h-shan / cpp-starter-pack

All the code you need to get started with making a bot for Mechmania in C++

Mechmania C++ Starter Pack

Here's all the code you need to get started with making a bot for Mechmania in C++. Just do these steps:

• Pre-Setup -- install Docker, Node, and the mm command line tools
• Setup -- Clone this repository and start running your bot!

Windows Pre-Setup

1. First, install Node. To do this, go here and download the Windows Installer.

2. Next, install Docker Toolbox for Windows.

   • Go to this site and click the button that says "Get Docker Toolbox for Windows".
   • Open the installer and follow the instructions to install Docker
   • If you don't already have Oracle VM VirtualBox, you will also go through a series of prompts to install VirtualBox.
   • Once Docker is installed, open the "Docker Quickstart Terminal" application (It will take a few minutes to get set up the first time you start it. This process may involve more Windows prompts for permissions.)

3. Within Docker, run npm install -g mechmania. This gets the mm command line tools, which are used to test and submit bots for the tournament.

Mac Pre-Setup

1. First, install Node. To do this, go here and download the macOS Installer.

2. Next, install Docker for Mac.

   • You can find the installer here.
   • Open the installer and follow the instructions to install Docker

3. Run npm install -g mechmania. This gets the mm command line tools, which are used to test and submit bots for the tournament.

Setup

1. Clone this repo (or fork it or download it somewhere as a ZIP)
2. Modify the script at MyBot.cpp.
   • You may add other files or dependencies, just make sure to update the .dockerignore and Dockerfiles accordingly. If you have any questions about this, we're here to help!
3. Run mm play .
   • This will build the bot in the given directory (.) and then starts a game in which your bot fights against itself.
4. To run two different bots against each other, run mm play bot1_directory bot2_directory.
   • You must have valid .dockerignore and Dockerfile files in each directory. We reccomend cloning this repository multiple times to achieve this.

Use mm help for more information.

Game_Api Information

Game_Api is the class that allows your bot to communicate with the game_engine. This class is initialized at the beginning of your script and is updated each turn to hold the current state of the game. Game_Api defines three structs(classes whose members are all public) that you will be using: Player, Monster and DeathEffects. DO NOT CHANGE THESE. You will most likely be handling objects of these types so you should take a look at what member variables you can access from them. However tampering with the struct definitions themselves will make your script incompatible with our engine. Some helper functions in the API will return objects of this type since these objects represent the state of the game. You can alter these however you like but we recommend only using them as a reference to the current game state.

Note: The class Node is also defined however you will not be interacting with any Node objects.

There is also a type that is used in the API called node_id_t. This type is the same as an Int and acts the exact same way as an Int. It is basically an Int with a fancy name. In the c++ API we use this notation simply to denote when we are working with node locations in the map. You do not need to follow the same convention.

The following fields are in the Player class:

• _name : str (either "Player1" or "Player2")
• _stance : str -- string representation of the player's stance -- "Rock", "Paper", or "Scissors" (Note: on the first turn, each player's stance will be "Invalid Stance", since neither player has yet chosen a stance)
• _health : int -- the player's health. If a player's health reaches 0, they die.
• _speed : int -- the player's speed.
• _movement_counter : int -- the movement counter will go down by 1 each turn. Once a player's movement counter is equal to their speed, they will move to their destination.
• _location : int (or node_id_t)
• _destination : int (or node_id_t) (Note: on the first turn, the player's destination will be -1, since the player hasn't yet set a destination)
• _dead : bool (This should always be True, since once a player dies, the game is over)
• _rock : int -- the player's Rock attack stat
• _paper : int -- the player's Paper attack stat
• _scissors : int -- the player's Scissors attack stat

The following fields are in the Monster class:

• _name : str -- represents the class of this monster. All monsters with the same name should have the same base stats (health, attack, respawn_rate, death_effects, and attack)
• _stance : str
• _health : int
• _respawn_rate : int -- number of turns for the monster to respawn after dying
• _respawn_counter : int -- turns until this monster will respawn (Note: if dead=False, then you should ignore the value of this field.)
• _location : int (or node_id_t)
• _dead : bool
• _death_effects : DeathEffects -- Gives information on the buffs given to the player when this monster dies on the same node as them.
• _attack : int -- the amount of damage the monster deals per turn
• _base_health : int -- the health that the monster will have after respawning

The following fields are in the DeathEffects class.

Each field corresponds to the buff provided to a player's stat from defeating a monster:

• _rock : int
• _paper : int
• _scissors : int
• _health : int
• _speed : int

The following are all functions in Game_API

(Note: For any function that returns Player, Monster, or DeathEffects structs, the corresponding data in the API may change between one turn and another to reflect the new game state, so you should make sure to only use structs returned during the current turn)

void log(string message) Logs the string message to stderr for debugging.

int get_duel_turn_num() Returns the turn number when the endgame duel will occur

vector<node_id_t> get_adjacent_nodes(node_id_t location) Takes an int node and returns a vector of ints representing the nodes adjacent to node.

vector<Monster> get_all_monsters() Returns a vector of all the monsters in the game. This vector contains COPIES of the Monster objects within the API. Because of this, the Monsters within the returned vector will NOT change when the API is updated each turn!.

Player get_self() Returns a Player object representing the player you are controlling. Also a COPY of the data held within the API. Do not use the same returned Player object for multiple turns!.

Player get_opponent() Returns a Player object representing your opponent. (Note: the opponent's destination will always appear to be -1. This is by design -- neither player can see the other's destination) Also a COPY of the data held within the API. Do not use the same returned Player object for multiple turns!.

void submit_decision(node_id_t destination, string stance) Takes an int destination and a string stance and sends this decision to the game engine. You should call this method exactly once per turn.

vector<vector<node_id_t>> shortest_paths(node_id_t start, node_id_t destination) Returns a vector containing all the shortest paths between start and end nodes (passed in as ints). Each element of the returned vector will be a vector of integers, representing the steps required to follow the path to end. These lists will include end, but will not include start unless start==end.

So, as a hypothetical example (that doesn't necessarily match the game map), shortest_paths(1,5) could return the following:

[[2, 3, 4, 5], [2, 6, 7, 5], [9, 8, 7, 5]]

In this example, there are 3 paths, each of length 4, that can get from node 1 to node 5.

bool has_monster(node_id_t node) Returns a bool indicating whether there is a monster at node node.

Monster get_monster(node_id_t node) Returns a Monster struct for the monster located at node. It is recommended to check if there is a monster at node first, using has_monster(node). If you call get_monster for a node without a monster, an invalid monster will be returned. Also a COPY of the data held within the API. Do not use the same returned Monster object for multiple turns!.

vector<Monster> nearest_monsters(node_id_t node, int search_mode) Returns a list of Monster structs for all monsters nearest to node (including on node itself), only considering monsters according to the search_mode parameter:

• search_mode = 0: Searches all monsters
• search_mode = 1: Only searches for live monsters
• search_mode = 2: Only searches for dead monsters

vector<Monster> nearest_monsters(node_id_t node, string name, int search_mode) Same as nearest_monsters, but only considers monsters with name name. (Note: since, on our map, there is only one monster with any given name, the list returned by this method will contain a maximum of 1 monster)