git@UCC - progcomp2012.git/blob - web/doc/manager

2 stratego - Interface to manage games of stratego between AI programs and/or human players

3

4 WARNING

5 This program is still a work in progress. Consider it a Beta version.

7 SYNOPSIS

8 stratego {[-gpirb] [-o output_file ] [-t stall_time] [-m max_turns] {red_player blue_player | -f input_file} | {-h | --help} }

9

10 DESCRIPTION

11 stratego manages a game of Stratego. It stores the state of the board, and uses a simple protocol to interface with AI programs.

12 By itself, stratego does not "play" the game. An external AI program must be used. stratego is intended to be used for the testing of

13 various AI strategies, written in any programming language. It will be used for the UCC Programming Competition 2012.

14

15 Unless the -h (--help) or -f switch is given, both red_player and blue_player must be supplied.

16

17 red_player

18 Should be either a path to an executable file which will control the Red player, or "human".

19 If set to "human", stratego will request the user to make moves for the Red player using stdin.

20 NOTES

21 1. There is no plan to support AI programs named "human". Deal with it.

22 2. The graphical interface for human players is... basic. Deal with it.

23 blue_player

24 As red_player, except for controlling the Blue player.

25

26 A WARNING ABOUT BUFFERING

27 The AI programs must unbuffer their stdin and stdout streams, otherwise it will be seen to be non-responsive.

28 If you C and you know a way to force the process started by exec() to have unbuffered stdin/stdout, please email the author.

29

30 In C or C++, unbuffering is accomplished with the following lines, which should appear near the start of main()

31 setbuf(stdin, NULL);

32 setbuf(stdout, NULL);

33 In python, unbuffering is accomplished by passing the -u switch to the interpreter, ie: The first line of a script reads:

34 #!/usr/bin/python -u

35

36

37 OPTIONS

38 -g

39 NOTE: This switch only functions if stratego is built with graphics enabled. See BUILDING for more information.

40

41 By default, graphics are disabled. If the -g switch is present, stratego will draw the game as it is played using SDL/OpenGL

42

43 -p

44 By default, even if graphics are disabled, the board state is not printed. If -p is present, the board will be printed to stdout.

45 If the system supports colour, the characters will be in colour.

46 Yes, If -p and -g are both present you will see both behaviours (overkill)!

47 -i

48 By default, stratego will exit if a move which is deemed "illegal" is made. If the -i switch is present, illegal moves will be ignored.

49 That is, the move will not be made (effectively the player making the illegal move loses a turn).

50

51 NOTE: If -i is not given and a human player accidentally(?) makes an illegal move, they will be asked to make a different move. The game will continue.

52 This is intended to prevent fits of rage due to the horrible graphical interface causing humans to make illegal moves.

53 -r

54 By default, the identities of all pieces are shown. If the -r switch is present, and graphics are enabled, red pieces will be disguised.

55 If graphics are disabled, the -r switch has no effect.

56

57 Pieces which have previously taken part in combat (and survived) will be revealed.

58 -b

59 As -r, except blue pieces will be disguised.

60 NOTE: Both -r and -b may be used together.

61 -o

62 By default, stratego does not log moves. If the -o switch is present, the result of each move is printed to a file.

63 If output_file is "stdout" then stdout will be used instead of a text file.

64 -t

65 By default, stratego executes moves as fast as they are recieved. If the -t switch is present, a delay of stall_time will be introduced

66 between each move.

67

68 If stall_time is negative or "inf", stratego will wait for the user to press enter before moving to the next move.

69

70 It is tentatively planned to allow the user to enter various commands to alter the game or proceed to specified turns.

