Redcoders Frenzy

Capture The Flag '88

Organiser: Lukasz Adamowski

Rules:

Hi, people! This is a robin-round round without self-fighting. Once again we have three warriors in the core, but this time nothing is so clear as it was in round 17th. Only one of them is known: The Flag. The other two are opponents. The task of each of them is to eliminate the other warrior and (even more important) to keep The Flag alive to the end of fight. The problem is The Flag is suicidal warrior, it dies after CORESIZE cycles. The code of The Flag looks like this:

;redcode-88
;name The Flag '88
;assert 1

flag	djn	$0,	#0

	end	flag

Can you see these two magic cyphers? "88" I mean. Yes, yes, ICWS'88 is obliging. Your warriors are to be written according to this standard too. Modifiers are disallowed, P-space also. This means no PINs, no LDPs and no STPs, no handshaking and no adaptative strategies (unless you know how to do it without P-space, all ideas are welcome). There are no other limits except usual pMARS settings:

CORESIZE	8000
MAXPROCESSES	8000
MAXCYCLES	80000
MAXLENGTH	100
MINDISTANCE	100
other parameters:
ROUNDS	2x1000
VERSION	0.8.0

In other words:

pmars -8 -s 8000 -c 80000 -p 8000 -l 100 -d 100 -r 1000

For people that are too lazy to look for ICWS'88 specification (copied from redcode.ref):

ICWS'88 Standard:
No modifiers allowed.
No P-space.
Allowed opcodes:
	DAT	[#<],	[#<]
	MOV	[#$@<],	[$@<]
	ADD	[#$@<],	[$@<]
	SUB	[#$@<],	[$@<]
	JMP	[$@<],	[#$@<]
	JMZ	[$@<],	[#$@<]
	JMN	[$@<],	[#$@<]
	DJN	[$@<],	[#$@<]
	SLT	[#$@<],	[#$@<]
	CMP	[#$@<],	[$@<]
	SPL	[$@<],	[#$@<]

Scoring rules:

if your warrior dies - no points
if The Flag dies - no points
if all warriors (your, enemy and The Flag) survive - 1 point
if both your warrior and The Flag survive and your enemy dies - 3 points

How to calculate score without modified pMARS? Thanks to LAchi idea of calculating score I've found better way to do it (my previous idea was to run each fight separetely and use an Excel chart). It goes like this: if you run pMARS with standard rules and parameters like this:

pmars -bk -8 -r 1000 flag.red warrior1.red warrior2.red

you should get 3 rows with 5 number in each. If not, there is probably something wrong with pMARS you use (version?). As LAchi wrote the first row is The Flag, the second is Warrior1 and the third is Warrior2. Last number in each row says how many times this warrior has lost, previous says how many fights were three-way ties (they should be the same in all rows). The most interesting for us scores are in the middle of each row. These numbers say how many times each warrior (The Flag or one of opponents) was one of two survivors. But what was the other one? Now (what LAchi cleverly found out) we can use these three equation to calculate scores of each warrior:

W_F2 +   0 + W_F1 = A 

  0 + W₁₂ + W_F1 = B 

W_F2 + W₁₂ +   0 = C

where A, B and C are the third numbers from each row, W_xy means survivers were x and y (1 means Warrior1, 2 means Warrior2 and F means The Flag). Three simple equations with three variables. I think everyone knows a hundred of ways to solve this kind of problem. We are interested in W_F1 and W_F2 values, which are equal:

W_F1 = (A + B - C)^.1/₂ 

W_F2 = (A + C - B)^.1/₂

Now, how to compute total score? Once again, if you execute pMARS in this way:

pmars -bk -8 -r 1000 flag.red warrior1.red warrior2.red

you will get something like (x means any number, A, B, C as above, D is the number of three-way ties):

x x A D x
x x B D x
x x C D x

Points earned by Warrior1 are:

(A + B - C)^.3/₂ + D

and points earned by Warrior2 are:

(A + C - B)^.3/₂ + D

That's all! It's easy, isn't it?

