Environment rules

[Yves M]

Please post here your ideas about the rules of the game. The basic ideas include:

Creatures:

Move into any of the 8 directions in the grid or stand still.
Harvest food from a food resource.
Attack each other, which would cost some resources. Maybe get resources if they manage to kill another creature.
Duplicate themselves (i.e. breeding), which costs resources as well.
Die as a result of an attack, a natural hazard or lack of food.
Scan their environment for sources of food / foes / hazards.

This list is not comprehensive and further ideas are welcome. The world itself will be a grid with some wall tiles, some food tiles, some hazard tiles (things like holes would be static, but stuff like fire could move and spread).

[Doctor Luz]

Only few things about Yves post:

I think it's to late for talking about duplicating and breeding. As Brad said, It's better to mantain the initial project simple and once working, complicate it.

In this sense I think is better to make initially simple rules. There would be time after this for complicate the project.

About the rules I have think this


Scan their environment for sources of food / foes / hazards.

Have you ever played X-COM? The scan capabilities of the soldiers is only in one of the eight directions of the grid. They can see only the things they have in front of them covering certain angle. I think this would made the movements and the scaning more realistic.

But this is only my opinion

[Yves M]

Nothing is too late, there has not been any coding yet :) So yeah, maybe breeding should be left out for a first version.

Yep, I was also thinking of restricting the view of a creature to be only forward (with some viewing angle of course).

[Elrond]

Originally posted by Doctor Luz
I think it's to late for talking about duplicating and breeding. As Brad said, It's better to mantain the initial project simple and once working, complicate it.

In this sense I think is better to make initially simple rules. There would be time after this for complicate the project.


I agree with that. In a first version, it will probably be simpler to let a few features out: breeding, natural hazards, ...

The first version may be better if just made of moves, feeding and fights. We should concentrate on some basic creature definition:
- How does it feed.
- How much does it cost to move, strike an opponent, scan the environment, do nothing.
- How do we define the creature characteristics (weight, size, strenght, ...).

This will be a good start before adding all the other things.

All the differenty creature characteristics will influence their resource consuption (speed, size, strenght, ...). A heavy creature will probably be harder to kill, but it will need more resources to survive.

Have you ever played X-COM? The scan capabilities of the soldiers is only in one of the eight directions of the grid. They can see only the things they have in front of them covering certain angle. I think this would made the movements and the scaning more realistic.

But this is only my opinion

As all functions, this must be studied as well. We can image "creatures" with eyes in all directions that can scan all the environement at a time. This will cost most resources than a creature that can scan only one direction at a time.

But all this has to be defined. And all this can also be adjusted. If later we see that having this feature gives too much advantage, we can do it more costly: use 1 resource to scan 1 direction at a time. use 3 (1+2) resources to scan two directions at a time, 6 (1+2+3) for three directions or any other adjustment that seems fair. A way to "balance" these feature would be to write to creatures that would be exactly the same exept for this feature and see what resource is required to make it even when they compete. The same principle can be applied for most other features.

That is another good thing as well. If the rules are adjusted, a creature that won by using some feature will get weaker in the next round if this feature is adjusted, so the programmer will have to adjust its AI to deal with that.

I guess the FAQ (or any other thread) will keep the programmers updated about the last features adjustments.

[Doctor Luz]

Sorry, Whith "resources" do you mean "time units", so the creatures have a limited number of time units to do things each turn?

[Yves M]

Ok, so I'll propose some things.

Creatures start with something like 40 power points. They can be allocated in the following characteristics:
* weapon strength. A stronger weapon will do more damage
* weapon resistence. This will be used to take off damage that would be caused otherwise. Sort of like a shield.
* food consumption. If more points are in here, the food consumption for firing weapons and moving will be lower.
* life points. This determines how much damage a creature can take before it dies
A creature feeds by going to a food square and sit a turn (or more turns) there doing nothing else.
In a turn one of the following actions are possible
* Move forward by 1 square
* Turn any angle (90, 180 or 270 degrees)
* Scan forward
* Harvest food
* attack an opponent in the square in front of the creature
The powerups could include the following:
* additional power point(s) (in the range of 1 to 5 points maybe)
* life regeneration (gradual or complete healing)
* food squares

For damage calculation I would propose the following formula:
damage = (attack + defense) / defense. So each creature has to have at least a few points in defense and a few life points, otherwise it would die instantly.

