League Problems

[Jez]

btw ... as listed in F1 ...
some of those in the top positions most certainly
are displaced by some lower in the ranks ...
Animal Supremous, or whatever it's named ...
worked it's way all the way to the top ...
and of course UMA 3.0 doesn't stay at #2 long.
so in order for me to run leagues ...
I'm finding I can't just do it as a challenge ...
but have to rerun it all ...
and so far I haven't been able to ...
having a crash at #10.

in the meantime, I may just split them up into
F1, F1A, F1B ... 10 per league ...
to establish some realistic pecking order ...
and then combine them farther down the road.

Try deleting the _ in the .txt name of number 10, should work then, I will get rid of the deadwood soon, sorry it's taking so long, didn't realise how much work I had voluntered for! After MB and SB leagues have their own downloads I will do.

Try putting a post in the suggestions part of forum, Eric is more likely to see then, a concise list of ideas would make his job a little easier, I fear, we are, distracting him from his book! Any help we can give, including, as you suggested, being patient and waiting for DB 2.43, would do him a little bit of the honour he deserves, for helping the DB program oh so much.

Unfortunately I can't program, if I could, then I would. I hope you have access to the source code sometime soon; I think with so many recent fixes that it is, a work in progress.

DB was never, never meant to be, a program for bots to battle to the death. More a sort of evolution, that I met and took a tangent too, of bots that just survived to be the best.

(No sarcasm intended; I really should go to bed now!   )

[Jez]

SB & MB league downloads now available, the next updates will be the leagues being rerun to get rid of 'deadwood'. Following that new entries will be added.

[Griz]

Try deleting the _ in the .txt name of number 10, should work then,

?  I don't see any '_' in the .txt or the robot names.
so ... don't know where you found that.


I do have a question about how the 'challenge'
thing works.
looks like it's a 'bubble sort' thing ...
as long as the new challenger wins ...
he moves up in the rankings ...
the challenge match ending when he loses ...
the bot above him not continuing the challenge
as the bot above him has already defeated him.
I think this is how it goes, but haven't run enough
of them to know for sure.

now here's a problem with that, imo.
not quite  the ole 'prisoner's dilemma' ...
but something sorta, kinda, similar.
consider:
A can defeat B, B can defeat C, C can defeat A.
now say the ranking is A, B with C the challenger.
C never gets a chance to challenge A ...
whom he could defeat ...
because it can't get by B.
see what I mean?
a new challenger who may be able to kick butt
on the leaders, may get stopped early on by a
bot that can take him, and perhaps only him ...
but not the bots above.
same can occur during the league setup run ...
where not everyone gets to fight everyone else.

so thinking of alternate ways to initially set up a league ...
or ensure bots get to challenge as many other bots as
possible.  just an idea I'm tossing out, ok?
 
I don't know how many 'matches' must be run to re-run
a league of 30 bots to establish the initial 'pecking order' ...
as I say ... I crashed after the prog ran thru the first 10 ...
but even then, Animal Supremus was making a bid and
moving up thru the rankings.
so not sure just who all ends up fighting who.
#1 and #2 square off, if #1 wins then #2 and #3?
if #3 wins then he takes on #1 I think ...
I'm not sure just how it goes ...
but seems it will vary depending on just who beats who.
so running thru all 30 ... quite a number of matches.

so just throwing this out here:
ideally one would have say 32 bots ...
pair them up randomly into 16 pairs/matches ...
the 8 winners being paired up ...
the 4 winners from that paired up ...
the 2 finalists going head to head for the championship.
total number of matches = 16+8+4+2+1 = 31.
this is low enough so that the league standings could
be rerun more often ...
and the initial pairing up being random ...
always the chance that a bot or new challenger could
end up one of the top dogs ...
the ranking not written in stone ...
but subject to change over time.
the bots and their stats, ie W-L could be printed
and documented, kept on file ...
and could be viewed just like one can go back
and see baseball standings from the past ...
up to the present.
just something to think about, eh?

another idea was to keep the present way leagues work ...
but experiment with dividing the participants into groups of 4 ...
8 leagues for 32 bots ...
running each league with only 4 bots would take a
maximum of 6 matches ...
and perhaps less depending on whether or not
some bot gets crushed or not.
then taking the 2 top ranked bots from each ...
in this case, 16 bots, and running them in four
more 4 bot leagues ...
and the four top placers from them ...
in a final 4 bot league.
so that's 15 playoffs, ...
8 initial, 4 quarter finals, 2 playoffs, 1 final ...
90 matches total [maximum ... if it takes 6]
to set up the league, the initial pecking order.
I don't know how that stacks up against  the # of
matches required to sort them all out as leagues
run now.
an advantage here ...
would be that all bots get at least a shot at getting
a shot to go up against the top dogs.

just food for thought ...
trying to think outside the box that already exists.
that's what I like doing.

well, I'll play with some of these ideas ...
and let Jez rerun the leagues as they now stand ...
as I don't have the computer power or time to
do an extended thing like that.

