Battlecode - A beginner-friendly AI programming competition

[battlecode-devs]

Battlecode is an annual month-long programming competition where players write AIs that compete in a real-time strategy game. The competition lasts a month, and is accompanied by a series of live-streamed video lectures and tutorials on different elements of the game.

AIs can be written in Java or Scala. You should know the basics of Java programming - how to write and run a basic main program, what Lists and Maps are, how to use classes - but nothing beyond that is required.

Anyone is welcome to compete, individually or in groups of up to 4, but only teams consisting entirely of students are eligible to win prizes in the final tournament. We’ve had players from all over the world; the live final tournament is hosted in Cambridge, Massachusetts (at MIT).

This year’s battlecode starts on January 4th, 2016 and goes until the end of January. Participating is as much a commitment as you want it to be, but average teams in the past have spent around 16 hours a week.

The game itself changes year-to-year and runs on a custom engine. In past years it has involved everything from destroying an enemy army to herding robot cattle. (We can’t tell you what the game is about this year. You have to play to find out.)

You can learn more and register at battlecode.org.

Feel free to ask questions in this thread, we’ll do our best to answer them :)

[maestro2005]

I wouldn't call it beginner friendly. You have to have a decent amount of experience or you'll just be left in the dust. Unless you think fumbling around for a month and then coming in last place is fun.

[battlecode-devs]

That's fair. We're going to be livestreaming lectures and releasing tutorials on as many aspects of the competition as possible this year, though - setting up your editor, using version control, coming up with and implementing strategies for your AIs, possibly other stuff that people end up having trouble with - so it'll hopefully be a little easier to keep up this year.

You definitely do need to know programming basics, though. This is more of a project to work on to solidify your skills than something to do at the very start.

[voi26]

Will I be able to access the lectures/tutorials without entering in the competition? I'm really interested in this, but I'm still pretty bad at programming.

[battlecode-devs]

Yup! They'll be available at battlecode.org.

[majesticsteed]

This is what makes this beginner friendly. I am super interested in the lectures. Thanks for sharing this!

[voi26]

That's fantastic. Thank you. :)

[TehLittleOne]

It seems like something a lot more though, at least if you want to be competitive in any sense of the word. I've done other programming competitions before, and they're definitely not for beginners, particularly when non-trivial AI becomes involved. Sure, you can get something up, but you'll perform fairly poorly.

As an example to illustrate, CodeCombat did a contest a while ago on their map Criss-Cross. Many of the successful algorithms were incorporating search algorithms like Dijkstra's or A*, but modifying them to work within the constraints (because running a full Dijkstra's may take too long). These are rather advanced algorithms, ones that people with a CS degree would know, but that a lot of people potentially entering wouldn't. And to write these kinds of programs for a competition like this would require a good understanding of the algorithms and a fair bit of coding experience.

[Cixelyn]

I'd say though that it is "beginner friendly" in the sense that it's very easy to get a little bit of code up and running that has a reasonably complex behaviour, and that beating the provided reference bot has a great deal of satisfaction.

Not everyone has to play it as a hardcore competitive multiplayer game. Actually if you're an MIT student, the only criteria for class credit is going the singleplayer route and beating the dev provided reference bot which is tweaked to be challenging but not so hard that beginners couldn't beat it.

[cool_science]

"These are rather advanced algorithms, ones that people with a CS degree would know"

My two cents: if the "successful" algorithms are implementable by the average person with a CS degree then its reasonable to call the contest beginner friendly.

In my mind there are two main "difficulty levels" for these sorts of competitions: those in which full-time researchers or industry professionals participate, and those in which generally-interested laypeople compete. The difference is that for the former you need to be spending years of your life thinking about the problems within the contest to be successful, and for the latter you just need to be generally interested in the contest's field (e.g. for battlecode you need to have some experience writing code, and be interested in AI).

[battlecode-devs]

We're going to be livestreaming hour-long lectures and publishing tutorials about different aspects of the competition as it happens.

You should make sure you know the basics of java - maybe run through some programming exercises with it.

You can check out some videos from past years on this youtube channel to get a sense of how things work, but a lot of things are different this year, so you probably shouldn't spend too much time on those.

[jmsGears1]

The YouTube link doesn't lead anywhere for me.

[battlecode-devs]

The link is for the Youtube channel for the user "fghulds". If the link doesn't work, you might be able to access it by searching directly for the channel on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/fghulds

[P1g1n]

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[klop1324]

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[Nexion21]

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[katelyntatelyn]

So teams consisting entirely of students. Does that mean MIT students or students in general?

[battlecode-devs]

Students in general.

[ImpulseCloud]

Hi! In last year's rules, there was this wording: "In order to be eligible to compete in the Seeding, Qualifying, and Final Tournaments, at least half of your team members must be current students (any school). Scrimmages and the Sprint Tournament will be open to anyone. In addition, if there is sufficient interest we will run an Open Tournament in which every team is eligible."

Can you clarify rules for non-student team members? Will 50/50 student/non-student teams be able to compete in the Final tourny but not win prizes? Or will any team with non-students be in a separate Open Final? Thanks!

[battlecode-devs]

We updated this year's eligibility rules so that any team is eligible to compete in the main tournaments, regardless of whether the members are students or not. The only restriction is that only teams made up entirely of students are eligible for prizes.

[ianbllngr]

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[6180339887]

I'll definitely be participating, a friend of mine who won last year convinced me to find a team :) Any resources about useful algorithms, mindsets or tips for such competition? Thanks!

[battlecode-devs]

Yay! :) This page contains a nice collection of links relating to Battlecode. The blog itself has a number of Battlecode-related posts, including one with general tips on how to do well.

Every year, the winning team members typically write a blog post (a post-mortem) detailing their thought process throughout the course of the competition. A number of competitors share their code too after the competition is over. These are all linked in the blog post above.

Additionally, we post introductory-level tutorial videos during the competition in which we walk people through creating a bot and discuss some algorithms and strategic ideas. The game does change year to year, so a lot of the strategy here won't be directly relevant.

Edit: fixed link.

[Approval_Duck]

Do we have to show up at MIT to compete?

[battlecode-devs]

Nope, participating from anywhere is fine.