Creatures would start off with 100 food units. Moving around, turning or scanning would require 4 food. Attacking would require (attack characteristic) / 2 food units. The food consumption characteristic would be used to diminish these by the follwoing formula:
actual consumption = (theoretical consumption) * 10 / (food characteristic + 10). So having 10 in the characteristic halves the food consumption of each action.
The number of life points is double the number of points spent in that characteristic.
In a food square, a creature can harvest 10 food per turn.
Life regeneration squares regenerate about 5 life points per turn.

And maybe regenerate 1 life point every 20 / (food characteristic) turns by itself.

[Doctor Luz]

Yves, It seem you have been doing this all your life. :D ;)

[Yves M]

Here a very simplistic design. All creatures are equal and have only the life points attribute. Moving / turning / scanning and attacking do not cost any energy (but each takes a turn). Each attack takes away about 1/5 of the opponents life points. If the creature just sits there doing nothing it will regenerate 1/20 of its life points in a turn.

So no concept of power ups here.

[Yves M]

Originally posted by Doctor Luz
Yves, It seem you have been doing this all your life. :D ;)
I've played a few RPGs and know their point systems pretty well, that helps :p

[Yves M]

Here is a sample of a grid with a robot and its viewing angle. Any square that is partially visible is marked as visible.

[Yves M]

Ok, this seems too complicated, so maybe we'll just stick with "seeing" up to two squares in front of the robot, like in the attachment.

[galathaea]

Just to see if I have things right so far :).

We have two different states that will be implemented: creature and environment.

Creature state includes:

Power points allocated to attack strength.
Power points allocated to defense strength.
Power points allocated to "food consumption." This one is a bit unclear to me, but I guess it has to do with effiency of life point use?
Life points, like a health indicator.
Current food carried.


Environment state is a grid that cotains grid objects like the creatures (and their orientations!), blocks, food, other hazards.

Both states change on a turn basis. Each turn, a creature has actions they can do: Move, Scan, Turn, Harvest (and/or sit?), and Attack. Moves change the environent's state for the position of the creature and consumes food. Scan returns some of the environment's state to the creature scanning, and consumes some of their food. Turn changes the environent's state for the orientation of the creature (consuming food). Harvesting or sitting increases the creature's available food. Attacks take free life points from the target and food from the attacker. Plus, life points regenerate or deteriorate depending on the position of the creature (are they on a life regeneration grid point, a hazard, or something innocuous)

If I have this right so far, then I have some questions.

How does scanning get blocked by obstacles in the adjacent three squares (ie. do diagonal obstacles block only the furthest diagonal or also the square next -- for hiding around the corner type things -- and does an obstacle directly head block scanning of 1, 3, or 5 squares in the back)?
Food is only used for the turn mechanism and not to regenerate life. Is this correct?
Is it possibly to dynamically reconfigure your creatures power point distribution among its first four state members (possibly consuming food)?

There are a couple of other things, but I think this is a good start...

*** galathaea pulls out a golden morph-o-ray and turns all other creatures into gigantic chickens ***

[Yves M]

Originally posted by galathaea
Power points allocated to "food consumption." This one is a bit unclear to me, but I guess it has to do with effiency of life point use?

It has to do with the efficency of how the food is spent. If this stat is high, your creature consumes less food for each action it takes.

How does scanning get blocked by obstacles in the adjacent three squares (ie. do diagonal obstacles block only the furthest diagonal or also the square next -- for hiding around the corner type things -- and does an obstacle directly head block scanning of 1, 3, or 5 squares in the back)?

A square that is partially visible should be all visible, but blocking still occurs. I'll draw some pictures of this to illustrate my point.
Food is only used for the turn mechanism and not to regenerate life. Is this correct?

Yes, but if you run out of food, your creature is dead (since it can't do any more moves).
Is it possibly to dynamically reconfigure your creatures power point distribution among its first four state members (possibly consuming food)?

I don't think that this would be a good idea, since it's more logical that your creature has to be balanced enough to survive all kinds of foes. Otherwise you could figure out where an opponent is, allocate every stat point in strength and slay him from behind in one turn.

I want to avoid 'winning combinations'. There sure are some combinations of stats that will make more sense than others, but I hope that we manage to have a balanced enough system so that wildely different creatures and approaches have a chance of winning.