[Jez]

?  I don't see any '_' in the .txt or the robot names.
so ... don't know where you found that.

Oh, ok, that was what made the prog crash for me when I reran what you had done is all.

You have the right idea about how the leagues work atm, if bot C can't beat bot B it doesn't get to fight bot A.

It could be considered a problem, after all DB has long tried to play paper/scissors/stone with the bots tactics.

I think, if every bot was in the right place, only 5 rounds per match, that's 29 matches so 195 rounds minimum to rerun a whole 30 bot league, (or 200 min if entering a new bot that gets to top). Hopefully if I leave the pc on tonight and it doesn't run into any bugs then it might be nearly finished tomorrow.  
I fear instead though, two bots will get tied or I'll get two species that don't work properly and just sit there not dying. I'll see tomorrow.

Part of the reason for leagues being challenges is that the newer bot is considered to have the advantage, you can't just walk around an old bot you can't beat and win by beating the bot above it. But you may have noticed some other league options that haven't been implemented yet in the 'restart and league' tab. We will hopefully get them one day.

[Numsgil]

The code is set up to potentially allow other sorts of leagues, such as a free for all where all the bots get dumped in a single simulation and are graded based on how long they last.

But the leagues as an "official" institution are very concretely set up.  Newer bots that reach the top need to be able to defeat all other bots.  This is more interesting than it sounds, because when you're designing a bot you need to figure out several strategies to get past various problem bots.

[Jez]

Post moved Here

[Griz]

ah ...
I see now what you are talking about with the '_' thang, Jez ...
all my old Robot files use the underline rather than spaces ...
while you seem to have eliminated that in the bot's names
for those in the Leagues.

so ... is that the plan then ...
to no longer use '_' in bot names, but spaces?
as long as we are consistant, eh?

are there no problems that crop up having spaces in the names ...
say like a long name file such as
Darth Shimazu (F1)(Henk)-pre 30.07.04.txt  
being listed as Darth Sh~.04.txt or some such thing?

just wondering how this all came about.

[Jez]

That is indeed my plan Griz,

Call me a bot registrar or just anal.

It is a sort of template I developed for the bots; I have done something like this before, when I rescued all the posted bots from the first three? forums. Unfortunately, because I took a year+ break things didn't stay the same.

The idea was to give as much info in the bots name as was needed, more now than was then, sort of like the latin names for plants etc. A universally agreed classification.

Originally it was just the date that the bot was posted that was added to the name. But with me back now and having been given mod privelege's I hope to include author and class as well to all bots in the bestiary.

I know you have noticed the extra information this gives because you were questioning the classification for bots in the F1 league, something that wasn't immediately obvious originally. I hope you find the new naming system at least cursory helpful.

Part of the new naming system has meant the underlines _ have become spaces. This caused some (temporary) problems in the F1 and F2 leagues but hopefully I was a little more exact with the other leagues!

The downloads I provided for the leagues should work ok, if not then when I can re-run the leagues without bugs then the new downloads should work perfectly.

Eventually there will be downloads for each section of the bestiary as well so yoiu can easily obtain all the renamed bots.

[Griz]

I know you have noticed the extra information this gives because you were questioning the classification for bots in the F1 league, something that wasn't immediately obvious originally. I hope you find the new naming system at least cursory helpful.

yes ... all for as much info as possible.
of course there was nothing to keep folks from
making this info part of the bot text right up top ...
commenting out the data ...
which some people did, along with a short description
of some special features the bot might possess.
this is still a good idea, imo.

Part of the new naming system has meant the underlines _ have become spaces. This caused some (temporary) problems in the F1 and F2 leagues but hopefully I was a little more exact with the other leagues!

