Is this a Usable AI?

by **LoRdNeX** » 18 Nov 2018, 23:19

I was digging around the folder structure of the server and noticed a jar file that I think is an AI but i couldn't find a reference to it.

Its the "mage-player-aiminimax-1.4.31.jar" in the "mage-server\plugins" directory.

I was just wondering what this does and is it implementable. I've had to remove the "mad" AI as it was causing too many lockups and instability. Ive left the draft bot in and so far so good. Anyway, was just kind of curious. Still tinkering down the programming trail so im a little green on the code. Thanks again guys and keep up the great work! I'll try and help where possible.

by **elvendoom** » 28 Nov 2018, 16:02

Having examined the folder and file as much as I can without trying to load it [my next step after I post this], there is also a plaintext file in plugins called 'AIMinimax.properties' which has entries for max nodes and depth / think seconds plus a few other performance parameters. It looks like this either is or was an AI for testing, well, AI themselves. The name and the entries in the settings file lead me to suspect this AI is used to test the limits of the xmage server in terms of AI; how complex the devs can make an AI before it starts to cause issues. I will attempt to work out how to load this, but in all honesty you're probably better off making an issue on the github about it if one does not already exist.

by **elvendoom** » 28 Nov 2018, 16:46

elvendoom wrote:Having examined the folder and file as much as I can without trying to load it [my next step after I post this], there is also a plaintext file in plugins called 'AIMinimax.properties' which has entries for max nodes and depth / think seconds plus a few other performance parameters. It looks like this either is or was an AI for testing, well, AI themselves. The name and the entries in the settings file lead me to suspect this AI is used to test the limits of the xmage server in terms of AI; how complex the devs can make an AI before it starts to cause issues. I will attempt to work out how to load this, but in all honesty you're probably better off making an issue on the github about it if one does not already exist.

After finally looking at the source on github and following it through then comparing it against the draftbot and mad ai files, this looks like a partially complete AI that was intended to be more complex than MAD [probably intended to replace it]. It is entirely possible that I am missing something, but as it stands it appears that a few dependencies in the source are either gone or renamed. I am also unsure how well this AI would work on a public server if completed; it wants to evaluate a lot of things in a style that reminds me of a chess AI [it seems to be attempting to 'work ahead' of the opponent purely based on current boardstate], and that would likely result in placing a heavy load on your servers.