Bot Talk

[CaptainFritz28]

Continuing to love playing Bot games but wish the developers 1) had some deep diplomacy history and 2) knew that 18 centers wins a game My #1 adv9ce for playing bots is to always immediately cancel your game if italy attacks Austria outright as this rarely happens in real games - live or online or bots ... although I very much doubt that the bots are programmed to learn anything...

Yes, most of the time playing as Austria and having bot Italy attack you is curtains, because R or T does too, but, every now and then, something like this happens...

https://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=801488

They were NOT giving up Rumania, and no compromise would make either relent.

[V+]

Apologies if this has been asked previously, but are the bots playing PPSC?

Also, did someone once mention that y’all have better gunboat bots? Any chance we could have a go at them?

Thanks!

[kestasjk]

Apologies if this has been asked previously, but are the bots playing PPSC?

You mean are they playing to win or are they optimizing for supply centers? I'm almost certain they're playing to win, but not 100% sure, I'll ask when I next get a chance

Also, did someone once mention that y’all have better gunboat bots? Any chance we could have a go at them?

We've got three bot types currently running:
- The original gunboat bots created by Philip Paquette at MILA, which was the first Diplomacy AI to use modern deep learning and plays in the human vs bots gunboat games e.g. on play.webdiplomacy.net .
These bots are very good, I've never beat them and people have asked for a lower difficulty setting, but some players here can beat them fairly consistently. The nice thing about these bots is they're very quick and efficient, so can play hundreds of countries at the same time

- Our France vs Austria gunboat bot which was developed by Meta AI research called DORA, which I'm told is really good, but it needs to run on a powerful GPU and is a lot slower

- The full-press CICERO bots also by Meta AI, the one that was published in Science, which was designed for a supercomputer running multiple bots and 5 minute/phase games scaled down to a consumer gaming machine so can only handle a few games and is still in beta.
I enable this option when the games are done then disable it after some games are running to stop it getting overloaded, so it's disabled for new games but is playing:

(PM me for an override link to try the full-press bot, until we can put a proper queuing system in)

There are also some gunboat bots that Meta AI made that improved on the original gunboat bots, but we don't run those as they need more resources and there isn't much demand for harder gunboat bots. Mostly we're asked to make them easier.

[V+]

Apologies if this has been asked previously, but are the bots playing PPSC?

You mean are they playing to win or are they optimizing for supply centers? I'm almost certain they're playing to win, but not 100% sure, I'll ask when I next get a chance

Just so, thanks! I’ve played hundreds of seven-handed gunboat games against the bots, and it seems to me that a plausible explanation for their seemingly consistent endgame behavior of allowing another power to solo is that the bots simply aren’t trying to win or draw.

Also, did someone once mention that y’all have better gunboat bots? Any chance we could have a go at them?

We've got three bot types currently running:
- The original gunboat bots created by Philip Paquette at MILA, which was the first Diplomacy AI to use modern deep learning and plays in the human vs bots gunboat games e.g. on play.webdiplomacy.net .
These bots are very good, I've never beat them and people have asked for a lower difficulty setting, but some players here can beat them fairly consistently. The nice thing about these bots is they're very quick and efficient, so can play hundreds of countries at the same time

There are also some gunboat bots that Meta AI made that improved on the original gunboat bots, but we don't run those as they need more resources and there isn't much demand for harder gunboat bots. Mostly we're asked to make them easier.

I’d love see what the better ones are capable of… I find the current bots rather predictable. Love playing them, though. After all these years, it’s really fantastic to be able to play a game on demand!

[Devonian]

I used to play the GvI bot (named FB) and found it extremely challenging. Too challenging actually. The current bot (named Kestas bot) seems too easy. If we have several different bots, Would it be possible to be able to choose which bot to have as your opponent?

[Bladerunners]

The creators of the bots did a neat job but the creators probably needed to learn the game itself more re. the concepts of winning (i.e 18 centers) and also in real games (gunboat or not) players would never do what the bots often do as Italy....

[Chibi-Alex]

I love playing the bots, but just like the Italy to Austria (literally just happened to me, AGAIN) it seems they are all pre-disposed to attack the human relentlessly. I've had a few occasions where normal openings occur and I'll support the bot and they support me, but overall they're ruthless. They'll ignore completely wide open SCs to go after me. Nothing important, just wanted to vent

[DougJoe]

I love playing the bots, but just like the Italy to Austria (literally just happened to me, AGAIN) it seems they are all pre-disposed to attack the human relentlessly. I've had a few occasions where normal openings occur and I'll support the bot and they support me, but overall they're ruthless. They'll ignore completely wide open SCs to go after me. Nothing important, just wanted to vent

My experience in my 511 bot games (73 as each power) is that they don't gang up on the human (which is something that the folks who implemented the bot admins have also said). I've had a couple of bad rounds (a round being one game as each power) recently, but here's my current solo percentages as each power (and I don't cancel games based on opening moves):

Austria - 19.18%
Germany - 28.77%
England - 30.14%
Russia - 38.36%
France - 43.84%
Italy - 60.27%
Turkey - 68.49%

If the bots were really programmed to hunt down the human, there's no way my numbers would be this high. I've had some whole game long alliances with the bots... but it is very common, playing as Austria against the bots, to get squished by I/R/T.

[Chibi-Alex]

Holy smokes! Guess I just really stink

I love diplomacy, but my work schedule is so erratic I don't like to take on human games because I don't want to spoil anyone else's good time, so I do a lot of bot games. I have a couple solo wins, none with Italy or Austria.

[PRINCE WILLIAM]

Is there any possibility of full-press bot games?
We used to have them, but then they were abandoned.

[Bladerunners]

I think creators messing around with anyone they say the bots don't know who the human player is haha... they only play certain openings and certain moves vs the human player but not other bots...

[learnedSloth]

Bots could get control of their countries only after spring 1901, which could be randomized by frequencies obtained from an opening database. That should fix at least the issue of Italy always attacking Austria.

[DougJoe]

I think creators messing around with anyone they say the bots don't know who the human player is haha... they only play certain openings and certain moves vs the human player but not other bots...

Every - and I mean every - opening I've seen the bots play against me I've seen them play against another bot.

https://webdiplomacy.net/contrib/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=309944#p309944

This is an analysis I did a while back of the bots' opening moves as each power for all of my games about 140 games ago. Sadly, technical and temporal limitations have prevented me from updating this data, but in review it feels like it's been about the same since I compiled it.

[Bladerunners]

Problem with Austria is the bot developers strangely designed the Italian Bot to attack Austria in 80% of openings which is unlike anything that happens in human gunboat diplomacy...(or any version of diplomacy) ... but anyway, still fun.

[Diplomacy&Warfare]

Did the press bots get removed? There's no option for press bot games anymore.

[wintergreen]

Will there ever be any variant bots?