The downloads I provided for the leagues should work ok, if not then when I can re-run the leagues without bugs then the new downloads should work perfectly.

so far, so good ... or at least I haven't noticed any problems with the names.

Eventually there will be downloads for each section of the bestiary as well so yoiu can easily obtain all the renamed bots.

cool. all of this will simplify things for the new user.
many of the long time users take much for granted
as they were 'in on it' ... aware of the changes as
they were developed and implemented.
but this 'tribal knowledge' ...
is unknown to new folks just coming in ...
so I think we do need to make an effort to keep the
learning curve 'less steep' wherever we can ...
so peeps don't become discouraged just trying to
get started.
keeping DB adaptable/vialble makes it a complicated program.

so ... much thanks for doing so with leagues.

and to eric and all who spend so much time trying
to make this thing work.
it's got to be a work of love, eh?

[Griz]

Version 2.42.9r ...
compiled version.
F1 Leagues

attempted to rerun the league ...
things went along well for quite awhile until it came to
the contest between Virulus Discretus and Virulus Spinnens ...
which apparently both died out in the same cycle ...
DB ending up in some loop it couldn't get out of ...
leaving me no choice but to Ctrl/Alt/Delete and stop the task.
so, no error message or anything.

also noted that in earier matches, clicking the InstaWin ...
even when taking great care to click as fast as possible ...
the Wins would often be upgraded by 2, not just 1.

fyi ...
the standings up to that point were as follows:

1 - Callidus (F1Vir)(Shen)-05.04.05
2 - The One (1G)(Shen)-23.04.05
3 - DIN (F1)(Endy(Mod))-21.02.05
4 - Dominator Invincibalis(DOM INV) (F1)(PY)-pre 18.06.04
5 - Destinatus Preliator (F2)(PY)-16.09.04
6 - Darth Shimazu (F1)(Henk)-pre 30.07.04
7 - Spanish Conquistador (6GVir)(Numsgil)-12.05.05
8 - Animal Supremus (F1Vir)(Elite(Mod))-22.01.06
9 - DIN2 (F1)(Endy(Mod))-02.04.05
10- James 4 (F1)(Jez)-27.07.04
11- Duplo Simpleboticus (F2)(Jez&PY)-01.03.04
12 - Carnatus Orbis (F1)(PY)-20.09.04
13- HDV4 (F1)(PY)-pre 30.07.04
14 - Kyushu (F1)(Henk)-08.05.06
15 - UNA 3.0 (1G)(Elite)-29.04.06
16- Virulus Discretus (F1)(Flowin)-02.03.04
17- Virulus Spinnens (F1)(Flowin)-01.03.04

I've saved these, seeing as DB doesn't seem to save/update
the leaguefile unless the entire league gets run ...
so I have to start over every time.
I don't know that anyone's made it thru the whole thing yet
to get a final ranking.

so for now I'm making three leagues ...
the top 10 here in F1A ...
#11-#20 and #21-#30 in two more ...
in an effort to at least get thru them and see if everything is
saved correctly when a league completes.
then I'll have to run some challenges ...
#21 challenging the 20-11 league ...
then #11 challenging the top 10 ...
to see if any of them are able to work their way up.

that's the plan for now.

[Jez]

Version 2.42.9r ...
compiled version.
F1 Leagues

attempted to rerun the league ...
things went along well for quite awhile until it came to
the contest between Virulus Discretus and Virulus Spinnens ...
which apparently both died out in the same cycle ...
DB ending up in some loop it couldn't get out of ...
leaving me no choice but to Ctrl/Alt/Delete and stop the task.
so, no error message or anything.

Interesting, I thought that bug had been caught now and hammered out of existance.

also noted that in earier matches, clicking the InstaWin ...
even when taking great care to click as fast as possible ...
the Wins would often be upgraded by 2, not just 1.

