08.CodeRulerRedux

The newest version of my CodeRuler bot can be found

Here

After cleaning up my code to fit the Java conventions, I carefully read the review of my bot. There were several areas that the reviewer felt I could improve my bot. I considered every suggestion and tried to improve my strategy.

The first area I tried to improve was the knight AI. The reviewer mentioned that fleeing when faced with a stronger enemy may not be the best approach. I realized that, while dying needlessly should be avoided, knights should try to weaken the enemy forces until they are on the verge of death. I, therefore, added a condition that only allows knights to flee if they are under half health.

Another area that needed attention was the peasant AI. They covered ground very well, avoided enemy knights, claimed land quite efficiently. The problem was that they would get stuck after a certain point. I tried solving this problem in many different ways. First, I tried taking every square on the map into consideration while scoring, thus preventing equal scoring of all directions. This caused a timeout immediately. I then tried the same strategy, evaluating only every 5 squares. This prevented them from moving within 5 squares of the walls. I ended up staying with my previously strategy, as the peasants would eventually claim the entire board. I left this attempted strategy in the source code (commented out).

I added one final tweak that helps increase my score. Once I control 70 peasants, all castles should create knights. Since knights are worth more points then peasants in the final score, this can increase your score slightly when you have completely wiped out the enemy. It does not matter in a close game, but in a complete victory it will increase your score.

From this revision of my Code Ruler, I realized that many of my coding habits do not follow the convention. I will try to break all of my bad coding habits. Certain things (like giving an opening bracket its own line) I will may always prefer, but I can now try to follow a more universally accepted standard.