Automated games

[KDC]

Is there a way to run a totally automated game (no human players)? I envision AI competitions...

On a related note, is there a "trace" function to see the parsed file each turn, it would make tweaking of AI files much easier.

[Dracus]

The closest you can get is to turn on all the ministers and just hit end turn. Let them do everything.

[KDC]

Yeah, but I cannot really ask my server to press "continue", plus it's much slower if it has to handle the UI.

[Dracus]

Sorry then, that is the only way I know of to run a game with somewhat no human players.

[Puke]

someone did an AI tourney a while back.

you can run an AI only game (if you cant create a game with all AI players, then you can turn a human player over to the computer after the game starts). You can disable all Messages in your options menu, so you can just sleep on the F12 key for a while and let the turns fly.

You can also run the game from the command line (which is basically how the PBW server works) so you can make a little batch file or script to process the turns.

finally, when you first create the game, you can configure it to create a backup save file after every 1 or 5 or 10 turns or something like that. that way, you can run 300 turns, and then end up with 60 files or so to evaluate how the AI was performing.

[KDC]

Where is the documentation about the command-line parameters?

[Puke]

beats the hell outa me, but it must be there somewhere. I found this in the HTML manual under 'simultanious games'

quote:

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Command Line

As the Host, you can execute the game by running it, and then loading the savegame, and then pressing End Turn. You can also automate the process by using command line options for the game. If you run the program se4.exe you can supply 2 command line parameters. The first is the exact path to the savegame file, the second is the password for the game. If the parameters are valid, the game will execute silently, and when finished will generate a new game file.

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you could probably guess based on that info, but some one more informed than me probably has info on specific syntax examples.

[geoschmo]

You will find what you are looking for in the History.txt file in the Space Empires IV directory.

quote:

---

Command Line Options:

Se4.exe "[Savegame path]" "[Password]" "[Player Number]" "[Mod path]" -nd

[Savegame Path] = Exact path to the savegame file.
[Game Password] = Either the game password if this is the host processing the turn, or
the players password if you want to launch directly into a player’s turn.
[Player Number] = The specific player number you wish to launch into, or 0 if this is
the host processing the turn.
[Mod path] = Override to the directory specified in the Path.txt file (this should
just be the directory name of the mod, exactly what’s in Path.txt).
You can leave this blank to just use the setting found in the Path.txt
file.
-nd = Optional flag which indicates if any error dialogs should be displayed
during the turn processing if an error occurs.

Note: To leave an option blank, just put two parenthesis with a space between them.

Examples:
Host processing the turn, with no dialogs.
Se4.exe "c:\program files\shrapnel games\malfador machination\space empires
iv\savegame\BigMulti.gam" "Master" "0" " " -nd

Player wants to launch directly into their game.
Se4.exe "c:\se4\savegame\mygame.gam" "mypass" "1" " "

Host wants to process a turn with an alternate mod path, and have dialogs be displayed.
Se4.exe "c:\se4\savegame\supergame.gam" "master" "0" "c:\se4\mydata"

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You should check the whole history file though because there have been several tweaks in later Versions. Just search for the word "command"

Geoschmo