*** CLIMA VII Contest ***
			   (contest scenario)

		Mehdi Dastani, Juergen Dix, Peter Novak
	      http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/CLIMAContest/


*** Scenario
Recently, rumours  about the discovery of gold scattered around deep
Carpathian woods made their way into the public. Consequently hordes of
gold miners are pouring into the area in the hope to collect as much of
gold nuggets as possible. Two small teams of gold miners find themselves
exploring the same area, avoiding trees and bushes and competing for the
gold nuggets spread around the woods. The gold miners of each team
coordinate their actions in order to collect as much gold as they can
and to deliver it to the trading agent located in a depot where the gold
is safely stored.


*** Technical Description of the Scenario

** General Description
Before the tournament, agent teams will be randomly divided into groups.
Each team from one group will compete against all other teams in the
same group in a series of matches. The winners from these groups form
new groups. Each team in a new group will again play against all other
teams in the group in a series of matches. Each match between two
competing teams will consist of several (odd number of) simulations. A
simulation between two teams is a competition between them with respect
to a certain configuration of the environment. Winning a simulation
yields 3 points for the team, draw 1 point and loss 0. The winner of the
whole tournament is evaluated on the basis of the overall number of
collected points in the matches during the tournament. In the case of
equal points, the winner will be decided on the basis of the absolute
number of collected gold items. Details on the number of simulations per
match and the exact structure of the competition will depend on the
number of participating teams and will be specified later.

In this contest, the agents from each participating team will be
executed locally (on the participant's hardware) while the simulated
environment, in which all agents from competing teams perform actions,
is run on the remote contest simulation server. The
interaction/communication between agents from one team should be managed
locally, but the interaction between individual agents and their
environment (run on the simulation server) will be via Internet.
Participating agents connect to the simulation server that provides the
information about the environment. Each agent from each team should
connect and communicate to the simulation server using one TCP
connection.

After the initial phase, during which agents from all competing teams
connect to the simulation server, identify themselves and get a general
match information, the competition will start. The simulation server
controls the competition by selecting the competing teams and managing
the matches and simulations. In each simulation, the simulation server
does in a cyclic fashion provide sensory information about the
environment to the participating agents and expects agent's reaction
within a given time limit. Each agent reacts to the received sensory
information by indicating which action (including the skip action) it
wants to perform in the environment. If no reaction is received from the
agent within the given time limit, the simulation server assumes that
the agent performs the skip action. Agents have only a local view on
their environment, their perceptions can be incomplete, and their
actions may fail. After a finite number of steps the simulation server
stops the cycle and participating agents receive a notification about
the end of a match.

** Preparation stage and Communication protocol
Several days before the start of the competition, the contest organisers
will contact participants via e-mail with details on time and Internet
coordinates (IP addresses/ports) of the simulation server. Participants
will also receive agent IDs necessary for identification of their agents
for the tournament. Agents communicate with the simulation server using
TCP protocol and by means of messages in XML format. The details about
communication protocol and message format will be specified later.

** Initial Phase
At the announced start time of the tournament, the simulation server
will go on-line, so that agents from participating teams will be able to
connect. After a successful initial handshake during which agents will
identify themselves by their IDs and receiving acknowledgment from the
server, they should wait for the start sign. During the initial phase,
agents will be allowed to use the ping interface of the simulation
server to test the speed of their network connection. The initial
connecting phase will take a reasonable amount of time in order to allow
agents to be initialised and connected and will not be less than 5
minutes.


* Team, Match, and Simulation
An agent team consist of 4 software agents with distinct IDs. There are
no restrictions on the implementation of agents, although we encourage
the use of computational logic based approaches. The tournament consists
of a number of matches. A match is a sequel of simulations during which
two teams of agents compete in several different settings of the
environment.  For each match, the server will 1) pick two teams to play
it and 2) starts the first simulation of the match. Each simulation in a
match starts by notifying the agents from the participating teams and
distributing them the details of the simulation. These will include for
example the size of the grid, depot position, and the number of steps
the simulation will perform.  A simulation consists of a number of
simulation steps. Each step consists of 1) sending a sensory information
to agents (one or more) and 2) waiting for their actions. In the case
that agent will not respond within a timeout (specified at the beginning
of the simulation) by a valid action, it is considered to perform the
skip action in the given simulation step. 