*** galathaea pulls out a golden morph-o-ray and turns all other creatures into gigantic chickens ***
*** and galathaea gets crushed by a giant chicken foot ***

[Elrond]

I have an idea about the scanning thing. As any normal creature, they should not require time to scan ahead of them. Real creature usually don't have to stop to see what's in front of them, and then continue acting.

I think every creature should be made aware when its turn begins of what is in front of them (say up to 2 squares in distance, like suggested by Yves M). This is not scanning but just keeping the eyes opened.

Then there can be two types of sanning:
The first is like making a turn aroung to see all that is around you (up to 2 squarres).
The second allows you to see further ahead of you (like using a telescope).

I think this would make more sense.

[dimm_coder]

I agree mostly with Yves and corrections from Elrond.
Yeh, every creature before making some step must analyze situation around. Elso I can add such possibility like HEAR, because even if creature can see only what takes place before it, but it can hear on some territory around it.
But all this depends of such thing like: how our host plans all.
Does every creature get fixeing time slot for the next step? It must be so. Because otherwise it can spend to much time for analyzing of the next step and this is not like in true nature.

[Yves M]

Originally posted by Elrond
I have an idea about the scanning thing. As any normal creature, they should not require time to scan ahead of them. Real creature usually don't have to stop to see what's in front of them, and then continue acting.

I think every creature should be made aware when its turn begins of what is in front of them (say up to 2 squares in distance, like suggested by Yves M). This is not scanning but just keeping the eyes opened.

Then there can be two types of sanning:
The first is like making a turn aroung to see all that is around you (up to 2 squarres).
The second allows you to see further ahead of you (like using a telescope).

I think this would make more sense.
Right, I agree. Requiring a separate action for just finding out what is in front of you would make creatures into blind mice ;) Since there seem to be concerns about how the client and the server handles occluded blocks, I suggest that we leave the 'wide' scanning out of the list of moves for the time being.

Does every creature get fixeing time slot for the next step? It must be so. Because otherwise it can spend to much time for analyzing of the next step and this is not like in true nature.
This is indeed some concern. I guess we could set a time-out value on the server and if the creature hasn't replied back in say 5 seconds, then the server just assumes that creature sits still. But this would maybe make the client programs a bit harder.

[Gabriel Fleseriu]

Originally posted by Yves M

This is indeed some concern. I guess we could set a time-out value on the server and if the creature hasn't replied back in say 5 seconds, then the server just assumes that creature sits still. But this would maybe make the client programs a bit harder.

This would give clients written in C++ a huge advantage over VB, unless the timeout isn't large enough.

[Yves M]

That is why I propose a timeout of about 5 seconds. That should be reasonable for one turn, otherwise the whole tournament would take too much time.

By the way, here is a small example of how occlusion would work.

[galathaea]

Perhaps we can actually start with the simple rules outlined so far, and then further enhancements may be possible as outlined for particular tournaments. In other words, make a first plan to get the project runnning, and then suggest updates as we find they may improve the enjoyment of the competition. This way, we can verify the basic ideas and see how they work in practice. We may find out that some of the numerical rules for play are inadequate and can make adjustments accordingly, but they need not occur prior to the first tournament (for example, perhaps the current food rules will not be sufficient to allow anyone to win decisively, even for someone minimizing their consumption -- not that that is true, but it could possibly be found to be true, at which time a change would be needed). This means, however, that each creature can use a template provided by others, but that they may need to write their own, more generic creature if they want to robustly support future changes with reuse (much like in the real world).

On the scanning vs. blind play issue, I think the play with requiring scannning may be more interesting (since the creature needs to make more decisions on what to assume). Call it a misty battle grid, where sometimes you need to squint :).

[Gabriel Fleseriu]

Ok, don't yell at me now, but I have to say what I think:

Don't you people want us to implement the most simple thing we can imagine and have that running before we start thinking of occluded vision, creatures that have an orientation (i.e. face N, S, E or W) and such?

Let's have some virtual bacteries running before we try to build insects.

[Yves M]

I do think that occluded vision has to be there, if we allow creatures to see further than one square. It is easy to handle for the server, and not that complex for the clients. As soon as the networking is sorted out, I will try and write a sample C++ client that will hold its state information correctly.
The concern about the facing of the creature is to allow for 'sneaky' manouvers, so that you can get attacked from behind. It does add a bit of complexity to the clients, nothing much on the server. But I do not think that it would be so hard that we need to take it off.

