AI contest: Connect four

[LuckY]

It is easy enough to figure out if you are going first by checking if the board is empty before you move (at least that's what I've done).

[Sang-drax]

Originally Posted by PJYelton

Just out of curiosity, is there a particular reason we can't just assume 'X' is going first?

Why do you need to know?
To me, the knowledge of who started the game isn't needed.

[PJYelton]

Why do you need to know?
To me, the knowledge of who started the game isn't needed.

Don't want to give my AI away, but lets just say its important. I think Lucky has the same idea

Like I said, no biggee. I'll just do what Lucky's doing, check the first time around and store instead of checking every move.

[Sang-drax]

Here' s an early version of the program I'll use to judge the contest.

It saves each game in a replay file, which can be used to replay old games move by move.

The final version will look something like this. If you have time, please provide feedback about functionality, bugs and suggestions.

EDIT:

I dunno, but the gamefiles seem to be missing the actual main function that handles the running of the game... Can we get the working game in full? It would help me out a bit.

This is probably what you're looking for.

[Sang-drax]

Just looked at your Win32 version, LuckY. It works fine. I recommend it to you if you need to bugcheck/fine-tune your submissions.
Perhaps I could modify it so it can read the log files created by my program. After each game, I'll post the logfile in the competition thread.

EDIT: When the size of the board is changed within the Board class, the program expands the grid, but doesn't change the size of the playing window. It's easy to fix, though.

[nickname_changed]

Hey, I haven't looked at the code but I'm just wondering how you plan to test everyones AI. Are they meant to compile it into DLL's for your windows app to open, send it over loopback sockets or are you just going to cut and paste?

[Sang-drax]

They will provide code for me to compile in the program I posted above.
DLLs and other libraries requires knowledge of a particular platform, which makes them less attractive for these uses.

[PJYelton]

Since the deadline is in a week can everyone who will be turning in working AI please post, I'd hate to be the only one who enters

[jlou]

I got an extremely simple one working (slightly better than random), but I don't know if I'll be able to get anything worthy of submitting done by the end of the week. There's still hope, though!

[Sang-drax]

I still think you should submit. The contest will be more fun if there are more participants.

Submit your entries to the email adress I've added in the OP.

[Perspective]

Perspective will be participating in this contest. He will try not to speak in the 3rd person for much longer though, as it is quite annoying.

so yeah, ive clocked 7 hours (4 sober) creating a mush of "AI" for this contest in a last minute surge of bordem combined with the rare and radiant free time i came across.

Im gonna mess with my submission a little more before i submit though.

[PJYelton]

The email address in the OP is a little messed up, at least for me anyways. Is that supposed to read p04pst (at) efd.lth.se ?

[Sang-drax]

Yes, but I messed it up on purpose to avoid spam.
Please don't post it.

[Perspective]

> The deadline is November 1st.

well, due to an unaccessible C-Board i didnt submit in time. Is there any extension to compensate for the site's downtime? Im at work right now so the earliest i would be able to submit would be later tonight.

[Sang-drax]

I haven't recieved any submission yet, so the new deadline is Wednesday November 10th.