Better, Simpler Programming Contest

Saber Cherry · #1 March 2nd, 2004, 09:41 PM

Preface:

To date, 3 people like the old contest suggestion (not very many), but quite a lot of people said they were interested in formulating the contest (which does not have to be related to, or useful to, Dominions).

If you have an idea for a programming contest that DOES NOT involve hacking, decompiling, or reverse-engineering game files, please post it! Something SIMPLE, but not trivial, would be ideal. For example, a file that generates random leader names, or that predicts which of two units would win WITHOUT doing any combat simulation (just by looking at the stats), would be nice.

NEW CONTEST CONCEPT

You have 3 resource types (gold, res, and holy), and some number (n) of units. Each unit and resource has a specified value.

The goal: Make a production queue that maximizes value, within resource constraints.

Example:

Your province has the following resources:
Gold 120, Res 88, Holy 4

This is specified in the input file like this:

code:

resourcetypes=3

resource=gold quantity=120 value=-1

resource=res  quantity=88  value=1

resource=holy quantity=4   value=10

The province can produce 4 types of units, named a, b, c, and d. They are specified in the input file like this:

code:

unittypes=4

unitname=a gold=5  res=3  holy=0 value=5

unitname=b gold=7  res=12 holy=0 value=8

unitname=c gold=12 res=2  holy=1 value=17

unitname=d gold=22 res=21 holy=0 value=15

The program will find a combination of a, b, c, and d that maximizes value. In this example, you get 5 points for building each "a" and 17 points for building each "c". You also get 1 point for using each "res", 10 points for using each "holy", and lose a point for using each "gold".

In other words, your total score, for this input, would be:

5*(#a built)+8*(#b built)+17*(#c built)+15*(#d built)-1*(#gold used)+1*(#res used)+10*(#holy used)

Sample Output:

code:

a=3, b=1, c=4, d=1

gold=92, res=50, holy=4

value=104

(these resource numbers indicate the number used)

value=15+8+68+15-92+50+40=104, unless I made an error.

The score would then be calculated according to the equation, with a higher score better. The value of resources and units would, thus, be arbitrary, so that the algorithm could be used to optimize the queue for any resource-using game!

[ March 03, 2004, 06:49: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]