Let me summarize the environment and rules I propose for the initial version:

Possible moves:

Move forward one square
Attack a creature in the square in front of you
turn 90, 180 or 270 degrees
Harvest food in the current square
Rest in the current square

At initialization, the Creature tells the server how it set its stat points. There are 40 points in total, distributed in the 4 following stats:

Attack strength
Defense strength
Food consumption
Life Points

I propose to maintain the relationships between stats that I outlined in my first proposal.
At each turn, the creature is told:

How many life points it currently has, and how much food it carries.
What occupies the 8 squares in its vision range, including the percentage of life-points of any ennemies.

At the start of a turn, the server sends out this information to the creatures and waits until they respond. When all creatures have responded, then the creature with the most life points will have their move executed first. If there is a tie, the selection of which one moves first is random.
There are four types of cell contents:

empty cell
wall cell
food cell
another creature

[Elrond]

Not perfect (obviously) but it seems OK for a first version. It seems fair to test all these values and basic rules before doing anything more.

Al other improvements will come in time.

[dimm_coder]

Great, Yves. I think that this simple model is enough good to begin to test it in a real battle.

I want only notice that if this post set some concepts for organization, may be U post it in the "RFC", then if U need U can edit it there. This way, I've said already, we can get one place with all concepts (we will not discuss it in the "RFC"), but if someone will want to read main concepts he can read it in the "RFC" without necesary of finding them on all threads :)

[Gabriel Fleseriu]

Originally posted by Yves M

Let me summarize the environment and rules I propose for the initial version:

Possible moves:

Move forward one square
Attack a creature in the square in front of you
turn 90, 180 or 270 degrees
Harvest food in the current square
Rest in the current square


Move forward and attack are the same thing

At each turn, the creature is told:

How many life points it currently has, and how much food it carries.
What occupies the 8 squares in its vision range, including the percentage of life-points of any ennemies.


..and the direction the other creature is facing

There are four types of cell contents:

empty cell
wall cell
food cell
another creature


Actually there are six:

off-bounds (== outside the arena)
occluded
empty cell
wall cell
food cell
another creature

[Yves M]

Dimitry, once the initial rules have been finalized, I'll place them in a sticky thread, same with the initial version of server and clients.

Move forward and attack are the same thing

Seems fair enough to me.


..and the direction the other creature is facing

Sure, I forgot about that ;)


off-bounds (== outside the arena)
occluded
empty cell
wall cell
food cell
another creature

Right, I was thinking that we could have a wall all around the world or maybe even make it 'round' so that if you go past the north border, you end up on the south border (not for the initial version though).
"Occluded" is of course a possible response from the server for some cell contents.

[galathaea]

I haven't had a chance to look through the server coder yet to see if these questions might be answered there, but I was organizing some notes on a creature I've been considering and have a small little list of things I am still a bit unclear about. I thought maybe it might be good to post them, in case others needed the info as well.

I have seen mention of the move as 1 space forward and as a move being possible in any of the 8 directions. Which is the actual rule right now? This is basically asking if orientation is tied to movement, or if they can vary independantly (and if we may move only forward, this takes out direct diagonal moves).
Is the only action that consumes food right now the attack? I can't seem to find any rules for the food consumption of the other moves, but I do see a separation of a theoretical consumption for attack and a general modifier that applies accross the board.
Is there a life max beyond which you cannot regenerate (probably your starting amount, I would guess), or does regeneration occur with out capping? There is mention of life percentage (in regards to enemy stats visible) which does indicate a special reference value, but I could imagine percentages over 100 as well.

Those are the major confusions I have right now. I'm sorry if these are answered somewhere I have overlooked, but any assistance will be greatly appreciated!

[Elrond]

I think every single turn should require food consuption. Even staying idle should require some food consuption (maybe just 1, the minimum). One creature doing nothing still require energy just to stay alive. This will also force creature no to stay idle for too long.

It could be something aroung the following ratio:
Staying idle -> 1
Scanning -> 2
Turning of 90 (270) degrees -> 4
Turning of 180 degrees -> 6
Moving forward -> 6
Moving diagonal -> 9 (if diagonal moves are used)
Harvesting food -> 8 (of course it will bring more, but you need at least 8 to begin harvesting, otherwise, ... you are as good as dead).
Attacking -> Depends on the attack capacity, ... Say the formula given by Yves M (I think).