- Environment objects
The (simulated) environment is a rectangular grid consisting of cells.
The size of the grid is specified at the start of each simulation and is
variable. However, it can be not more than 100x100 cells. The [0,0]
coordinate of the grid is in the top-left corner (north-west). The
simulated environment contains one depot, which serves for both teams as
a location of delivery of gold items. The environment can contain the
following objects in its cells:
    - obstacle (a cell with an obstacle cannot be visited by an agent)
    - gold (an item which can be picked from a cell)
    - agent
    - depot (a cell to which gold items are to be delivered in order
      to earn a point in a simulation)
    - mark (a string data with a maximum of 5 characters which can be
      read/written/rewritten/removed by an agent)
There can be only one object in a cell, except that an agent can enter
cells containing gold, depot or mark and a gold item can be in a marked
cell visited by an agent. At the beginning of a simulation the grid
contains obstacles, gold items and agents of both teams.  Distribution
of obstacles, gold items and initial positions of agents can be either
hand crafted for the particular scenario, or completely random. During
the simulation, gold items can appear randomly (with a uniform
distribution) in empty cells of the grid. The frequency and probability
of gold generation will be simulation specific, however not known to
neither agents, nor participants. At the start of each simulation agents
will get details of the environment (grid size, depot position, etc.).
Agents will get information about their initial position in the
perception information of the first simulation step.

- Perception
Agents are located in the grid and the simulation server provides each
agent the following information:
    - absolute position of the agent in the grid
    - the content of the cells surrounding the agent and the content of
      the cell in which the agent is currently stands in (9 cells in
      total)
If two agents are standing in each other's field of view, they will be
able to recognise whether they are an enemy, or whether they belong to
the same team. However an agent is not able to recognise whether the
other agent carries a gold item or not. If there is a mark in a cell,
which is in an agent's field of view, it will also receive the
information about its content.

- Actions
Agents are allowed to perform one action in a simulation step. The
following actions are allowed:
    - skip
    - move east
    - move north
    - move west
    - move south
    - pick
    - drop
    - mark
    - unmark
All actions, except the skip action, can fail. The result of a failed
action is the same as the result of the skip action. An action can fail
either because the conditions for its successful execution are not
fulfilled, or because of the information distortion (described later in
this text).

skip:
The execution of the skip action does not change the state of the
environment (under the assumption that other agents did not change it).
When an agent does not respond to a perception information provided by
the simulation server within the given time limit, the agent is
considered as performing the skip action.

Movements:
An agent can move in four directions in the grid. The execution of move
east, move north, move west, and move south changes the position of the
agent one cell to the left, up, right, and down, respectively. A
movement action succeeds only when the cell to which an agent is about
to move does not contain another agent or obstacle. Moving to and from
the depot cell is regulated by additional rules described later in this
description.

Picking and dropping:
An agent can carry only one gold item which it successfully picked up
before. An agent can pick up a gold item if 1) the cell in which an
agent currently stands in contains the gold, and 2) the agent is
currently not carrying another gold item. An agent can drop the gold
item it carries only in the cell it currently stands in. The result of a
successful pick action is that in the next simulation step the acting
agent will be considered to carry a gold item and the cell, it currently
stands in, will not contain the gold item any more. The result of a drop
action is that the acting agent is not carrying the gold item anymore
and that the cell it currently stands in will contain the gold item in
the next simulation step. Dropping a gold item to a depot cell increases
the score of the agent's team by one point. The depot cell will never
contain a gold item that can be picked by an agent. 