Also noticed that, I'm gonna have to make these bugs into seperate posts tomorrow, not fair to make Eric read through all the posts to find multiple bugs from one thread.

fyi ...
the standings up to that point were as follows:

1 - Callidus (F1Vir)(Shen)-05.04.05
2 - The One (1G)(Shen)-23.04.05
3 - DIN (F1)(Endy(Mod))-21.02.05
4 - Dominator Invincibalis(DOM INV) (F1)(PY)-pre 18.06.04
5 - Destinatus Preliator (F2)(PY)-16.09.04
6 - Darth Shimazu (F1)(Henk)-pre 30.07.04
7 - Spanish Conquistador (6GVir)(Numsgil)-12.05.05
8 - Animal Supremus (F1Vir)(Elite(Mod))-22.01.06
9 - DIN2 (F1)(Endy(Mod))-02.04.05
10- James 4 (F1)(Jez)-27.07.04
11- Duplo Simpleboticus (F2)(Jez&PY)-01.03.04
12 - Carnatus Orbis (F1)(PY)-20.09.04
13- HDV4 (F1)(PY)-pre 30.07.04
14 - Kyushu (F1)(Henk)-08.05.06
15 - UNA 3.0 (1G)(Elite)-29.04.06
16- Virulus Discretus (F1)(Flowin)-02.03.04
17- Virulus Spinnens (F1)(Flowin)-01.03.04

Different from what I remember last time I tried a rerun, thought Spanish C came top and Animal S came about third. Only got to 14th match (best yet of three (no win button) reruns) before that nasty overflow bug killed the sim.

I've saved these, seeing as DB doesn't seem to save/update
the leaguefile unless the entire league gets run ...
so I have to start over every time.
I don't know that anyone's made it thru the whole thing yet
to get a final ranking.

so for now I'm making three leagues ...
the top 10 here in F1A ...
#11-#20 and #21-#30 in two more ...
in an effort to at least get thru them and see if everything is
saved correctly when a league completes.
then I'll have to run some challenges ...
#21 challenging the 20-11 league ...
then #11 challenging the top 10 ...
to see if any of them are able to work their way up.

that's the plan for now.

I did wonder how easy it would be change program to save sim after each re-entry had been run, allowing for interrupted reruns of the league, a while ago. Good idea to slim the league length down in the meantime, maybe starting the league with just one bot and re-entering each bot by turn would be better. Might identify if it is a bot causing the trouble.
Every time, using VB debugger, I have used the win button to speed things up I have hit the same bug, wonder why it doesn't seem to show up when not using the debugger.  

[Griz]

I did wonder how easy it would be change program to save sim after each re-entry had been run, allowing for interrupted reruns of the league, a while ago. Good idea to slim the league length down in the meantime, maybe starting the league with just one bot and re-entering each bot by turn would be better. Might identify if it is a bot causing the trouble.

yeah ... thought about that too ...
using the 'challenger' mode but then that likely uses different code.
I wonder how my results could be so different ... your Spanish C and Animal S
ending up ranked so much higher?
what that tells me is ... this thing isn't as consistent as we would like to think it is.
I mean, as long as it takes to run a whole league ...
who would ever do it again to see if the results were the same?

in fact ... I will do the short list of the top 10 at least twice ...
just to see if the results are consistent.
if not ... well ... then I guess we will be rethinking a few things.

btw ... do you have a list of what you think the ranking is from 1-30?
I must say I wondered why UNA 3.0 was listed first ...
unless as a 'rabbit' to force new matches all the way down the list.

Every time, using VB debugger, I have used the win button to speed things up I have hit the same bug, wonder why it doesn't seem to show up when not using the debugger.  

Hmmmmm ....
I have been running compiled ... hoping to get an error.sim file that I can
then load in and run in the VB version ... but had the prog 'hang' on me instead.
also ... I was very careful to strike that button as quickly as I could to NOT get the bug ...
so perhaps I'll redo it and see if I can get it to happen compiled ...
or with the VB to see if I can see where the error comes in.

see ... here is the problem with this forum, imo ...
if you already reported that ... I haven't a clue as where to find it.

well ... will experiment.

where do you want the league bug reports then ... if not here in league problems?
can we do a League Bugs thread under Bugs?

ta ta

[Jez]

I wonder how my results could be so different ... your Spanish C and Animal S
ending up ranked so much higher?
what that tells me is ... this thing isn't as consistent as we would like to think it is...
who would ever do it again to see if the results were the same?

Well there is always the chance that you used the win button and changed a match result, other than that, seeing as I've had what looked like identical results (didn't record so not 100% sure) four times now (never complete lists though) I would guess that it is differences in the way the leagues are set up on each of our pc's.

btw ... do you have a list of what you think the ranking is from 1-30?
I must say I wondered why UNA 3.0 was listed first ...
unless as a 'rabbit' to force new matches all the way down the list.