This is just a ratio that may be doubled or changed to find the best possible balance.

I agree that the issue with the moves must be clarified. But may be it would be simple in the first stage to make only forward move with no diagonals.

[SolarFlare]

I may be a little late in saying this, having not seen this project until now.

In any environment with many characters, such as this, there is bound to be some level of diplomacy. Whether two units decide to share vision, or protect each other, or ambush another unit, or if a unit robs another unit of its food in exchange for sparing its life, etc., there will always be something. It would be a mistake not to include some sort of communication method between units. Perhaps not in the original version, but if possible it should be incorporated.

At any rate, there would have to be some defining communication technique that would say who you can talk with (i.e. would it have to be someone in your sight range? would it have to be someone who isn't necessarily in your sight range but that you've met before?), when you can talk with them, what you can talk about (a limited set of keywords so that any unit can be programmed to understand them), how units send messages and respond to them, etc.

I think it would add depth to the game and make it more "realistic". It could be simple, the conversation could initially consist of a few keywords, and each unit could send one message per turn and respond to one message before deciding on its action for that turn.

If this sounds like a horrible idea, sorry! I think that if this isn't added, people would try to take alliances out of the game, and program it into their units for an advantage. Just an idea ;).

[Goodz13]

I beleve communication between 2 creatures would be for a version 2 or 3. I think it might be a good idea, but I think that it would be a lot of work for the first version, or even second. Of Cource they wouldn't communicate directly, but through the server.

[SolarFlare]

As I've read through this, I have realized that there is a critical flaw in the movement of units.

To begin with, these units will be smart; and all I mean by that is that they will know whether or not they should engage in battle with another particular unit based on the formulae of the outcome. If a unit is near enough to attack them, the about-to-be-attacked unit (which wishes not to be attacked) can avoid the attack by continually moving forward! The only way for the attack to work is if the runner runs out of food or if he runs right into an obstacle.

It would not be very useful for a unit to be running after another unit for several turns merely to attack it. The attacker must have some sort of "attacker's advantage" to prevent this. For example, allow attacks to be diagonal, or allow units "in pursuit" to travel two squares while units "not in pursuit" travel only one.

I do not wish to further complicate the initial version of the game, but unless I'm missing something (please point it out if I am!), the attacks will be a great disappointment.

[Yves M]

solar, I don't think that this will happen simply because a creature only sees forward and turning costs a game turn. If a creature saw its attacker and tried to run away, that means that it would have to turn and then begin moving. Plus it would never know whether the attacker is still follwing it (as it doesn't have eyes on the back of its head). And it is bound to run into a wall as well.

We'll see with the first round of the competition whether the rules are OK or not and what should be changed.

[SolarFlare]

Originally posted by Yves M
solar, I don't think that this will happen simply because a creature only sees forward and turning costs a game turn. If a creature saw its attacker and tried to run away, that means that it would have to turn and then begin moving. Plus it would never know whether the attacker is still follwing it (as it doesn't have eyes on the back of its head). And it is bound to run into a wall as well.

We'll see with the first round of the competition whether the rules are OK or not and what should be changed.
I agree with the last sentence ;).

But I'd still like to point out that according to the damage formula, the creature would not necessarily die after a single attack. Once it is attacked for one turn, it could immediately set all its moves to "forward," as it assumes it is being chased for however many turns. The creature usually won't have to turn before it runs, either.

I agree that you should make the initial version with no heed to this issue. Consider this only a prediction of a weakness of the program which can be corrected in version two if necessary.

[Elrond]

Originally posted by solarflare
In any environment with many characters, such as this, there is bound to be some level of diplomacy. Whether two units decide to share vision, or protect each other, or ambush another unit, or if a unit robs another unit of its food in exchange for sparing its life, etc., there will always be something. It would be a mistake not to include some sort of communication method between units. Perhaps not in the original version, but if possible it should be incorporated.


It may or may not be a good idea. In the real world, dogs do not communicate with cats and horses. If we see it as a competition in a natural-like environment where each creature represents a species, then communication may not be a good idea.

We were speaking at one stage of having creatures that can breed (for a future version). In this case, it could be an advantage to allow creatures of the same species to communicate. This is something we find much more in nature.