Marking and unmarking:
An agent is allowed to mark a cell it currently stands in by a string
data with a maximum of 5 characters. The result of a mark action is that
the cell in which an agent is currently located, will contain a string
in the next simulation step. The depot cell, and cells containing an
obstacle cannot be marked. By marking a previously marked cell, the old
mark is removed and replaced by the new one. If the cell in which an
agent is currently located, contains a mark, then the agent receives the
string in the perception information from the simulation server. An
agent is allowed to unmark the marked cell it currently stands in. The
result of an unmark action is that the cell will not contain a mark in
the next simulation step.  Agents do not get immediate feedback on their
actions, but can learn about the effects of their actions (and the
actions of other agents) from the perception information that will be
sent to them in the next simulation step.

- Depot cell
There are strong conditions imposed on the depot cell:
1.- an agent not carrying a gold item is unable to enter the depot cell
(the result of such an action is the same as if the depot was an
obstacle);
2.- agent which entered the depot cell should drop the gold item as the
very next action it execute;
3.- after dropping the gold item in a cell, an agent has to leave the
cell in the first subsequent simulation step when he will be able to
move (i.e. when there was an empty cell at the time of agent's move
action).

If an agent does not leave the depot in the first possible opportunity,
or will not drop the gold item as the very next action after entering
the depot, the simulation server will punish it by "teleporting" it away
(it will be moved to a random cell not containing another agent, or
obstacle in the grid by the environment simulator).

- Timeout
The agents should inform the simulation server which action they want to
perform within a timeout specified at the beginning of the simulation.
The contest organisers do not take any responsibility for the speed of
the Internet connection between the server and participating agents.
Timeouts will be set reasonable high, so that even participants with a
slow network connection will be able to communicate with the server in
an efficient way. Simulation timeouts will not be lower than 2 and
higher than 10 seconds per one simulation step.

A ping interface will be provided by the server in order to allow
participating agents to test the speed of their connection during the
initial phase of the tournament. Note that only a limited number of ping
requests will be processed from one agent in a certain time interval.
Details on this limit will be provided later.

- Information Distortion
Agents can receive incomplete information about the environment from the
simulation server. The simulation server can omit information about
particular environment cells. However, this happens only with a certain
probability not higher than 20%. Also, an agent's action can be
unsuccessful with a specified probability. In such a case the simulation
server evaluates the agent's action in the simulation step as the skip
action.

** Final Phase
In the final phase, the simulation server sends a message to each agent
allowing them to disconnect from the server. By this, the tournament is
over.

*** Submission and Winning criteria
A submission consists of a 5 page description (analysis and design) of
your solution and the participation of your agent team in the
tournament.  The winner of the contest will be the best performing team
with the highest number of points from the tournament. The quality of
the description of analysis, design and implementation of the
multi-agent system, the elegance of its design and implementation will
influence the final decision.

*** Miscellaneous
Our simulation server does not provide a facility for inter-agent
communication. Agents from a team are allowed to communicate and
coordinate their actions locally.

Based on the number of participants, organisers will decide whether to
run the competition in a one or more rounds. The continuous connection
of agents from the first match to the last one cannot be guaranteed.  In
the case of agent-to-server connection disruption, agents are allowed to
reconnect by connecting and performing the initial tournament phase
message exchange again. Generally, participants are responsible for
maintaining connections of their agents to the simulation server. In the
case of connection disruption during the running simulation, server will
proceed with the tournament simulation, however the action of a
disconnected agent will be considered as the skip action. In the case of
a serious connection disruption, organisers reserve the right to
consider each case separately.


*** Technical Support and Organisational Issues
We are running a mailing list for all the inquiries regarding CLIMA VII
contest. Feel free to subscribe.

The list address: climacontest2006@in.tu-clausthal.de
Subscriptions via list web pages at
http://www2.in.tu-clausthal.de/mailman/listinfo/climacontest2006

The most recent information about the CLIMA VII contest can be found on
the official CLIMA VII Contest web pages at
http://cig.in.tu-clausthal.de/CLIMAContest/.