I have a record of the last list I obtained before the sim crashed. It looks like it will only be accurate for the first 6 or 7 bots and even then... you'll see why when it's posted.   Una gained its top position in league in a previous version of DB, it either used a dead exploit or suffered from a subsequent DB change.

also ... I was very careful to strike that button as quickly as I could to NOT get the bug ...
so perhaps I'll redo it and see if I can get it to happen compiled ...

I've used the win button on just one match before and then had that error pop up a couple of matches later.

see ... here is the problem with this forum, imo ...
if you already reported that ... I haven't a clue as where to find it.

I lost internet connection yesterday so not had a chance to do a little clean up of the thread, it's been my messy reporting of bugs, why Eric asks us to make a new thread for each bug. Seeing as it was me that posted it originally I would, no doubt, have made it just as hard to find on the wiki.   Think of it as a filing/poster problem not a forum problem...

where do you want the league bug reports then ... if not here in league problems?

All bug reports to go in their own threads in the bug part of forum. I set this thread up to filter out user problems with the leagues etc.

[Griz]

I wonder how my results could be so different ... your Spanish C and Animal S
ending up ranked so much higher?
what that tells me is ... this thing isn't as consistent as we would like to think it is...
who would ever do it again to see if the results were the same?

Well there is always the chance that you used the win button and changed a match result, other than that, seeing as I've had what looked like identical results (didn't record so not 100% sure) four times now (never complete lists though) I would guess that it is differences in the way the leagues are set up on each of our pc's.

how can they be set up different?  
I didn't use the win button to change any results ...
unless the outcome was an obvious rout ...
I let those close contenders do their thing for however long it took.

Darth Shimazu defeated Spanish C, and Spanish C defeated Animal S.
how can that be different on my PC than on yours?
certainly something as simple as using a different 'seed' shouldn't
affect the results ...
after all we have that 'statistically accurate' function working in there, eh?
now ...
if by different league setup you mean F1 might not override all parameters ...
I can see that.  and if that is the case, then how are anyone's results ever
going to be the same as somebody else's?

would be interesting to see if other people get different results ...
'cause if so, how are we going to be able to call 'Offical League Standings'
official?

I'll run these top 10 again a few times and see where Animal and Spanish C end up.
maybe others can do the same?
shouldn't take too long with just 10 bots.

1 - Callidus (F1Vir)(Shen)-05.04.05
2 - The One (1G)(Shen)-23.04.05
3 - DIN (F1)(Endy(Mod))-21.02.05
4 - Dominator Invincibalis(DOM INV) (F1)(PY)-pre 18.06.04
5 - Destinatus Preliator (F2)(PY)-16.09.04
6 - Darth Shimazu (F1)(Henk)-pre 30.07.04
7 - Spanish Conquistador (6GVir)(Numsgil)-12.05.05
8 - Animal Supremus (F1Vir)(Elite(Mod))-22.01.06
9 - DIN2 (F1)(Endy(Mod))-02.04.05
10- James 4 (F1)(Jez)-27.07.04

[Jez]

how can they be set up different?  
I didn't use the win button to change any results ...
unless the outcome was an obvious rout ...
I let those close contenders do their thing for however long it took.

I have seen rounds go down to just one bot left v lots of others, on both sides, several times in just one round before, I don't know how  you define 'an obvious rout'. To me it is when one bot doesn't work.  

Darth Shimazu defeated Spanish C, and Spanish C defeated Animal S.
how can that be different on my PC than on yours?
certainly something as simple as using a different 'seed' shouldn't
affect the results ...
after all we have that 'statistically accurate' function working in there, eh?
now ...
if by different league setup you mean F1 might not override all parameters ...
I can see that.  and if that is the case, then how are anyone's results ever
going to be the same as somebody else's?

I am worried that we have missed a default setting. If we can work out what it is it can be defaulted. (you and me getting different results to each other but same results on our own reruns suggests this may be the problem)

I'll run these top 10 again a few times and see where Animal and Spanish C end up.
maybe others can do the same?
shouldn't take too long with just 10 bots.

I would suggest 4 or 5 bots without the win button and IME that can still take over 24hrs. (Hopefully not with the bots we choose though!)

Calllidus v The One v Spanish C v Animal S v DIN?

I'll set it up as soon as I see a reply from you on this, if you want to do the full ten I will as well but can't promise it will get to end, plus it will take me a couple of days probably to get each final result.