The arguments stuff has been causing errors for everyone.
No one uses arguments for their AI, so I removed it.

sulix now beats vixen, so I have patched it to not make illegal moves.

hunter uses the same sort of idea as vixen, but seems to do slightly better.

Enjoy
[SZM]

Conflicts:
	agents/basic_java/Makefile

Stupid java AI broke everything

simulate.py scores SURRENDER as 0 points for the surrendering AI, 3 points for its opponent.
SURRENDER can be sent instead of a normal move.

AIs must now place all 40 pieces during setup

I was using threads for timing out messages.
But apparently everyone knows you can just use select(2)

If there are no arguments passed to an AI, pass execv NULL for the arguments.
Passing it a pointer to an array of size zero... is not good.

In KillUnit:
I was using Vector.remove(Object), but I realised that this doesn't compare
references, instead it uses "compareTo". Which meant the AI deleted every unit
as soon as the first one died. Fun.

I discovered gcj, which lets you compile a Java program.
This is much easier than trying to convince the java interpreter to run.

I was using Vector.remove(Object), but I realised that this doesn't compare
references, it calls the "compareTo" method.

See KillUnit

Java AI is still using Buffered IO and so hasn't been tested with the manager
program yet.

Just makes random moves

Can't work out how to unbuffer stdio yet.

The java interpreter doesn't like absolute path names, which is annoying.

Can generate images from manager program with the -I option
Can generate a video from these images with the -v option (Note: just runs ffmpeg)
These two options only work if the program was built with graphics enabled.

Note: You can generate a video from a saved log file by "./stratego -v video -o logfile"
So that's cool.

Results pages look nicer. Fixed bug with score updating between rounds.
Added pretty plots. Most plots end up being straight lines. But its pretty anyway.

You can now pass arguments to your AI through the manager program.
Simply include the path to the AI and arguments in quotation marks.

EG:
./stratego "../../agents/foo/bar --debug" ../../agents/other/agent

simulate.py was making broken links to log files, fixed.

Logging of stderr! If anything is printed to stderr, it is all saved in logfilename.stderr by simulate.py

Tried to make the manual page better, probably failed.

Updated webpage since we have now changed the date.

Also tried to fix vixen again, haven't tested.

simulate.py wasn't setting the "gameID" variable correctly,
meaning all games were logged to "red.vs.blue.1.1"

Bug in vixen found by [SLX]; it attempts to move outside the board.
Usually when losing.

Path finding algorithm (path.py) shouldn't move outside the board.
But somehow it is.

Hacky fix at the moment by checking for moves outside the board in
vixen's score calculation, and allocating -100 to these moves.

I made the graphical board draw function reveal pieces that had been involved in combat.
But I didn't reflect this in the printed board, until now.

Pointed out by [SLX]

I had added some extra log messages for testing the networking functions,
and forgot to remove them, hence replaying a logged file (with the -f option)
was failing.

Thanks to David Gow (sulix) for this patch.

I was aware of the limitation, but decided to wait until someone complained before fixing it (I also overestimated the effort required to fix it).
So I'd like to congratulate David for being the first person to actually try and use the manager program!

I'll have to allocate a prize for that.

Why did I make it black????

Probably should have committed immediately after I did whatever the stuff was? Not several weeks later?

I appear to have improved the vixen AI slightly

Aha, I remember! Altered manager program so that two ports are used (4560 and 4561) instead of just one.
This means you can use network controllers for both players, not just one.

Wasn't thinking straight with the initial approach

Basically:
 - Each stratego program is running ONE AI program locally
	-> That AI's responses need to be sent accross the network to the other stratego program
	-> Each stratego program keeps state seperately and sends instructions to its local AI, so actual instructions (ie: "Its your turn") aren't sent
 - A special controller is needed to recieve the responses

So we have NetworkSender, which wraps around an AI_Controller and simply sends its responses (exactly as they are) to the network
and NetworkReceiver which waits for responses from the network.

As far as networking itself is concerned, its not that important who is the Client and who is the Server.
If an IP address is specified, then Client is used, if no IP address is specified, Server is used.

NOTE: It isn't possible to use networking for both AI programs yet.
	(ie: stratego @network @network) will fail when the Blue server attempts to bind the socket already used by the Red server.
	I may consider fixing this at some point.

