AIIDE 2012 Feedback

[DaveChurchill]

Hey Guys! Took me long enough to register

Creating this thread for any feedback you have about how the 2012 tournament was organized or run.

I am also taking suggestions about how we could suggest differences between the AIIDE and CIG tournaments. It is a shame that they are essentially identically run at the same time, resulting in a duplication of results.

Also, I am still pretty busy so I haven't released the source code yet.

[Kae]

[quote name='DaveChurchill' date='06 September 2012 - 04:14 AM' timestamp='1346872461' post='11090']
Hey Guys! Took me long enough to register

Creating this thread for any feedback you have about how the 2012 tournament was organized or run.

I am also taking suggestions about how we could suggest differences between the AIIDE and CIG tournaments. It is a shame that they are essentially identically run at the same time, resulting in a duplication of results.

Also, I am still pretty busy so I haven't released the source code yet.
[/quote]

Welcome Dave!

Good idea to collect feedbacks. First of all, thanks again for organizing again the AIIDE contest. I wonder who will do it when you will graduate! ^^'

Well, I would have some comments: Unlike the previous year, participants were not very well informed about what was going on. The list of registrations was not open, so no one could guess if he is one of the first 30 entries or not. Then, we were lattely informed about the map pool, the IO system, and actually we weren't informed till I asked you directly by mail. To do an effort on communication may be a good idea for future competitions, because at one point I was a bit deseperated, and I know I was not the only one.

Otherwise it was great! I see no other points to improve.

About the similitude between CIG and AIIDE contests, I totally agree. The fact that AIIDE has a planned map pool versus the secret map pool of CIG is not a sufficient difference. We have seen two years ago the lack of interest for micro or limited competitions, and I believe it still the same nowadays. Thus, a simple and not-so-absurd idea could be organizing a winter and a summer competition: say AIIDE runs during summer, and CIG could organise its contest on winter, and release results the next fall during the conference. Should ask Mike what he thinks about that.

[krasi0]

I, too, agree that there should be a winter competition and a summer one. This would encourage bot development throughout the year and not only for one or two months in the summer.
Another idea is online live streaming of random matches like on http://www.sscaitournament.com/
Also someone ought to develop a tool that I called "a hunter for interesting replays" because watching thousands of games to pick out good reps is humanly impossible.

[Taranok]

Does AIIDE have the micro battles? (like the dragoon battles with minimal terrain?)

[Kae]

[quote name='Taranok' date='22 September 2012 - 12:16 PM' timestamp='1348283792' post='11143']
Does AIIDE have the micro battles? (like the dragoon battles with minimal terrain?)
[/quote]

Nope, last micro-competitions were during AIIDE 2010, ie. the first Broodwar AIIDE tournament.

[Taranok]

why were they thrown out?

[DaveChurchill]

[quote name='Taranok' date='23 September 2012 - 10:55 AM' timestamp='1348426504' post='11150']
why were they thrown out?
[/quote]

Because although people like to watch them, there was very little interest from entrants. It wasn't worth the additional effort from our side to organize it. I think we had like 2 people wanting to enter.

[heavy_metal]

I feel there is a need to lower the barrier to entry if you are looking for more participation. If not micro arenas, why not reinstate a limited tech track, perhaps only ground or only tier 1 units? The full game has an overwhelming amount of complexity I think has driven bot builders to follow "cookie cutter" build orders taken from progaming websites. One idea to counter this trend may be to disable the tier one units for each race, derailing the known optimal strategies. Or island maps could be put in the map pool.

[krasi0]

[quote name='heavy_metal' date='26 September 2012 - 06:49 AM' timestamp='1348631385' post='11159']
I feel there is a need to lower the barrier to entry if you are looking for more participation. If not micro arenas, why not reinstate a limited tech track, perhaps only ground or only tier 1 units? The full game has an overwhelming amount of complexity I think has driven bot builders to follow "cookie cutter" build orders taken from progaming websites. One idea to counter this trend may be to disable the tier one units for each race, derailing the known optimal strategies. Or island maps could be put in the map pool.
[/quote]
We also sometimes test the bots vs human players (on ICCUP for example). So the full game is most important.

[DaveChurchill]

[quote name='heavy_metal' date='25 September 2012 - 07:49 PM' timestamp='1348631385' post='11159']
I feel there is a need to lower the barrier to entry if you are looking for more participation. If not micro arenas, why not reinstate a limited tech track, perhaps only ground or only tier 1 units? The full game has an overwhelming amount of complexity I think has driven bot builders to follow "cookie cutter" build orders taken from progaming websites. One idea to counter this trend may be to disable the tier one units for each race, derailing the known optimal strategies. Or island maps could be put in the map pool.
[/quote]

- island maps are bad, from a balance standpoint
- the first limited tech tourney had very little interest
- i made the ualbertabot wiki to try and lower the entry barrier for next time
- when someone says cookie cutter, what they actually mean is good and well established