BATTLECODE

Welcome to Battlecode, MIT's premier programming competition! Battlecode is a unique challenge that combines game strategy, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. Form a team of one to four and compete for a chance at $30,000 in prizes! Anyone can participate, regardless of experience or location.

Register for Battlecode 2020 here.
MIT students: Pre-register to take Battlecode (6.147) for credit!

Battlecode is a real-time strategy game, for which you will write an AI player. In Battlecode, two teams of virtual robots roam the screen, managing resources and executing different strategies against each other. Your AI player will need to strategically manage your robot army and control how your robots work together to defeat the enemy team. As a contestant, you will learn to use artificial intelligence, pathfinding, distributed algorithms, and communications to make your player as competitive as possible.

Teams are given the Battlecode software and a specification of the game rules in early January. Throughout the month, you will refine your player, and compete in scrimmages and tournaments against other teams. During these tournaments, the autonomous players are pitted against each other in a dramatic head-to-head fashion. At the end of the month, the Final Tournament is played out in front of a live audience at MIT, with the top teams receiving cash prizes. The total prize pool is over $30,000.

Still not convinced? Check out the video below for a quick overview of Battlecode!

Battlecode in the Media

Battlecode is a well-known competition, even outside of MIT. Check out the links below to see some of the discussions that developers, contestants, and sponsors of Battlecode have had online.

2019 Postmortem by "NP-cgw" (Finalist)
Reddit AMA, by the Battlecode Dev Team
Blog Post by Cory Li, former Battlecode director and winner
2016 Postmortem by "future perfect" (1st)

• Team size: 1-4 people.
• Eligibility: Anyone is welcome to participate in Battlecode! However, we can only consider teams of all full-time students to be eligible for the final tournaments. Note that non-MIT students (and high school students) are eligible too. Check out the 2020 tournament info for more information.
• Schedule: Battlecode 2020 will begin on January 6, 2020, at 7 pm EST. Lectures will be held throughout the first two weeks at 7pm. The final tournament will be on February 1.
• Location: For those present at MIT, lectures will be held in 32-155 (with free food!). Note that these will also be streamed on Twitch.
• Prizes: $30,000+ in cash.

What languages are supported?

Battlecode 2020 will support Java. Don't worry if you don't know Java though — our lecture series will teach you everything you need to know!

Do I need to be physically at MIT to participate?

No — in fact, you do not even need to be an MIT student! High schoolers and graduate students are welcome.

So Battlecode is an AI competition? But what's the game?

We can't tell you yet, and we won't reveal next year's game until Battlecode 2020 kicks off next year. The game changes every year, and part of the fun of Battlecode is in not knowing what you're gonna get :). However, we can tell you that the game tends to be a turn-based strategy game, and robots need to demonstrate a mastery of both broad resource management (macro), and organized, efficient combat tactics (micro).

Wait, AI as in machine learning and neural nets?

No, the AI we are talking about has more or less nothing to do with machine learning and neural nets. Rather, Battlecode is about pathfinding, resource management, communication and combat tactics, both on a local scale (e.g., choosing to attack the enemy robot with the least health first) and on a global scale (which units to send where and when).

Note that you are writing code before the actual game is run, which means that what you are doing is equipping your robots with the capability to make these strategic decisions on their own in real-time — hence the term artificial intelligence. Machine learning has not historically been used, since computing power is limited and the game is a highly complex environment. However, we'd be thrilled and excited to see a successful implementation of machine learning in Battlecode!

Do I have to be good at programming?

Actually, Battlecode makes a great first dive into programming and AI! We'll be holding daily lectures throughout January 2020 to cover the basic skills needed to play the game. The lectures will be streamed and uploaded on Twitch, and we'll also have a Discord server to provide support, so fear not if you are participating remotely! We also run a separate Beginners' Tournament (with its own prize pool!) for first-time MIT competitors.

What is the tournament format?

We will be holding several tournaments throughout the month of January. The penultimate tournament will determine the finalists, who will compete at MIT in the Final Tournament.

What are scrimmages?

A scrimmage is a friendly game between two teams, which you can watch and analyze afterwards. This allows teams to test their strategies against real adversaries. Scrimmaging will be available as soon as Battlecode begins.

How do I register for Battlecode?

Sign up for Battlecode 2020 here!

I'm an MIT student. How do I get course credit for Battlecode?

Battlecode is an official 6-unit MIT course, with the course number 6.147. In addition to registering on this site once IAP starts, you must also register for 6.147 through MIT's system. At that point, in order to get credit, you must create a player that is able to beat a reference player that we will release later in the tournament.