Going to test on mufasa.

I've just thought, if the stratego programs have different timeout sequences, there may be problems.
Oh well.

Erm, now what?

Derp

Slightly confused about the client/server thing

Server is going to run red
Client is going to run blue

Need to get them to talk nicely?

Doesn't work at the moment - server can't bind socket, client segfaults (NULL pointer).
Blergh.

This is a temporary and not entirely effective solution, to prevent AI from spamming CPU useage to make their opponents time out.
Yes I could use renice instead, but its just as easy for an AI to get around.

I will have to replace this with a better solution. But I don't have one at the moment.

Added link to mailing list page.

Thanks to Hipikat for pointing out some things that needed clarifying.
Email matches or post in irc if there is anything else.

Previously AIs could respond with "NO_MOVE" whenever they felt like.
Officially, now they can only respond with "NO_MOVE" when they have no mobile pieces left.
(That is, only Bombs and the Flag are left).

However the game should end by a VICTORY_ATTRITION condition as soon as either player loses its last mobile piece.
So technically, "NO_MOVE" can't ever be legally printed, because the game should have ended. If it doesn't, there is a bug.

Updated webpage, updated manual, updated README

Going to email the list later today.

Goodluck!

PS: The rule change is due to a mean initial setup, for example:

**********
**********
**********
BB**BB**BB
..++..++..
..++..++..
etc

Here, Red has placed Bombs in all three "lanes". Red is unable to move.
However, as long as Red can use "NO_MOVE", an unsuspecting Blue will lose most of its pieces on the Bombs.
(Unless Blue puts a miner up the front...) But anyway, being able to not move is silly and not allowed in the real game.

Minor bugs in the manager program fixed.
Changed some messages for clarity, can't remember what, look at diff.

Added VICTORY_ATTRITION; victory by destroying all of the opponents _mobile_ pieces
 (ie: Everything except Bombs/Flag)

This means we don't get results of DRAW or DRAW_DEFAULT when one AI destroys all the other's mobile pieces.
Since those games would last up to 5000 turns, this saves a lot of wasted time.

AI should still respond with "NO_MOVE" when they have no mobile pieces.

Made timeout value adjustable by an argument switch, '-T'
Altered simulate.py to use a timeout variable and supply the switch to the manager program.

So now I don't need to recompile and commit the manager program every time I want to test a different timeout value on mufasa!

Mufasa is now on game 3 of the test round, out of 12. After FIVE HOURS.
This particular game has lasted 1132 turns, with BLUE making "NO_MOVE" for the last 600 or so.
The new victory condition will stop this sort of thing :)

Merry Christmas!

I understand directory structures, cough

When INTERNAL_ERRORs occur, the colour wasn't added to the array in the "ALL" results.
So when the script looks up agents["ALL"][index][4] (the colour entry), there was an indexing error.
Fixed by adding the colour to the result array when INTERNAL_ERROR occurs.

TODO: Discover cause of INTERNAL_ERROR - in the manager program

It occurs on mufasa, but not on my laptop.
I believe it is due to AI timeouts not being handled correctly by the manager program (stratego).
On my laptop, things run nice and fast, and since all the AI work properly, there are no timeouts.
On mufasa, things run shit and slow, and pretty much every game I tested ended with a move timeout.
Timeout causes broken pipe after AI program is told to exit?

As a temporary measure, increased timeout to 60s (from 2s). If this doesn't stop timeouts,
there must be some other factor making things slow.
"The problem is determining where the shittiness lies... is it the shittiness of the VM, the shittiness of python,
the shittiness of the manager program..."

Running another test round on mufasa over christmas. Hopefully it will finish running by new year. (Assume 60s a move, 300 moves a game... 12 games...)

Considering putting my laptop in the clubroom and just running the competition on that.

Need to also disable linking with the SDL and OpenGL libraries in the Makefile
But those libraries must have pulled in pthread, because then I got link errors until I added that to linking.

Attempt #2

I need this for mufasa (vm), which doesn't have SDL or OpenGL or even GNOME
Besides, it doesn't need it, and attempting to install them did not end well...

Still need to test that it actually builds on mufasa