But we could also decide that any creature could communicate with any other as well. It is probably something we wil have to think about for some future versions, but it's probably not needed for any of the first two or three versions, while we will be trying to balance more raw parameters.

At one stage it will be interesting to have a from of communication. Good idea.

[Marina Vaillant]

Originally posted by Yves M
Ok, this seems too complicated, so maybe we'll just stick with "seeing" up to two squares in front of the robot, like in the attachment.

Yes this one is better then the first because the creature will "sense" the environment more than "see" it :)
It should know what is around, or in front according to what is decided.

You are giving good suggestions. Thank you.
I don't agree in your complicated way of counting the power we get from eating and the power we get for resting. I would like the strength of the creature calculated both from what it eats and how long it sleeps.
I think the same counter should take this into account.
It would raise of 10 when you harvest. Raise of 1 per turn when you sleep. Lower of let's say 4 when it attacks, and the wounds can be calculated according to each creature's strength. We'll see the rule when we know roughly how much is an average amount of strength, and how much difference there can be between creatures.

Marina

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

can u pls keep me in the loop too???
i want to participate too.....:)

[dimm_coder]

Originally posted by Joseph_R_Thomas
can u pls keep me in the loop too???
i want to participate too.....:)

Um... This thread is dead... already for a long time. There were enough members who wanted to participate and there was even some work under code development, but people had enough other work to do and it is seemed that there was not so easy to orginize a sirious work under such project here. May be it was an organization problem (no any organization at all) , may be something else, but now U can see that the last post here was 7 monthes ago.

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

i got time..i am willing to start....:)
can we start it since its dead???
anyone with me????:)
me a novice programmer so dont excpect much thought...:(

[dimm_coder]

Originally posted by Joseph_R_Thomas
anyone with me????:)
me a novice programmer so dont excpect much thought...:(

Well, in my brief view, this project do not need many programmers... simple beginning version could be done by one-two coders. That what about code development. Another thing is a ideas sharing. Here anyone can give advise. And there were enough different ideas. The main problem is to find enough free time for someone (not a beginner programmer of course) and put all those ideas in a code, but not sharing code development among defferent persons (at least during a first step until the first working version will be done). Of course, this is my 2 cents on the organization side.
As I remember, Gabriel wrote some code and he was a beginner of this idea. I donot know what about this code now.

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

so you are saying i should abandon it or should i go on
???

[SolarFlare]

Originally posted by Joseph_R_Thomas
so you are saying i should abandon it or should i go on
???
If enough people had been interested and had the resources to devote to it, Code War would have been a huge success. But as you see, the reverse determination has been made naturally.

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

i want to start it again...i want to make it......
i want....
is there anyone else who can gimme a hand..or rather i'll give u a hand since i am not an expert:D
tks

[Kuruto]

I have posted a skeleton here: Server and C++ client skeleton code -- BETA (http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227457&perpage=10&pagenumber=3#post787538)
But it seems that everybody is still on holiday :p.

In the mean time, I have added some DirectX3D stuff so that you can see the action at server-side. You can also walk in all directions and shoot if another robot is in sight.
This latest release is not yet posted, since there is no more interest :(

Kurt

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

i have intrest....:)

[Kuruto]

I have recently seen a very nice and simple simulation.
And I want to change my client into the same thing.
A framework is still a framework,
so adding a little sense to it, is more fun :p.

It's basicly like this:
A client is alive until it is killed by a zombie.
Then it turns into a zombie also.
At the end, only zombies wander around :D.

It shouldn't take much time to implement this.
So I'll try to do this as soon as possible.

Kurt

PS: Have you had a chance to look at the server I've posted?

[Joseph_R_Thomas]

i cant read yourm file...cannot open workspace....why?:eek:
is it Visual Studio.Net???

[Kuruto]

It is VS.NET indeed, but it's very easy to create a new project.
Just add all the necessary files, add a button and link it with this code:
CodeWar m_CodeWar;
m_CodeWar.initialize( 9, 9, m_Port );
And you're all set.

Kurt

[Dragster93]

Where can I find source code for some of the creatures that have been created? I am new to Code War. So I'm not really sure of what I am supposed to create or HOW exactly to create it. If any of you could point me towards any sample programs or participant source codes, that would be great. Thanks.

[S_M_A]

Nobody has shown any interest in this the last 7 years... Anyway, look here http://www.codeguru.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227457&perpage=10&pagenumber=3#post787538