Help! I have more questions.

Feel free to email us at battlecode@mit.edu!

This competition is run by Teh Devs, a group of MIT students. Contact us at battlecode@mit.edu.

Battlecode 2019 had a Sci-Fi theme in which players fought to destroy each other in a great galactic Crusade. The map landscape was scattered impassable terrain, meaning units had to find their way around. However, all maps were symmetric for fairness. Players won if they destroyed the opponents' Castles. In the case where both surived longer than a thousand rounds, the winner was decided by whoever had the most Castles, most unit value, or a random number generator (in order of precedence). Available units included castles, chruches, pilgrims, prophets, and preachers, each of which had a difference purpose. Creating different units and taking different actions consumed one or both of the two resources available on each map: Karbonite and Fuel.

An explanation of the game specifications can be found here. Our Github repository is open source and you can find it here. Here is an example bot. Many contestants found using this viewer to be helpful.

Below are a couple of post-portems providing a competitors' view of the game:
2019 Postmortem by "NP-cgw" (Finalist), including a good intro to the game
2019 Postmortem by "smite" (1st)
2019 Postmortem by "Big Red Battlecode" (Finalist)
2019 Postmortem by "Oak's Last Disciple"
2019 Postmortem by "Double J" (17th-32nd)
2019 Postmortem by "CitricSky" (3rd)

Battlecode 2018 had a Sci-Fi theme in which players controlled different factions of Earth-inhabiting robots in a fight for supremacy as they colonized Mars to escape a dying Earth. Players had to wage war in battlefields both on Mars and Earth. Earth maps were always symmetric for fairness, but not necessarily Mars, as the red planet hadn't been fully explored yet. Similarly to many RTS games, players could mine a resource called Karbonite, with which they could build their army. An army could consist of workers, knights, rangers, healers, and mages, each which had different specialties. The winner was whoever was left alive (eliminated the opponent), or in the case of both teams surviving, the victor was chosen by whoever had the highest combined value of all living units, most Karbonite, or a random number generator if necessary, in that order of precedence.

The game specifications can be found here, with language-specific documentation in Python, Java and C. Check out the 2018 Github and scaffold. You may find Max Mann's videos useful as well, particularly his lecture series on how to code a bot for Battlecode 2018 in Python. He provides an installation guide for Battlecode 2018 here. You will also find some tutorials in the Battlecode Youtube channel.

2019 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to destroy the Castles of the opposing Martian group.

2018 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to escape to Mars before the Great Flood on Earth.

2017 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to either donate to the reforestation fund or destroy the enemy.

2016 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was destroy the enemy archons while surviving attacks from zombies.

2015 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was destroy the enemy headquarters. Each team has up to six towers on the map, and destroying these towers weakens the enemy.

2014 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to gain milk either by herding cows into pastures or by destroying opponent pastures.

2013 MIT Final Tournament
Compared to previous games, this year's game featured more of an emphasis on economy and macro strategy. The goal was to destroy the other team.

2012 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to build a chain of power nodes from your base to the enemy's base.

2011 MIT Final Tournament
The 2011 game featured robots with modular components. The goal of the game was to destroy the other team. Unfortunately, we don't have a video of the 2011 final tournament.

2010 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to gather points by constructing contiguous blocks of buildings. The area contained within the convex hull formed by the buildings generated points each round. Of course, the other way of winning was to wipe out the other team.

2009 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to gather points by mining resource deposits or wipe out the other team.

2008 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to gain territory by capturing towers.

2007 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to destroy the enemy archons or have the most production at the end of the game.

2006 MIT Final Tournament
Unfortunately, we don't have a video of the 2006 RoboCraft Final Tournament. The 2006 game was a "King of the Hill" game in which the object of the game was to spend more time than your opponents on the hill squares.

2005 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to capture the enemy flag or survive when the walls came pushing in as the game ended. Battlecode was still under the name "RoboCraft".

2003 MIT Final Tournament
The object of the game was to destroy the enemy queen or have a closer unit to your enemy's queen.

