AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

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Expand view Topic review: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Octavious » Wed May 12, 2021 4:22 am

Ogion wrote:
Wed May 12, 2021 3:50 am
kestasjk wrote:
Tue May 11, 2021 9:20 am
The bots are just developing more rapidly than we had anticipated.. Now they’re getting bored with games they’re losing and going into CD, next they’ll start meta-gaming with each other, then multi-accounting. :S

Edit: but the issue should now be resolved.
In other words, they're on the cusp of passing the Webdip Turing Test.
Dangerous times indeed. Many of our members would struggle to pass the Turing Test.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Ogion » Wed May 12, 2021 3:50 am

kestasjk wrote:
Tue May 11, 2021 9:20 am
The bots are just developing more rapidly than we had anticipated.. Now they’re getting bored with games they’re losing and going into CD, next they’ll start meta-gaming with each other, then multi-accounting. :S

Edit: but the issue should now be resolved.
In other words, they're on the cusp of passing the Webdip Turing Test.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by kestasjk » Tue May 11, 2021 9:20 am

The bots are just developing more rapidly than we had anticipated.. Now they’re getting bored with games they’re losing and going into CD, next they’ll start meta-gaming with each other, then multi-accounting. :S

Edit: but the issue should now be resolved.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by dargorygel » Fri May 07, 2021 11:46 am

Talanthalos wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 10:34 am
Am I doing something wrong or are the bots broken? Game is not proceeding.
We are having some bot issues. It is being worked on. Hopefully finished soon!

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Talanthalos » Fri May 07, 2021 10:34 am

Am I doing something wrong or are the bots broken? Game is not proceeding.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Claesar » Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:06 am

nathan1312 wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:24 pm
I just atarted a FvsA against a bot. But the game doesnt proceed to the next round after pressing "ready".

A known issue atm?
Your game has proceeded.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by nathan1312 » Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:24 pm

I just atarted a FvsA against a bot. But the game doesnt proceed to the next round after pressing "ready".

A known issue atm?

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by DougJoe » Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:12 am

wpfieps wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:00 pm
Has anybody solo'ed against the bots while playing Austria? If so, would you care to share the link to your game? I'm starting to wonder if it's even possible.
Napoleon of Oz wrote:
Tue Oct 06, 2020 1:34 am
...appreciate there is real luck in some of the eastern powers moved - and it sounds like that is the real issue:

I've got 3 solos in 15 tries:
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=275264
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=310300
http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=324171

The third solo was interesting because I guessed wrong and moved Vie->Tri... but Germany moved Mun->Tyo and bounced Rom->Ven->Tyo... and France moved to Pie. So Italy stopped attacking me and went to deal with impudent France. I didn't take an Italian center until the last turn of the game (all 3 Italian home centers!)

Of the other 12 games, Italy didn't attack in 1901 in three of them:
One was going decently and I got to 11 before Germany soloed
One I think I stabbed Italy too soon and I got sort of stuck and Germany won
One I was doing OK but made a tactical mistake and lost a SC to Russia the same turn Italy stabbed and took Trieste in 1904.

That leaves 9 games where Italy attacked in the Spring of 1901 which is 60%, slightly worse than a coin flip odds if you are playing Austria. I have not figured out what to do in those situations. I suspect Turkey is the ally of choice at that point, even though powering up Turkey seems wrong strategically, but Russia seems less actively (rather than passively) able to help against Italy... but figuring out how to convince the bot of that quickly enough seems easier said than done.

Interesting enough, in the 90 bot games I've played where I wasn't Italy, the bots have exactly 2 wins as Italy and both of those did involve an attack on Austria in 1901 (one in Spring, the other Autumn). As a contrast, I'm up to 9/17 solos for Italy and I have yet to try attacking Austria in 1901.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Napoleon of Oz » Tue Oct 06, 2020 1:34 am

A quick solo as Austria against the bots - appreciate there is real luck in some of the eastern powers moved - and it sounds like that is the real issue:

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?g ... #gamePanel

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Calmar » Tue Oct 06, 2020 1:27 am

I soloed as Austria in “Botty 3”

There was a stalemate in the Balkans with Turkey for several years with the same moves ordered over and over. In frustration, I ordered supporting moves for Turkey to take a Russian centre at the risk of losing one of mine but it worked. Turkey then took on Russia and I helped him until I was in position to stab him and go on to solo.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Matticus13 » Tue Oct 06, 2020 12:30 am

wpfieps wrote:
Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:00 pm
Has anybody solo'ed against the bots while playing Austria? If so, would you care to share the link to your game? I'm starting to wonder if it's even possible.
https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?game ... #gamePanel

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by wpfieps » Mon Oct 05, 2020 8:00 pm

Has anybody solo'ed against the bots while playing Austria? If so, would you care to share the link to your game? I'm starting to wonder if it's even possible.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by bo_sox48 » Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:53 pm

We would need a lot more development help than we currently have to make that happen on any predictable timeline.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by datapolitical » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:42 pm

Is there any interest among the devs at implementing the Deepmind bots as well once they become available?