71 However this is slightly complicated. So it might never be done.

72 -m

73 By default, the game is declared a Draw after 5000 turns have ellapsed.

74 Use this option to change the maximum number of turns.

75 To play for an infinite number of turns, supply "inf" as max_number. This is not recommended for obvious reasons.

76

77 -f

78 By default, stratego requires red_player and blue_player to enact a game.

79 If this option is supplied, a file previously produced by using the -o switch is read, and the game reenacted.

80 All switches function as normal with -f.

81 NOTE: It is recommended that -g is used with -f.

82

83 -h, --help

84 If the -h switch is used, this page will be printed and stratego will exit.

85

86

87

88 GAME RULES

89 Each player controls up to 40 pieces on the Board. The pieces are represented by the following characters:

90

91 Piece Name Rank Number Abilities

92 1 Marshal 1 1 Dies if attacked by Spy

93 2 General 2 1

94 3 Colonel 3 2

95 4 Major 4 3

96 5 Captain 5 4

97 6 Lieutenant 6 4

98 7 Sergeant 7 4

99 8 Miner 8 5 Destroys Bombs

100 9 Scout 9 8 May move more through multiple empty squares

101 s Spy 10 1 If the Spy attacks the Marshal, the Marshal dies

102 B Bomb NA 6 Immobile. If any piece (except a Miner) attacks an enemy Bomb, that piece is destroyed.

103 F Flag NA 1 Immobile. If any piece attacks the enemy Flag, the controlling player wins.

104

105 Additional pieces, not controlled by the player:

106 Piece Name Number Notes

107 + Obstacle 8 Immobile. Do not belong to either player. Can't be passed through.

108 # Enemy Piece 0 - 40 Indicates that the position on the board is occupied by an enemy piece.

109 . Empty NA Indicates that the position on the board is empty.

110

111 Players take turns to move their pieces. RED begins the game.

112

113 Pieces may only move one square horizontally or vertically unless otherwise stated.

114 Pieces may not move through squares occupied by allied pieces, or Obstacle (+) pieces.

115 Pieces may move into squares occupied by Enemy Pieces (#), in which case the piece with the lower rank (higher number) is destroyed.

116

117 Each player's pieces are hidden from the other player. When two pieces encounter each other, the ranks will be revealed.

118

119 The objective is to destroy all Enemy Pieces (#) or capture the Enemy Flag (also #).

120

121 Since 20/12 Bombs reflect the traditional rules; they are only destroyed by Miners.

122 In previous versions contact of an attacker other than a Miner with a Bomb destroyed the Bomb as well as the attacking piece.

123

124

125 PROTOCOL

126 In order to interface with stratego, an AI program must satisfy the following protocol.

127 Each query is followed by a newline, and responses are expected to be followed with a newline.

128 The queries are recieved through stdin, and responses should be written to stdout.

129

130 1. SETUP

131 QUERY: YOUR_COLOUR OPPONENT_ID BOARD_WIDTH BOARD_HEIGHT

132

133 RESPONSE: 4 lines, each of length BOARD_WIDTH, of characters. Each character represents a piece. The characters are shown above.

134

135 RED's pieces are placed at the top of the board, and BLUE's pieces are placed at the bottom.

136

137 An AI program does not have to place all 40 pieces, but must at least place the flag ('F').

138

139 2. TURN

140 QUERY: START | CONFIRMATION

141 BOARD_STATE

142

143 On the first turn, "START" is printed to the Red player.

144 On subsequent turns, the CONFIRMATION of the opponent's last turn is printed (see below).

145

146 BOARD_STATE consists of a BOARD_HEIGHT lines of length BOARD_WIDTH characters, each of which represents a single piece

147 as described in the GAME_RULES section. Each line ends with the newline character.

148

149

150 RESPONSE: X Y DIRECTION [MULTIPLIER=1] | NO_MOVE

151 X and Y are the coords (starting from 0) of the piece to move

152 DIRECTION is either UP, DOWN, LEFT or RIGHT

153 MULTIPLIER is optional and only valid for units of type Scout. Scouts may move through any number of unblocked squares

154 in one direction.

155

156 The AI program should print "NO_MOVE" if it is unable to determine a move.

157 This will typically occur when the only pieces belonging to the AI program are Bombs and the Flag.

158

159 CONFIRMATION: X Y DIRECTION [MULTIPLIER=1] OUTCOME | NO_MOVE {OK | ILLEGAL} | QUIT [RESULT]

160

161 OUTCOME may be either OK, ILLEGAL, KILLS or DIES

162 OK - Move was successful

163 ILLEGAL - Move was not allowed. If stratego was not started with the -i switch, the game will end.

164 KILLS ATTACKER_RANK DEFENDER_RANK - The piece moved into an occupied square and killed the defender.

165 DIES ATTACKER_RANK DEFENDER_RANK - The piece moved into an occupied square and was killed by the defender.

166

167 Most turns will be confirmed with: "X Y DIRECTION [MULTIPLIER=1] OUTCOME"

168

169 A confirmation of "NO_MOVE OK" occurs when the AI program made no move for a legitimate reason.

170 "NO_MOVE ILLEGAL" is printed if the AI program made no move for an illegitimate reason.

