GamesmanMPI

MPI-Based Solver for Two Player Abstract Strategy Games

(More project description here)

Loading a Game

Games to be solved are loaded via the command line, with the following syntax:

mpiexec -n <number of processes> python solver_launcher.py <your game file>

For example, you could load our example game, Four-To-One, by running

mpiexec -n 5 python solver_launcher.py test_games/four_to_one.py

Your game file must follow the conventions outlined in the API

Testing

Also included is a very testing script, testing.sh, which allows you to time the game solver within a certain range of process counts, and also compare that to local solver performance. Use the following syntax:

bash testing.sh <your game file> <min # of processes> <max # of processes> <# of runs per process> <-l> <-np>

Where the -l tag includes testing with the local solver, and the -np flag runs the process with NumPy optimizations. Note that flags can occur in any order. To test Four-To-One with process counts ranging from 4 to 12, running each option 3 times, including the local solver, with the NumPy optimization, we would run

bash testing.sh test_games/four_to_one.py 4 12 3 -l -np

The results of the test are dumped to two files: tests/solve_results.txt and tests/time_results.txt

Description of API

There are four elements which a game class must implement:

• initial_position

2. gen_moves
3. do_moves
4. primitive

The exact way in which you represent a game state or moves (ints, lists, etc.) does not matter, as long as you are consistant and it is hashable. For the puposes of this guide, we'll use an integer to represent our gamestate and moves, since we our example is Four-To-One.

initial_position( )

Parameters

• returns: gamestate-type
  • The initial position for game

Example

def initial_position(x):
    return 4

gen_moves( gs )

Parameters

• gs: gamestate-type
  • The gamestate for which you are generating moves
• returns: list of move-type
  • All legal moves from that gamestate

Example

def gen_moves(x):
    if x == 1:
        return [-1]
    return [-1, -2]

do_move( gs, m )

Parameters

• gs: gamestate-type
  • The gamestate from which you are making a move
• m: move-type
  • The move that you are making
• returns: gamestate-type
  • The new gamestate after the move has been made

Example

def do_move(x, move):
    return x + move

primitive( gs )

Parameters

• gs: gamestate-type
  • The gamestate that you are analyzing
• returns: list of move-type
  • The primitive type for gs, if it is a pimitive (WIN, LOSS, TIE, DRAW)

Example

def primitive(x):
    if x <= 0:
        return LOSS