melee heroes only.[/DELETED] Done, lol.
Make it who has the most health at the end of the 7 minutes (allow draws if they're perfectly matched, or base decision on which hero tried to fight more).
Add a max level to the heroes (10).
Disallow the AI from checking anything about the enemy hero you couldn't check by clicking on it.

 

[13lade619]

Disallow the AI from checking anything about the enemy hero you couldn't check by clicking on it.

HP, Mana, Armor and Stats... any more?
movespeed isnt that visible.

 

[Tyrande_ma3x]

Are we allowed to store as much data as we can for every Hero?
I was thinking of storing all Hero spells in some array and make my AI react differently depending on which spell is cast on him (with a loop check, for example).

 

[Siretu]

By clicking on it, I can also find out the name.

Also, I'm so joining this. I've been waiting for a contest like this, seriously I haven't coded in half a year, but I'll join anyway.

 

[Andrewgosu]

are you allowed to code ai based on the position of things on the map or does the ai have to be generic and work just as well on any map?

Ideally, it should work just as well on any map.

To prevent such a thing to occur perhaps you should add that it should only be the standard 4 heroes from each race and perhaps the ones in the tavern?

I meant that way all along, just didn't elaborate nicely enough.

My bad and fixed now.

Make it who has the most health at the end of the 7 minutes (allow draws if they're perfectly matched, or base decision on which hero tried to fight more).

So that when it's 15 seconds remaining, AIs will go and camp around the Fountain of Healing?


Anyway, gathering only the intel what you can see by clicking sounds reasonable.

The max level of heroes is 10.

 

[emootootoo]

Ideally, it should work just as well on any map.

but if it's not a rule everyone will just use certain abusive spots to easily code retarded sequences rather than code generically

coding for one certain map layout can create much more powerful ai than generically, not a problem to do so?

 

[UndeadDragon]

Sounds fun :thup:

I should be entering.

 

[Andrewgosu]

but if it's not a rule everyone will just use certain abusive spots to easily code retarded sequences rather than code generically

How are you supposed to code that if you cannot place anything on the map yourself? You cannot put regions, e.g, to these "abusive" spots.

I mean, you can order your hero to move to either of preset mana or healing fountain directly... or you can code your AI to be smart and not use presets and order him to go to the closest one.