99th overall (~32th now by tweaking some magic numbers)
I started the contest with a decoupled MCTS as described by jolindien in the Xmash Rush PM (XMash Rush (CC07) - Feedback & Strategies). I had a small eval at depth 10 and the result was not very good (around mid gold). Thinking about it now, I had some serious bugs in my engine and my MCTS could have gone higher.
Anyway, I threw it all away 2 days before the end and I did a beam search as everyone. I was 2nd gold 2 hours before the end so I submitted again and lost 15 places. ;-(
Once the multiplayer game was opened I changed a few magic numbers and was just below the gold boss. After that, I was pushed into legend and finished 29th. I guess the number of games for a submit is too short in gold. I struggled to reach the boss before the end of the submit and now I’m 50 places above!
I reach legend with a classic beam search and completly ignoring the opponent. The beam width is 1000 at depth 1 with a decay of 80 by depth and a minimum at 400. I have around 30 000/40 000 nodes with a depth between 10 and 15. My eval is also quite simple:
- 1 to 4 points for each ingredient in my inventory
- 2 * price * 0.99^depth for each order
- 10 000 if the 6 potions are completed
I just have 2 special cases:
- I learn 5 spells 0 at the start of the game
- If I have a learn in my path without brew before, I did first. I read this suggestion in the chat but I don’t think this helps much.
Thanks to CG for this great contest!