You can also execute pMARS in that way:

pmars -bk -8 -r 1000 warrior1.red flag.red warrior2.red

and use LAchi's calculating system assuming that The Bully is unknown opponent (warrior1), Little Sibling is The Flag and Big Sibling is your warrior. But what's the use to calculate score with unknown opponent??? I think this is more helpful for me than you, my dear participants. Thank you once again, LAchi! I will have much less of work hosting this round.

Oh, wait! I forgot I am participating too! My warriors are already ready and I have sent it to Lukasz Grabun (don't be too suspicious, there is nothing to do with our first names or the fact we are both from Poland, THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY IN HERE! ;). Lukasz Grabun is not participating, but please don't ask him how my warriors do work, OK? ;]

Please send your entries (2 entries per player are allowed) to the address: corewars@wp.pl with "RF18 entry" as a title. Deadline is June 1st, midnight (or rather 23:59, Greenwich time). This is Saturday. All the battles will be performed on Sunday June 2nd and the scores will be published on Monday June 3rd, I think. That's all! Questions, remarks and black-mail please send to the newsgroup rec.games.corewar. Good luck to you all! ;]
Lukasz Adamowski

Results:

Ten warriors written by six players took a part in Redcoders' Frenzy Round 18th. Most of them were scanners, there were also some stones/stunners and two (and a half ;) imps. It was robin-round tour, so particular results are shown below in table (I hope it's readable).

warrior's name	author's name	vs John Wayne	vs Imperfect	vs Capturer'88	vs Overwhelming power	vs Imp	vs Hunter Killer	vs Scan for Fan	vs Wanna be a porn star	vs Stunner	vs Dwarfie	score [pts]	score [%]
John Wayne	Chip Wendell		608	1723	2458	2407	2469	4380	3088	1040	25	18198	100.0
Imperfect	Achille Astolfi	2423		2425	2021	1996	2347	2740	695	441	991	16079	88.4
Capturer'88	Lukasz Adamowski	1165	1195		2000	2000	2926	2200	2449	1320	394	15649	86.0
Overwhelming power	German Labarga	1465	1682	2000		2000	1465	2002	1758	1229	1216	14817	81.4
Imp	Lukasz Adamowski	1468	1654	2000	2000		1454	2004	1752	1206	1202	14740	81.0
Hunter Killer	Joshua Hudson	1164	670	2791	1465	1454		2776	2821	332	44	13517	74.3
Scan for Fan	Achille Astolfi	447	466	1672	1999	1998	1927		2291	268	59	11127	61.1
Wanna be a porn star	German Labarga	103	728	1309	2253	2274	676	2519		306	74	10242	56.3
Stunner	Zul Nadzri	5	441	2046	1331	1347	1655	307	795		0	7927	43.6
Dwarfie	Zul Nadzri	16	991	1675	1306	1277	887	110	26	3		6291	34.6

As you can see the winner of "Capture The Flag '88" round is Chip Wendell and his the only one entry "John Wayne". He has showed strategy "Shoot first, and ask questions later" is the best solution for such kind of problem. The 2nd is Achille "LAchi" Astolfi and his Imperfect. That's suprise, because Imperfect is only suicidal .5c bomber plus two imps. What's the idea of saving the flag? I think LAchi expected a lot of scanners, that's why he had entered with stone. Stone is expected to eliminate the opponennt, and these two imps' aim is to keep the flag alive. Clever! The 3rd place is for Lukasz Adamowski (that's me ;). Capturer'88 is simple 1c stunner which scans for dying body of the opponent after stunning. If it finds something alive, it will deal a death-blow, but it will omit one cell in which is supposed to be prisoned Flag process.

A "black sheep" of this round was Dwarfie by Zul Nadzri. :] Dwarfie usually doesn't let The Flag to survive, so fighting against Dwarfie warriors had less chance to score well.

That's all! Thank you guys for participating! Thanks to you I've earned 86 points in ranking. ;]]]