DiplomacyNewsJohn Newbury 18 November 2012 |
AI in the Game of Diplomacy: News
Domain name had to change as .co.cc service no longer exists. Was johnnewbury.co.cc; now johnnewbury.me.uk.
Released AiClient 8~2, which enhances and replaces what is now (better) called AiClient 8~1 (previously confusingly called DumbBot 2~1, see below). Significantly updates the general C++ source for AiClient Framework, and client-specific source for AiClient (an observer), DumbBot, HoldBot and RandBot. Compatible client-specific source and binary of these clients are also released. There are many enhancements. Supplied in two forms: (a) using Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), (b) not using MFC. Tested on Microsoft Visual Studio 6, and 10 (Express), under Windows 7, but probably suitable for Windows XP onwards. (The Express edition is free, but omits MFC.)
Released AiClient 4~0, which is a re-packaged archive or prequel, made available for completeness, being (essentially) what was used in my Tournaments and DEMO tests, but no longer all available from David Norman's site.
While checking details for the above releases, I discovered that almost all previous references on this site (and recent posts in DipAi) to DumbBot 2 should have been to DumbBot 4. (They mainly related to my Tournaments and DEMO tests.) The exception is that what I called DumbBot 2~1. This was a misleading misnomer because it was, in effect, based on David Norman's client-specific source of DumbBot 8, but unlike his releases, also included the source of his latest AiClient Framework. That version of his AiClient Framework was, presumably, used to build his binary DumbBot 8, and could be used to build up-to-date versions of HoldBot and RandBot 8 from his client-specific source of HoldBot and RandBot – hence I now call it AiClient 8~1. (As indicated by their versions number (2) and confirmed by various dates, his binary versions of HoldBot and RandBot cannot have been produced from his latest AiClient Framework source.) All these misnomers are now corrected on this site, albeit in practice there would probably have been negligible difference in general or AI reliability or performance.
Released DumbBot 4~1. Amongst other things, replaces cspdll, thereby now allowing all source of AiClient and derived bots to be made available. Collected all Downloads together, replacing Homeless Products and miscellaneous locations.
Initial release of MARS, new SAGA, and associated and enhanced AiServer and AiMapper.
Started running ongoing trials between all released bot. See ARENA.
Replaced Botchi (that enabled new forms of press to be sent via free text) by the much simpler and much more powerful Exotic Press paradigm.
Renamed Homeless Bots to Homeless Products. Added Man'chi and DTD there.
New Cogitation: Theory of Moves.
Updated Bots page, and added Minerva (which was lost) and Diplominator (which was missing source and running instructions) to Homeless Products page.
BlabBotBase Press Protocol: End Of Turn control. (Withdrawn on 2010-10-07, pending further revision.)
Estimated release dates deferred three months, partly due to problems with "expectations" of imminent orders, and a major (simplifying) restructuring in BlabBot 3. Initial release of DeepLoamSea now scheduled ahead of BlabBot 5 (mainly Viewer, a Mapper-like enhancement), but more time now allowed for initial DeepLoamSea. See Roadmap.
Cogitation: Transformation: update.
New Cogitation: Transformation.
Estimated release dates deferred three months, due to problems finding satisfactory design for some areas. Hopefully will do better than that. See Roadmap.
Estimated release dates deferred three months, mainly due to ongoing bad health. Hopefully will do better than that. See Roadmap.
New Cogitation: Q-Learning.
I have recently done a major overhaul of my web. The main updates about Diplomacy are:
This News page will point to any significant recent updates on my Diplomacy web. The date in the title box of any page is always that of the last significant change; there is no date change or announcement for minor changes, such as corrections of typos or clearer wording. (It is a major deficiency that very few web pages indicate give any indication when they were updated!) I shall announce in DipAi when I have any significant news in future.
Belatedly, I have now defined my Diplomacy Project, and included a roadmap of my future plans.
I have tabulated more details about even more bots of which I am now aware. There are links to obtain all those bots, including three (Project20M, HaAI and RubyBot) that I have made available again, hopefully temporality on my part, as their authors' web copies now seem to be permanently lost. (I would not normally redistribute material from other authors, but in these cases I believe that they would prefer their work not to be lost to the DAIDE community.)
There are a few further details about the bots that I am developing, BlabBot (BB) and DeepLoamSea (DLS), now in their own subfolders. There is now also a subfolder for the bot-independent core of BB, which I call BlabBotBase (BBB), which is the bulk of BB version 3, and will be a major component of DLS version 2 (neither yet released; some design, but virtually no specific coding done for the second, beyond a crude version 1).
I have revised and extended the Etiquette rules for my subproject.
A new Cogitations subfolder contains my latest thoughts on various aspects of Diplomacy, albeit very much subject to revision; sometimes maybe unduly overblown or cryptic. They are essentially some of my internal design notes – slightly tidied but not really ready to be published, yet published anyway in the hope of early constructive comments (preferably in DipAi). I have included major tomes that I have already posted in DipAi; in future I shall only place such documents on my web, with just an announcement in DipAi. The current ones are:
Commonality [Affinity is new.]
Cooperation [new]
DEMO [new]
Game Theory [Product Distribution [re. DipAi post #8125 from Abram Demski] and Revised Method sections are new.]
Prizes [new]
Q-Learning [very new]
Representing Beliefs [General Notes section is new.]