171

172 If both AI programs successively make a "NO_MOVE" response, then the game will end.

173 The player with the highest piece value will win, or a draw will be declared if the values are equal.

174

175 3. END GAME

176 If the CONFIRMATION line is of the form:

177 QUIT [RESULT]

178 Then the game is about to end.

179

180 If present, RESULT will be a direct copy of the message to stdout described in the EXIT/OUTPUT section below.

181

182

183 4. TIMEOUTS

184 If a program fails to respond to a query within 2 (two) seconds, the game will end and that AI will be sent the ILLEGAL result.

185 Human players are not subject to the timeout restriction.

186

187

188

189 EXIT/OUTPUT

190 If the game ends due to a player either winning, or making an illegal move, stratego will print one of the following result messages to stdout.

191

192 NAME COLOUR OUTCOME TURN_NUMBER OUTCOME RED_PIECE_VALUE BLUE_PIECE_VALUE

193

194 Where:

195 NAME is the name of the player on whose turn the game ended,

196 COLOUR is the colour of that player,

197 OUTCOME is one of the following:

198 VICTORY - The indicated player won

199 DEFEAT - The indicated player lost

200 SURRENDER - The indicated player surrendered

201 DRAW - The game ended in a draw because neither player moved

202 DRAW_DEFAULT - The game ended in a draw because the maximum number of moves was exceeded

203 ILLEGAL - The indicated player loses due to an Illegal move/response

204 DEFAULT - The indicated player wins by default due to the other player making an Illegal move/response

205 BOTH_ILLEGAL - Both players made an Illegal move/response. Usually occurs due to simultaneous setup errors, or bad executable paths.

206 INTERNAL_ERROR - The game ended, even though it shouldn't have.

207

208 TURN_NUMBER is the number of turns that elapsed before the game ended

209

210 RED_PIECE_VALUE and BLUE_PIECE_VALUE are the summed piece values of the pieces of RED and BLUE respectively.

211 Bombs and Flags are worth zero, and the ranked pieces (Spys -> Marshal) are worth (11 - rank).

212 So the Spy is worth 1 point, ... the Marshal is worth 10.

213

214 (The initial piece values can be determined by running with -m 0)

215

216

217 stratego will then return exit code 0.

218

219 If an error occurs within stratego itself, an error message will be printed to stderr and return exit code 1.

220 If possible, stratego will print the message "QUIT" to both AI programs, and they should exit as soon as possible.

221

222 BUILDING

223 To build from source, simply run make in the source directory.

224 You will need the C pthread library (which should come with gcc)

225

226 stratego can be built with or without graphics enabled. By default, graphics are disabled.

227

228 To enable graphics:

229 1. Ensure that the first line of the source file "graphics.h" reads:

230 #define BUILD_GRAPHICS

231 2. In "Makefile", uncomment the line "CPP = g++ -Wall -pedantic -lSDL -lGL -g" and comment out the line "CPP = g++ -Wall -pedantic -g"

232

233 To disable graphics:

234 1. Comment out the first line of "graphics.h" i.e ensure that it reads:

235 //#define BUILD_GRAPHICS

236 2. In "Makefile", uncomment the line "CPP = g++ -Wall -pedantic -g" and comment out the line "CPP = g++ -Wall -pedantic -lSDL -lGL -g"

237

238 If you intend to build with graphics enabled, you will need the SDL and OpenGL developement libraries installed first.

239 If you intend to use graphics, please ensure the "images" directory is located in the executable's run directory.

240

241

242

243

244 BUGS

245 Occasionally the result is not printed at the end of the game.

246 So far this has only been observed to occur when RED wins the game by Flag capture.

247

248 stratego is still a work in progress. Report another bug to the AUTHOR (see below).

249

250

251 AUTHORS

252 Sam Moore (for the UCC Programming Competition 2012) <[email protected]>

253

254 NOTES

255 0. This program is still a work in progress and subject to changes.

256

257 1. UCC Programming Competition 2012 Description

258 http://matches.ucc.asn.au/stratego/

259

260 2. UCC Programming Competition 2012 Git repository

261 git://git.ucc.asn.au/progcomp2012.git

262

263

264 3. IRC Channel

265 irc://irc.ucc.asn.au #progcomp

266

267 THIS PAGE LAST UPDATED

268 23/12/11 by Sam Moore

269