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by ColinR » Sun Jun 14, 2020 5:21 pm

DeepMind's just weighed in with their own reinforcement learning agents for no-press Diplomacy: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.04635.pdf

They report outperforming the Paquette et al. bots now implemented on WebDiplomacy.

Their agents are not yet open-sourced, but they promise to do so if their paper is accepted for publication (p.7).

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by jmo1121109 » Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:02 pm

Bark wrote:
Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:58 pm
Fair enough, but what about the country they are assigned? Do the AIs have different "personalities?"

For giggles, I played as Austria about ten times yesterday. Skynet was Italy every time. 9/10 times, he either moved Venice to Trieste in S01, Venice to Tyrolia with Rome to Venice in S01 or convoyed A Tunis to Albania in S02. I played with defeating him in some games and started out hostile as well, but about half the time I was quite docile, either holding Trieste or sailing to Albania. I wasn't prompting him.

In any instance where he was hostile, he never changed his strategy. Juggernaut came to kick both are assess, he's still attacking me. France came to kick his ass, he's still attacking me.

I wanted a different AI to play as Italy. Could you all just randomly assign which AI gets which country?
The AI's personality is assigned for each specific game and each country during that game. The personality is not user account specific. So zultar bot, jane bot etc wouldn't behave any differently than skynet bot other than the random aggressiveness factor assigned when the game started.

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Bark » Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:58 pm

Fair enough, but what about the country they are assigned? Do the AIs have different "personalities?"

For giggles, I played as Austria about ten times yesterday. Skynet was Italy every time. 9/10 times, he either moved Venice to Trieste in S01, Venice to Tyrolia with Rome to Venice in S01 or convoyed A Tunis to Albania in S02. I played with defeating him in some games and started out hostile as well, but about half the time I was quite docile, either holding Trieste or sailing to Albania. I wasn't prompting him.

In any instance where he was hostile, he never changed his strategy. Juggernaut came to kick both are assess, he's still attacking me. France came to kick his ass, he's still attacking me.

I wanted a different AI to play as Italy. Could you all just randomly assign which AI gets which country?

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by goldfinger0303 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 6:27 pm

"
From a programming standpoint we cannot take suggestions on how to improve the bots play. You *will* run into situations where the bot's moves could have been better, you might have ideas on how the bot could be a better player, etc. We cannot accept any of those. The training of the bots is something done by the university partners and we do not have control over it. At a future point we might, and we do have some plans to help them improve the bots for 1 vs 1 variants, but I do not want anyone to get offended when we say we can't take your suggestions, it simply isn't possible."

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by jmo1121109 » Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:28 pm

Bark wrote:
Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:07 pm
Again, you're not really understanding my point. I am not asking for the AIs to play worse. I'm asking for the AIs to PLAY BETTER. From my last, playing as Austria is not my concern; it's a general example. I'm asking you to provide feedback to the developers, not "fix" anything. There are a few shortcomings that could be addressed in a future effort. Whether or not it is addressed isn't the point. I work in IT and have worked with software developers on many occasions. They need feedback. No software effort is one and done.

Specific feedback items are:

1. Bad Endgame Strategy:

1a. Each country needs to prioritize capturing their 18 centers. The marginal centers may vary, but there are usually a dozen or so specific centers that a specific country cannot do without, varying with each country. In the endgame, countries need to prioritize attacking these centers not already in their possession. (Ex. A game with a very strong Anglo-German alliance, France eliminated, Russia eliminated, Austria eliminated, and a moderately sized Turkey and decent sized Italy: An Anglo-German alliance makes sense in the beginning, maybe even the middle, but England cannot win a solo with an equally strong Germany in the way. England needs to prioritize attacking the German centers instead of allying with Germany to attack Turkey when both England and Germany have more centers each than Turkey. This is especially true when Italy is doing a decent job keeping Turkey contained on its own just from being in the way in the Med.)

