Kindinium

Vindinium for Kotlin

Welcome to Vindinium, the fun AI challenge that lets you battle heroes and goblins! This client is written in Kotlin and is fully functional, allowing you to jump right in, write a bot, and smash those heroes in epic battle!

What does it offer?

Kindinium boasts:

Training and Arena mode
Customization of training mode (number of turns, map)
A MetaBoard. It analyzes the json board and gives you information on the locations of heroes, mines, and taverns
Pathfinding. Find the nearest [mine, tavern, hero], or let the MetaBoard plot a path from anywhere to anywhere (if accessible)

What do I need?

If you haven't registered yourself yet, please head to the Vindinium Registration Page and create a bot. Once you have registered you should see an API Key such as 'hie44sww'- this API Key is bound to dummy123.

Open the file VindiniumClient.kt and modify the line

val API_KEY = ""

That's technically it! A random bot will now participate in a training game whenever you launch the app.

How do I change the game mode?

The program supports both the arena and training modes. By default a training mode with 300 turns and a random map is chosen.

I want to play in Arena mode!

Run the game with -m arena

I want to play in a predefined map!

(Only in training mode) Run the game with -map m# where m# is in range of m1..m6

I want to change the number of turns a game is played!

(Only in training mode) Run the game with -t # where # is the number of turns you'd like to play.

What's the metaboard and how do I use it?

The metaboard recreates the board with additional information about each piece's location and type.

Each position is represented by a BoardTile

enum class BoardTile(val symbol: String) {
    ROAD: BoardTile("  ")
    IMPASSABLE_WOOD: BoardTile("##")

    HERO_ONE: BoardTile("@1")
    HERO_TWO: BoardTile("@2")
    HERO_THREE: BoardTile("@3")
    HERO_FOUR: BoardTile("@4")

    TAVERN: BoardTile("[]")

    NEUTRAL_GOLD_MINE: BoardTile("$-")

    HERO_ONE_GOLD_MINE: BoardTile("$1")
    HERO_TWO_GOLD_MINE: BoardTile("$2")
    HERO_THREE_GOLD_MINE: BoardTile("$3")
    HERO_FOUR_GOLD_MINE: BoardTile("$4")
}

and can be queried for information on any spot:

metaboard[0, 0] // alternatively metaboard[Position(0, 0)]

or, in case you're looking for commonly used information such as heroes

metaboard.hero("@1") // alternatively metaboard.hero(BoardTile.HERO_ONE)

Further, this additional processing allows us to create a graph and find routes to any other location on the board. To use this in your code, follow this example:

// Find the path to the nearest mine
val pathToNearestMine = metaboard.nearestMine(metaboard.hero("@1"))

// During each call to bot.chooseAction(), we can take one more step
if (pathToNearestMine.isNotEmpty())
    val (nextPosition, actionToReachNextPosition) = pathToNearestMine.next()

Once the pathToNearestMine is empty, you should have reached your destination! Of course, you can ask the metaboard to recalculate the path again.

You can also ask the metaboard for any position in particular:

val pathToSpawnPosition = metaboard.pathTo(response.hero.spawnPos, myHeroPosition)

Note: If a Path could not be calculated, then these functions return null.

Note: Heroes, taverns and mines ordinarily count as obstacles.

How do I change my bot?

The random bot is simple, stupid, and not likely to win you any prizes. You could simply extend the random bot, but then it wouldn't be a RandomBot anymore :) Instead, head to Main.kt and modify the line

val client = VindiniumClient(RandomBot())

With the bot of your choosing. Please implement the Bot trait.

What's in store for future iterations?

Now that the MetaBoard and Pathfinding are functionally complete, I'd like to expand the test suites and consider additional functionality benefitting anybody wishing to write some clever AI routines. I've also started adding a CompetitiveBot, which is my personal implementation of an AI for the Vindinium challenge. Take a look, modify and feel free to use whatever's there to your heart's content.

I have further questions!

Don't hesitate to ask me anything. My knowledge so far isn't unlimited, but I enjoy helping out as much as possible.

SoulBeaver/kindinium