Planet Wars Common Lisp Starter Package

Tags: ai, lisp, Date: 2010-09-19

The Google AI Challenge is back with a new game that's supposed to be much harder than Tron was this spring. The branching factor of the game tree is enormous, which only means that straight minimax is out of question this time around. Whether some cleverness can bring the game within reach of conventional algorithms remains to be seen.

Anyway, I'm adding yet another starter package (latest tarball) to the lot. It is based heavily on aerique's.

Highlights compared to his version:

• no excessive use of specials (*INPUT*, *FLEETS*, etc)

• player class to support different types of players

• MyBot.lisp split into several files

• it uses asdf (more convenient development)

• made it easier to run tests with executables (./MyBot) or when starting a fresh sbcl (./bin/run-bot.sh)

Proxy bot server:

• can run compiled (./ProxyBot) or ./bin/run-proxy-bot.sh

• started explicitly (no :PWBOT-LOCAL reader magic)

• can serve any number of proxy bots

• closes sockets properly

There is still a problem causing all lisp submissions to die on the first turn no matter which starter package one uses, which will hopefully be resolved. Until then there is dhartmei's excellent unofficial tcp server.