1b. Likewise, each country needs to be programmed to identify a country rapidly expanding and prioritize stopping the expansion. (Using the same example above, Germany needs to be aware that the English stab is coming, in pursuit of it's solo effort, and have forces in reserve to address that stab, instead of keeping Turkey contained. Likewise, England needs to see an equally strong Germany as a potential threat, since Germany will require some centers that England already has for its solo effort, in Scandinavia for instance.)

1c. Going with the two above, the AIs need to know about STALEMATE LINES. Once three or four countries are eliminated, holding or breaking through the stalemate lines should be everyone's top priority. Also if an AI has a good stalemate line held with distracted enemies in front and an "Ally" behind this line in the rear, the AI should stab the country behind the stalemate line to either conquer or contain them, which is related to the two points above.
(Again with the previous example, maybe Italy and Turkey have been bitter enemies all game, but now they must come together and support each other to prevent the English solo.)

2. Home centers should be a priority in the beginning:
A lot of AIs get completely destroyed relatively early. They seem to not care about Country A taking home centers in the back because they are obsessed with attacking Country B in the front. A human player would do their best to patch relations in the front and swing to the back to retake their home center. AIs don't or can't change their strategy like this.

3. Go beyond gunboat:
Allow a human player to explicitly message the AIs with a move request, and have the AIs consider it. For example, if an AI can help a person take a center, but there's a 50%/50% proposition as to which is the attacking unit, the message can settle it. Likewise, let the AI send a message to the human player requesting the same assistance with a move request too. If the support goes well, "good-will" is established. If it does not go well, "ill-will" is established.


The above are a few notes that I've come to after playing with the AIs a lot. There could be more specific feedback to be discovered later. Now, regarding my previous posts, here are some notes that could be useful feedback to the developers as well.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... ocache=635

In S12, both England and Germany decide to attack Turkey, who never did anything to either of them and was trying to get in position to help hold them to prevent a French solo. They didn't even hold each other. Instead, they help France solo, despite the fact that France conquered them both. What gunboat message did France send to get such cooperation? Indeed, in S13 England does it again, and in F13, England just gives up and supports the French solo.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... rand=49028

In A05, Italy decides to help Austria destroy Turkey despite it being the first gunboat interaction between the two of them. A06, Italy attacks for Smyrna, helping Austria. S07, Italy attacks for Smyrna again, but Austria gets Smyrna instead. A07, Italy attacks Austria in Smyrna. Repeat, Italy ATTACKS Austria! S08, Italy leaves. Two things going on here. First, Italy is being very stupid. His actions allow Austria to de facto win the solo should the game continue, if it had been a real game. Second, despite Italy attacking Austria, Austria elects to NOT take Venice with Trieste in S08. So you can tell me, "Input orders of support, gain a friend. Input orders of attack, gain an enemy," but that did not happen here, and no other variables were in play.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... ocache=962

Russia and Austria attack for Galicia in S01. Russia supports for Galicia in F01. Austria does the same in S02. Austria takes Warsaw in F02. Russia takes Warsaw back in S03. Clearly, Austria and Russia are not friends. All the while, Italy is battling for Austria's home centers the whole time. But, Russia decides to commit suicide and help Austria by screwing over Turkey in A05. So despite open aggression with Russia and Italy the entire game, Austria decided to stab Turkey, and Russia recognizes that this specific stab is coming? Then again in A06, Germany supports England, who supports Austria to help attack Turkey, which allows Italy to attack Turkey too. Germany and Turkey are usually considered natural allies in the game at this point, but the AI doesn't recognize this. In fact, only France was left out of the party of fighting Turkey, which is funny because Turkey is the easiest country to contain.


Again, I'm just asking you to forward feedback to the developers. Let them decide what to do with it. Even if it just goes into a folder with the code and they do nothing with it, maybe future developers will.
Can you pleasseeeeee read my initial post in this thread. viewtopic.php?p=102779#p102779

Re: AI bots on webDiplomacy: Skynet edition!

by Bark » Fri Jun 05, 2020 2:07 pm

Again, you're not really understanding my point. I am not asking for the AIs to play worse. I'm asking for the AIs to PLAY BETTER. From my last, playing as Austria is not my concern; it's a general example. I'm asking you to provide feedback to the developers, not "fix" anything. There are a few shortcomings that could be addressed in a future effort. Whether or not it is addressed isn't the point. I work in IT and have worked with software developers on many occasions. They need feedback. No software effort is one and done.

