Issue 1 16/10/95
Hi people,
with this number we begin a new newsletter to cover main arguments of corwar
game, following the steps of Paul Kline's '_push off_' and Brant Thomsen's
'The 94 Warrior'.
Hints, suggestions, criticism are welcome; as is welcome anyone wanting to
join the staff. This number is care of Beppe Bezzi <bezzi@iol.it> and next
one will be made by Myers Bremer <bremermr@ecn.purdue.edu>, we hope to have
a couple of others, so as we can post the newsletter weekly, without too
much effort, in a rotating schedule.
Come on ad join, the pay isn't good but you can write for something with a
worldwide distribution :-)
Most care will be taken of the -94 hill, the one where best battles are,
other hills will have only reports of main events, unless some fight will
start in them too. This week we cannot cover the beginners hill because the
test warrior submitted got meaningless results. Hope the bug in Pizza's
hills will soon be fixed.
First contribute to Core Warrior was from Andersen F. Scholl, that sent me
the header, thanx.
----------------------------
For everyone interested in Corewar
FAQs are available by anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as
pub/usenet/news.answers/games/corewar-faq.Z
FTP site is: ftp.csua.berkeley.edu /pub/corewar
Web pages are at:
http://www.stormking.com/~koth
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~pizza/koth
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
94 Hill - Standings
# %W/ %L/ %T Name Author Score Age
1 45/ 41/ 13 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 150 15
2 37/ 31/ 32 Torch t18 P.Kline 143 219
3 40/ 37/ 23 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 143 187
4 35/ 28/ 37 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 142 207
5 24/ 6/ 70 Die Hard P.Kline 142 4
6 40/ 38/ 23 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 141 358
7 37/ 34/ 29 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 141 321
8 35/ 31/ 34 Father & Son Maurizio Vittuari 139 77
9 41/ 44/ 14 Frontwards Steven Morrell 139 154
10 42/ 46/ 12 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 139 24
11 35/ 33/ 32 Brain Vamp B.Bezzi, M.Paulsson 138 89
12 37/ 37/ 26 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 137 782
13 41/ 46/ 13 Super Bevo 4a John Wilkinson 137 1
14 40/ 45/ 15 Leprechaun deluxe Anders Ivner 136 124
15 35/ 35/ 30 Firestorm 08 Beppe Bezzi 134 75
16 41/ 49/ 10 SandBlast 1a John K. Wilkinson 134 35
17 35/ 39/ 26 Tornado 1.8 Beppe Bezzi 131 73
18 34/ 40/ 26 Cthulhu v7 John K. Wilkinson 129 47
19 24/ 28/ 48 Twimpede Jay Han 120 6
20 26/ 33/ 42 replicator M R Bremer 119 2
In this moment we have standard non-p warriors in majority on the hill and
keeping strongly the top with the q-scanner Leprechaun on speed followed by
the bomber Torch and the vampire myVamp; the first switcher is Jack in the
box, followed by Paul's mysterious object Die Hard, that now seems to die a
little and score a lot more. Comparing scores with last week's ones, is
worth noting the rise of Armory from the bottom to near the top, this
veteran seems to have found a new life.
--------------------
94 - What's new
This week many new warriors have appeared in the 94 hill, to disappear short
after; the tournament first round imposed maximal secrecy to everyone (but
me :-) Worth noting are:
1 35/ 25/ 40 test jtm09 Beppe Bezzi 145 1
1 39/ 34/ 27 aMixture Paulsson 144 1
2 47/ 40/ 13 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 153 1
4 30/ 21/ 49 test jtm08 Beppe Bezzi 139 1
5 43/ 45/ 12 Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) John Wilkinson 141 1
5 44/ 47/ 10 TESTP Maurizio Vittuari 141 1
6 25/ 10/ 65 Die Hard P.Kline 140 1
Of those new warriors only Leprechaun on speed and Anti Die-Hard Bevo are
still on hill, others were but tests for the tournament, maybe we'll see
them on hill soon.