Main Tournament

Year	Team	Members
2019	smite	Vivek Myers, Nikhil Sardana, Mihir Patel, Vinjai Vale
2018	Orbitary Graph	Aron Granberg, Simon Lindholm, Mårten Wiman
2017	Arbitrary Graph Restoration Fund	Aron Granberg, Simon Lindholm, Johan Sannemo, Mårten Wiman
2016	future perfect	Luchang Jin, Greg McGlynn
2015	the other team	Greg McGlynn
2014	that one team	Greg McGlynn
2013	Teh Nubs	Tommy Liu, Xinran Liu, Albert Wu
2012	fun gamers	Yanping Chen, Cory Li, Haitao Mao, Justin Venezuela
2011	Gunface	Steven Arcangeli, Adrian Mullings, Benjamin Peters, Jelle van den Hooff
2010	My Archon Died BellmanFording the Stream	Steven Bartel, David Chen, Curtis Liu, Spenser Skates
2009	gtg ice skating lessons	Steven Bartel, Randall Shults, Spenser Skates, Karen Sun
2008	In Memory of James Albrecht	Dan Gulotta, Hyun Soo Kim, Albert Ni, Yufei Zhao
2007	My Other Programming Language is Scheme	Dany Qumsiyeh, Mark Tobenkin
2006	Mortar Kombat	Jasper Lin
2005	CDG	Clifford Frey, James Roewe
2004	java_lang_String	Joshua Marron, Dmitriy Rogozhnikov
2003	Hyperbola	David Greenspan, Aaron Iba
2002	Sons of Scion	Ilya Baran, Edward Kogan, Dmitriy Rogozhnikov
2001	MalamalamaWikiwiki	Chris Peikert

Newbie Tournament

The Newbie division is for MIT students who are participating in Battlecode for the first time.

Year	Team	Members
2019	hello	Alex Theimer
2018	StarMarket is Moving to Mars	Yong Hui Lim, Yogeshwar Velingker, Christopher Xu, Calvin Yost-Wolff n
2017	Anarchy	John Mikhail
2016	foundation	Brian Shimanuki
2015	Team2	Julian Contreras, Alex Markovits, Andrew Mikofalvy
2014	1260/3	Matthew Chang, Xinyu Liang, Lawrence Wu, Leon Zhou
2013	Teh Nubs	Tommy Liu, Xinran Liu, Albert Wu
2012	lowercase letters	Tim Kaler

High School Tournament

New in 2017, the High School division is for high school students.

Year	Team	Members
2019	Knights of Cowmelot	Lawrence Chen, Walden Yan, Benjamin Qi, Chris Pan
2018	howrusogood??	Lawrence Chen, Benjamin Qi, Richard Qi, Franklyn Wang
2017	whatamidoing	Charles Wang

Open Tournament

Battlecode held an open tournament in the spring from 2008-2011. From 2012-2017, non-MIT teams were allowed to compete in the main tournament in the winter. In 2008 only, the top 16 teams from the MIT tourmanent were not eligible for the open tournament. In 2018, the Open Tournament was run after the IAP tournament and included any team with a submission.

Year	Team	Members
2018	Orbitary Graph	Aron Granberg, Simon Lindholm, Mårten Wiman
2011	Team 8	Tom Morgan
2010	My Archon Died BellmanFording the Stream	Steven Bartel, David Chen, Curtis Liu, Spenser Skates
2009	I for one welcome our new team 207 overlords	Dan Gulotta, Yufei Zhao
2008	Donner Party of 5	Asilata Bapat, Anand Deopurkar, Eric Liu, Vinayak Ranade

Battlehack

Battlehack is an Battlecode hackathon, where contestants have only 24 hours to complete their bots. First ran in November 2017, Battlehacks feature their own games with experimental rulesets.

Year	Team	Members
2019 MIT	Water Buffalo	Alexander Katz
2018 West	Ivanteam	Ivan Belonogov
2017 MIT	Not a Hivemind	Skye Thompson, Cel Skeggs, Joseph Jerkins, Alexander Lam

Why Sponsor Battlecode?

Ever wanted a way to filter through job applicants, and find only the best recruits? The Battlecode competition is just that. Because it attracts the "best of the best," Battlecode provides targeted results in three key areas:

• Recruiting: Sponsoring Battlecode is more than just having your name on a banner - Battlecode gives select companies unprecedented access to meet and recruit the cream of the crop of MIT programmers, both graduate and undergraduate. Representatives from sponsor companies will be invited to the Finalists' Celebration, a networking event where they will get to meet the top contestants personally. In addition, a book of the contestants' resumes will be collected and made available to sponsors.
• Exposure: Battlecode is a prestigious competition that is well-known throughout the entire MIT community. Sponsors will have their logos displayed on our high-traffic web site and wherever Battlecode is advertised. Sponsors will also help award prizes and address the crowd at the final tournament.
• Involvement: Sponsors will get to help make Battlecode a fun and rewarding experience. They will have access to the source code of all entries and be involved in the judging and awarding of academic prizes.

For more information about the sponsorship experience, including pricing, email us at battlecode-sponsorship@mit.edu.