Specific feedback items are:

1. Bad Endgame Strategy:

1a. Each country needs to prioritize capturing their 18 centers. The marginal centers may vary, but there are usually a dozen or so specific centers that a specific country cannot do without, varying with each country. In the endgame, countries need to prioritize attacking these centers not already in their possession. (Ex. A game with a very strong Anglo-German alliance, France eliminated, Russia eliminated, Austria eliminated, and a moderately sized Turkey and decent sized Italy: An Anglo-German alliance makes sense in the beginning, maybe even the middle, but England cannot win a solo with an equally strong Germany in the way. England needs to prioritize attacking the German centers instead of allying with Germany to attack Turkey when both England and Germany have more centers each than Turkey. This is especially true when Italy is doing a decent job keeping Turkey contained on its own just from being in the way in the Med.)

1b. Likewise, each country needs to be programmed to identify a country rapidly expanding and prioritize stopping the expansion. (Using the same example above, Germany needs to be aware that the English stab is coming, in pursuit of it's solo effort, and have forces in reserve to address that stab, instead of keeping Turkey contained. Likewise, England needs to see an equally strong Germany as a potential threat, since Germany will require some centers that England already has for its solo effort, in Scandinavia for instance.)

1c. Going with the two above, the AIs need to know about STALEMATE LINES. Once three or four countries are eliminated, holding or breaking through the stalemate lines should be everyone's top priority. Also if an AI has a good stalemate line held with distracted enemies in front and an "Ally" behind this line in the rear, the AI should stab the country behind the stalemate line to either conquer or contain them, which is related to the two points above.
(Again with the previous example, maybe Italy and Turkey have been bitter enemies all game, but now they must come together and support each other to prevent the English solo.)

2. Home centers should be a priority in the beginning:
A lot of AIs get completely destroyed relatively early. They seem to not care about Country A taking home centers in the back because they are obsessed with attacking Country B in the front. A human player would do their best to patch relations in the front and swing to the back to retake their home center. AIs don't or can't change their strategy like this.

3. Go beyond gunboat:
Allow a human player to explicitly message the AIs with a move request, and have the AIs consider it. For example, if an AI can help a person take a center, but there's a 50%/50% proposition as to which is the attacking unit, the message can settle it. Likewise, let the AI send a message to the human player requesting the same assistance with a move request too. If the support goes well, "good-will" is established. If it does not go well, "ill-will" is established.


The above are a few notes that I've come to after playing with the AIs a lot. There could be more specific feedback to be discovered later. Now, regarding my previous posts, here are some notes that could be useful feedback to the developers as well.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... ocache=635

In S12, both England and Germany decide to attack Turkey, who never did anything to either of them and was trying to get in position to help hold them to prevent a French solo. They didn't even hold each other. Instead, they help France solo, despite the fact that France conquered them both. What gunboat message did France send to get such cooperation? Indeed, in S13 England does it again, and in F13, England just gives up and supports the French solo.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... rand=49028

In A05, Italy decides to help Austria destroy Turkey despite it being the first gunboat interaction between the two of them. A06, Italy attacks for Smyrna, helping Austria. S07, Italy attacks for Smyrna again, but Austria gets Smyrna instead. A07, Italy attacks Austria in Smyrna. Repeat, Italy ATTACKS Austria! S08, Italy leaves. Two things going on here. First, Italy is being very stupid. His actions allow Austria to de facto win the solo should the game continue, if it had been a real game. Second, despite Italy attacking Austria, Austria elects to NOT take Venice with Trieste in S08. So you can tell me, "Input orders of support, gain a friend. Input orders of attack, gain an enemy," but that did not happen here, and no other variables were in play.

http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameI ... ocache=962

Russia and Austria attack for Galicia in S01. Russia supports for Galicia in F01. Austria does the same in S02. Austria takes Warsaw in F02. Russia takes Warsaw back in S03. Clearly, Austria and Russia are not friends. All the while, Italy is battling for Austria's home centers the whole time. But, Russia decides to commit suicide and help Austria by screwing over Turkey in A05. So despite open aggression with Russia and Italy the entire game, Austria decided to stab Turkey, and Russia recognizes that this specific stab is coming? Then again in A06, Germany supports England, who supports Austria to help attack Turkey, which allows Italy to attack Turkey too. Germany and Turkey are usually considered natural allies in the game at this point, but the AI doesn't recognize this. In fact, only France was left out of the party of fighting Turkey, which is funny because Turkey is the easiest country to contain.


Again, I'm just asking you to forward feedback to the developers. Let them decide what to do with it. Even if it just goes into a folder with the code and they do nothing with it, maybe future developers will.

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