-----------------------
94 - What's no more
Only one near 100 :-(
21 27/ 24/ 49 Dirty thinking Beppe Bezzi 130 98
The real scoop was last week
21 38/ 53/ 9 Agony II Stefan Strack 122 912
Congratulation Stefan, you are number 2 in 94 Hall of Fame
----------------------
What's old
12 37/ 37/ 26 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 137 782
6 40/ 38/ 23 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 141 358
7 37/ 34/ 29 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 141 321
2 37/ 31/ 32 Torch t18 P.Kline 143 219
4 35/ 28/ 37 Jack in the box Beppe Bezzi 142 207
3 40/ 37/ 23 myVamp v3.7 Paulsson 143 187
9 41/ 44/ 14 Frontwards Steven Morrell 139 154
Thermite is dominating the age scoring; now is in 4th place in the Hall of
Fame passing Blue Funk 3
-------------------------
HALL OF FAME
* means the warrior is still running; > score isn't exact
Pos Name Author Age Strategy
1 Iron Gate 1.5 Wayne Sheppard 926 CMP scanner
2 Agony II Stefan Strack 912 CMP scanner
3 Blue Funk Steven Morrell 869 Stone/ imp
4 Thermite 1.0 Robert Macrae 782 * Qscan -> bomber
5 Blue Funk 3 Steven Morrell 766 Stone/ imp
6 HeremScimitar A.Ivner,P.Kline 666 Bomber
7 B-Panama X Steven Morrell 518 Stone/ replicator
8 NC 94 Wayne Sheppard 387 Stone/ imp
9 Cannonade P.Kline >378 Stone/ imp
10 Torch t17 P.Kline 378 Bomber
11 Armory - A5 Wilkinson 358 * P-warrior
12 Lucky 3 Stefan Strack >350 ?
13 Request v2.0 Brant D. Thomsen 347 Qvamp -> vampire
14 Dragon Spear c w blue 346 ?
15 juliet storm M R Bremer 333 Stone/ imp
16 TimeScape (1.0) J. Pohjalainen 322 Replicator
17 Phq Maurizio Vittuari 321 * P-warrior
18 Rave 4.1 Stefan Strack 320 CMP scanner
19 Christopher Steven Morrell 289 Vampire
19 Aeka T.Hsu 289 Stone/ imp
20 Marcia Trionfale Beppe Bezzi 246 Replicator
That's all I was able to do. I have a 'hole' from last number of -The 94
Warrior- and the beginning of my personal archives in june 95.
I need help from you to fill the Hall of Fame exactly, in particular exact
scores of Lucky and Cannonade and missing or wrong strategies. TIA
------------------
Nandor's and Stefan's Fall Core War Tournament (NSFCWT)
(details at http://www.stormking.com/~koth/nsfcwt.html)
Round one is just finished, the battle was really an hard one and half the
contenders are closed in a single point difference. The strategic choices of
players have been different, some choose to play best in standard, some in
multi, and some made a compromise. Two of the warriors mentioned before in
-What's new- have showed down in the tournament (yes my testjtm09 is Rhino,
and it's not very different from the one I published :-) while some have
used their warriors in the 94 hill.
Now the challenge is against the White warrior.
I hope many more will join the tournament, it's free and sure it's fun. Even
beginners are invited to join; you have nothing to lose, you can improve
your redcoding, comparing your warriors with those of more expert players,
and, seen that some rounds will have problems never met before (white
warrior, team play, normal programs in redcode), may also be that a new
player will beat some veteran in those unknown fields of redcoding.
