>> I'll have to do a lot better next time I decide to participate in something.
I disagree. Having lots of participants is what makes it fun, regardless of whether your entry ends up doing well or not. Please participate next time if you have any semblance of a working entry.
P.S. Well done, Darryl.
Macgyver, your bot was a beast. If you'd had supporting bots in multi-play, I'm sure it would have gone far.
Also, even though the contest might be 'over', I'll still take entries and run simulations. I really like how this problem tends to defy game theory in the single player version. If anyone figures out a clever solution, feel free to post about it.
I had another idea for a contest before I started this one, but I failed to write it down. I'll run back through my notes and see if I can pick it up again.
If I did your homework for you, then you might pass your class without learning how to write a program like this. Then you might graduate and get your degree without learning how to write a program like this. You might become a professional programmer without knowing how to write a program like this. Someday you might work on a project with me without knowing how to write a program like this. Then I would have to do you serious bodily harm. - Jack Klein
I was going to submit multiple entries, but all I needed to do better was compete against higher numbers. For that reason, I was going to submit one that just always submitted the upper bound, another to alternate between the upper bound and (upper bound - 1), and yet another one to do the exact same as the last one except start with (upper bound -1).
When you said that no one entered simple bots, I decided against submitting my cheap multiple entries. I should have chosen a more aggressive strategy in advancing from a loss, instead of by 1, but I was worried about jumping over the upper bound. I should have jumped a percentage of the difference imo.
Overall, lesson learned. Play aggressive and go for the jugular.
How about a round two?Originally Posted by MacGyver
I was going to submit multiple entries, ...
Overall, lesson learned. Play aggressive and go for the jugular.
Some notes on my experimentation.
I would classify two categories of entries. Cooperative(Coop) and Competitive(Comp)
Coops tries to work with other to maximize overall points.
Comps tries to undercut others to minimize opponent points while maximizing their own.
Comps are highly dependent on the bonus award, the higher the bonus the better they do.
Coops tend to match others so are not dependent on bonus.
More turns per round help Coops overcome the bonus advantage. I figured coops needed about 4-6 turns to counter each bonus point
AS the ratio of Coop players to Competive players increase the better the Coops do. The ratio is less than 50% therefore fewer coops can beat more Comps.
My "Ultimate" entry tried to switch between the two styles of play, for instance since bonus helps Comps, it played that way for higher comps which looking at results, I won most (all?) of the high bonus rounds. Unfortunately I couldn't gauge number of players or numbers of turns, so therefore couldn't adjust to them. My Coop entry though did very well on the low bonus games as well as the many turns per round games
