50 year hard AI battle with all slots filled

[Kogut]

AIAI have no settings activated by difficulty levels but it is possible to disable certain methods of building. In my opinion it is very miserable competitor for human and there is no point in making it even worse.

[Samu]

Losing bracket game complete. I forgot to save the game, silly me...
Tileset was Temperate, same size 256x256, same seed 1111111111, same freshly installed openttd.cfg, difficulty was 'hard' (not custom), game version was 1.0.2-RC1. Contestants in order:

- AIAI (version 15)
- Denver & Rio Grande (version 1)
- trAIns (version 2)
- AdmiralAI (version 22)
- ChooChoo (version 348)
- SimpleAI (version 4)
- OtviAI (version 312)


Unfortunately I was very busy this time and wasn't paying attention to what the AI's were doing.

(spoilers ahead)

[Brumi]

Well, I think the 256x256 map is way too small for even 7 AIs to compete throughout 100 years. Only AIAI could build a decent transport company (congratulations Kogut! ), the others simply couldn't survive. I see that OtviAI also had some vehicles when you took the screenshot, but it was only the first year after inauguration, so no heavy conclusions can be drawn from this.
So here (if we rely on performance ratings) AIAI is the clear winner, OtviAI is the runner-up, and the others are in a tie.
I think AIAI and AdmiralAI really shouldn't have got into the lower bracket...

Anyway, I have a suggestion for you: at the beginning of the game, start the AIs by typing 'start_ai' in the console multiple times. If you leave them to start by themselves, they may start with a few years' disadvantage, even if you set them to start 1 day after the previous one.
And does somebody know why the AIs don't start exactly when they should?

[Samu]

Doesn't that change the 'hard' to 'custom'?

[Brumi]

It doesn't, I've just tried it. You will really need to start the AIs from the console in the finals, because in easy difficulty the second company is given a 2 years' handicap by default.

[Dustin]

FYI Denver & Rio Grande isn't meant to compete against other AI's. It's really just an experiment in cellular automata. If people enjoy playing single player games with Denver as one of the AI's and it doesn't crash too much, then I am really happy with it.

[Samu]

Winning bracket game complete! The only thing that changed was the game version, to 1.0.2. Contestants in order:

- Trans (version 100307)
- NoCAB (version 480)
- Convoy (version 11)
- WrightAI (version 3)
- Rondje (version 313)
- PathZilla (version 6)
- CluelessPlus (version 21)

I got to say it was really really really close between 3 companies! But only 2 will advance and it's going to be quite a disappointment for the AI who received 2nd place. The 4th and 5th place were also quite surprisingly close, but far distant from the 3 first. Only one company really failed.

Your bets?! Tomorrow I'll reveal the screenshots.

[Steffl]

I bet on Nocab or maybe Roundje. Nocab usually gets really strong after a longer time of playing.
A pity that RoadRunner isn't in your competition. Over a 100 years I never tested it.

[Samu]

Revealed! RoadRunner? Oops, I'll try maybe in one of my next tourneys. I forgot Chopper as well.

About these last results. Trans deserved first place even with its many useless ships, no idea why the game says it was 2nd place, just look at that! It doesn't matter anyway, since it's also advancing. I suppose CluelessPlus advancing and NoCAB staying behind is perhaps your surprise. Trans was always first, except in these last 20-30 years. Convoy was doing great too, always around 3rd place place at some time.

EDIT. This game took *effish* 14 hours openttd.exe CPU time, had to retry it for 3 times because I couldn't just stay awake and wait for them to finish! Hopefully next games will be less CPU intensive, it will be in 'medium' preset, 4 AIs each game.

Next losing bracket game (Tropic tileset):
- Denver & Rio Grande
- trAIns
- WrightAI
- PathZilla

Next winning bracket game (Tropic tileset):
- CluelessPlus
- Trans
- AIAI
- OtviAI

No longer playing:
(from losing bracket 1st set)
- SimpleAI
- AdmiralAI
- ChooChoo
(from winning bracket 1st set)
- NoCAB
- Convoy
- Rondje

[Brumi]

Nice performance! Clueless did a great job winning the game despite the 3 years' late start. Please start the AIs from the console, because in easy difficulty AIs start after at least 2 years, and at medium speed it may be a disadvantage.

Trans deserved first place even with its many useless ships

Trans's ships do better if you set the ship pathfinder to YAPF. I tried it in your savegame, some ships went on their way, some were still stuck

[Samu]

I think the years handicap actually fits well for this challenge. Consider pole positions from Formula 1. Besides, I want the games to end fast on my poor computer!

[Zuu]

I wouldn't recommend using YAPF for ships as it is quite slow.

[Samu]

Losing bracket game complete. Tileset was Sub-Tropical.
- Denver & Rio Grande (version 1)
- trAIns (version 2)
- WrightAI (version 3)
- PathZilla (version 6)

It was incredibly fast. Only Denver & Rio Grande and PathZilla managed to have profiting vehicles. trAIns made a train with no profit and WrightAI did nothing. These results are kind of meaningless, but if I was a fair jugje, Denver & Rio Grande performed better. WrightAI was bankrupt for the screenshots.

[Dustin]

LosingThese results are kind of meaningless, but if I was a fair jugje, Denver & Rio Grande performed better. WrightAI was bankrupt for the screenshots.

Glad to hear Denver did well. What settings did you pick? It assumes "custom" is not the same as "hard". It probably needs financial restriant to "high" for anything that's tough, but it defaults to medium.

[Samu]

I used OpenTTD 1.0.2, tropical tileset 256x256, using freshly created openttd.cfg file, game seed was 1111111111 and the difficult preset was the real 'medium', not 'custom'. I just change financial screen to never display and turn on all transparency settings as well as disable stations signs, town names, message news, animations and just change the game language to english. It defaults to portuguese when it's installed. I also disable sound and music packs. But I think these settings have no real meaning for the AIs, tell me if I'm wrong.

[Brumi]

I wonder what made them go bankrupt... The map was pretty flat, and 4 AIs aren't that much...

[Zutty]

I really need to update Pathzilla. I hate losing these things all the time!!

[Samu]

Winning bracket game complete. Contestants in order:
- CluelessPlus (version 21)
- Trans (version 100307)
- AIAI (version 15)
- OtviAI (version 312)

I have to say early game was very interesting, always AIAI and Trans trying to lead each other, and CluelessPlus not so far away. But late game was really weird, mass bankrupts, OtviAI is the king of that, AIAI a close second.

[Kogut]

mass bankrupts

again?

[Samu]

I saw OtviAI warnings even when it could of just ask for some loan, and it really had a positive profit, not that impressive though, but still positive. Suddenly it disappears when it had about 80 running vehicles. It was never able to return to survive again, only failures. AIAI, from what I can gather, doesn't work well with it's cargo. It tries to service passengers on desert towns, but these towns are too difficult to develop. CluelessPlus just couldn't survive the pressure from Trans, it was slowly declining after a certain point and died.