To subscribe, it's possible even in the middle of tournament, mail Stefan
Strack <stst@idnsun.gpct.vanderbilt.edu>
Now, in short, the results:
Name one-on-one multi combined
_____________________________________________
P.Kline 5 10 7.5
Paulsson 7 8 7.5
Beppe Bezzi 8 6 7
M R Bremer 10 4 7
Maurizio Vittuari 6 7 6.5
Anders Ivner 9 2 5.5
Steven Morrell 1 9 5
John K. Wilkinson 3 5 4
Derek Ross 4 3 3.5
G. Eadon 2 1 1.5
Here the results of the one-on-one challenge:
Rank Name Author %W %L %T Score
___________________________________________________________________________
1 endpoint . M R Bremer 40 28 32 1678
2 Leprechaun on speed Anders Ivner 43 38 18 1631
3 Rhino Beppe Bezzi 37 31 32 1566
4 aMixture Paulsson 36 33 31 1520
5 Tom&Jerry Maurizio Vittuari 31 31 38 1430
6 Die Hard P.Kline 17 7 76 1410
7 Miss Careless Derek Ross 32 38 30 1391
8 Cthulhu v8 John K. Wilkinson 21 19 60 1352
9 Mythicon v1.2 G. Eadon 29 46 25 1242
10 Try fitting THIS name i Steven Morrell 25 41 34 1208
The results for 1000 rounds of "all-against-all":
_____________________________________________
Die Hard by P.Kline scores 14162
Results: 0 16 26 42 86 168 179 228 137 49 69
Try fitting THIS name into eight characters or less! by Steven Morrell
scores 13308
Results: 0 2 25 41 89 157 182 227 135 49 93
aMixture by Paulsson scores 12656
Results: 1 8 6 31 82 157 177 230 134 49 125
Tom&Jerry by Maurizio Vittuari scores 12382
Results: 0 2 10 24 80 163 179 233 137 49 123
Rhino by Beppe Bezzi scores 10987
Results: 0 0 5 22 56 144 167 220 137 49 200
Cthulhu v8 by John K. Wilkinson scores 8590
Results: 1 2 12 18 28 83 120 185 124 49 378
endpoint . by M R Bremer scores 8425
Results: 0 8 12 17 26 77 119 173 120 49 399
Miss Careless by Derek Ross scores 6494
Results: 1 0 13 6 23 47 79 149 118 49 515
Leprechaun on speed by Anders Ivner scores 4992
Results: 4 11 4 2 8 17 47 110 94 49 654
Mythicon v1.2 by G. Eadon scores 4581
Results: 1 1 1 9 12 25 46 117 97 49 642
Waiting results I submitted second round White warrior to Pizza; he
performed very well, here are results:
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 07:08:22 -0700
From: Internet Pizza Server <pizza@ecst.csuchico.edu>
To: bezzi@iol.it
Subject: 94 : White warrior challenge results
Program "White warrior" (length 17) by "Nandor & Stefan"
(contact address "bezzi@iol.it"):
has challenged the ICWS '94 Draft hill.
White warrior wins: 19
Phq wins: 28
Ties: 203
White warrior wins: 102
Leprechaun on speed wins: 81
Ties: 67
White warrior wins: 4
Jack in the box wins: 2
Ties: 244
White warrior wins: 15
Father & Son wins: 30
Ties: 205
White warrior wins: 51
Brain Vamp wins: 25
Ties: 174
White warrior wins: 91
Thermite 1.0 wins: 61
Ties: 98
White warrior wins: 51
Torch t18 wins: 93
Ties: 106
White warrior wins: 47
Frontwards wins: 137
Ties: 66
White warrior wins: 135
SandBlast 1a wins: 45
Ties: 70
White warrior wins: 76
Armory - A5 wins: 93
Ties: 81
White warrior wins: 87
myVamp v3.7 wins: 93
Ties: 70
White warrior wins: 126
Leprechaun deluxe wins: 71
Ties: 53
White warrior wins: 84
Anti Die-Hard Bevo (3c) wins: 102
Ties: 64
White warrior wins: 89
Firestorm 08 wins: 90
Ties: 71
White warrior wins: 105
Cthulhu v7 wins: 42
Ties: 103
White warrior wins: 88
Tornado 1.8 wins: 74
Ties: 88
White warrior wins: 19
Twimpede wins: 2
Ties: 229
White warrior wins: 188
Web wins: 30
Ties: 32
White warrior wins: 0
simple wins: 2
Ties: 248
White warrior wins: 5
Die Hard wins: 8
Ties: 237
Program "White warrior" (length 17) by "Nandor & Stefan"
;strategy White warrior for round 2 of Nandor and Stefan's fall 1995 tournament
;strategy Out of senseless cruelty, we'll show the load file format only :-)
;strategy Results will be published in the newsletter -Beppe
White warrior wins: 9
Ties: 233
Your overall score: 131.714286
Die Hard has been pushed off the ICWS '94 Draft hill.
The current ICWS '94 Draft hill:
6 26/ 21/ 52 White warrior Nandor & Stefan 132 1
Not bad for something we have to beat 80% of times.
