Better, Simpler Programming Contest

[Leif_-]

Originally posted by LaFollet:
Well this is my approach so far:
1) Load both the resource info and unit info from text files.
2) Sort the units based on their "value"
3) Start using up all the resources that I can to make as many of the highest valued unit that I can. (With the test this is limited by Holy, as it usually is in game.)
4) Use up as much other resources with the next unit with the next highest value.
5) Keep doing this until resources are used up.


Anyone have any thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

This greedy approach will give you quite good solutions to the problem, but not necessarily optimal ones. The quickest way to find an optimal solution for a handful of units is probably a brute-force search; for slightly larger problems I suppose that stochastic search techniques such as genetic algorithms or simulated annealing will yield decent results quickly.