Nandor, Stefan, you are not more out of warriors in Pizza hill :-)
---------------------------
The hint
Replicators (part 1)
Having to make the hint of the week, I start with the kind of warriors I
like more and I can do better, replicators, or paper; the sort of warrior
that use the sheer number to overcome the enemy.
Paper warriors, like every other, have evoluted a lot from the beginnings of
the game; presently they use almost all the so called 'silk' style, i.e.
splitting before copying. This can be done only under 94 rules because
requires post increment and a-field addressing. Now let's give a look at a
very simple guy.
start spl 1
mov -1, 0 ;generate 3 parallel processes
1 silk spl.a @0, 100 ;split
2 mov.i }silk, >silk ;copy
3 jmp.a silk, {silk ;repeat the thing resetting pointer
First two lines generate 3 processes that execute the same line one after
the other, before executing the next. First line creates another process to
execute line start+1, then process 1 copy start line over the mov and
process two splits, adding another process to execute silk. The simpler way
to generate an exact number of parallel processes is converting the number
required in binary 3 -> 11, subtract one -> 10, use a spl 1 for every one
and a mov -1,0 for every zero. Much simpler to do than to tell. For the
warrior to work we need at least as many processes as we have lines to copy.
Let's go back toour warrior; now we have three processes executing line 1
they split, where, at the a-field address i.e. the address pointed by
b-field of line 0 locations away, the b-field of the line they are
executing, 100 locations away. When all three process executed this line we
have three others process ready to execute line silk+100, there is nothing
to execute here but we have some time because new generated processes are
queued after those executing the split.
First three processes now execute line 2, they move what's pointed by
a-field of line 1 to the location pointed by b-field of line 1 then they
increment both a and b field of line 1. First process moves line 1 100 cells
away from line 1 and leaves line 1 changed such a way:
1 silk spl.a @1, 101
so it copyes line 2 101 cells away from silk, just after the previous line.
Process 3 does same thing copying line3.
Now it's the turn of the new processes, those created by line1, to execute,
they are not more sitting on an empty cell but over the copy of line1
created by line2, they execute it and begin creating third generation copy.
First three processes now reach line3, now the warrior has modifyed in such way
1 silk spl.a @3, 102
2 mov.i }silk, >silk
3 jmp.a silk, {silk
The a-field of line 3 is the address of the jump while b-field decrements
a-field of line 1 so that the warrior can go on splitting and copying.
This one is not a real warrior, his offensive potential is too small, it's
just to understand how a silk replicator works. Simple improvements are
adding an add line so as copies are not packed one near the other, and
adding some bombing to make it a bit nastier. The warrior following is
Paperone, my first warrior to enter 94 hill, it was on top of beginner hill
for some time a few months ago.
It's similar to the example in the FAQ (very similar indeed :-) but to make
it run well I had to work on the many constants.
;redcode-94
;name Paperone
;author Beppe Bezzi
;strategy Silk replicator
;kill Paperone
;assert CORESIZE == 8000
start spl 1, <300 ;\
spl 1, <150 ; generate 7 consecutive processes
mov -1, 0 ;/
silk spl 3620, #0 ;split to new copy
mov.i >-1, }-1 ;copy self to new location
;this is another way to copy using multiple processes, the other one is a
bit better because we can decrement the cell we are splitting to and, if we
are lucky, kill an imp.
mov.i bomb, >2005 ;linear bombing
mov.i bomb, }2042 ;A-indirect bombing for anti-vamp
;The first bomb laid down acts as a pointer for the following stream, laying
down a carpet.
add.a #50, silk ;distance new copy
jmp silk, <silk ;reset source pointer, make new copy
bomb dat.f >2667, >5334 ;anti-imp bomb
This is very effective against 3 points imp rings. A lucky hit on the
executing process can kill many others; other kinds of bombs are used, by me
at least, we'll discuss them another time.
Another time we'll discuss more advanced questions: another replicating
engine, that is better than this one, and some other paper related topics
like spread constants, bombs, strategies...
For questions mail me <bezzi@iol.it> or if you think it's of general
interest post to rec.games.corewar
Anyone with hints or warriors to publish is welcome.
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