----- Original Message -----
From: Spence, Meredythe

To: tvmoos@connect.carleton.ca

Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 5:06 PM

Subject: Hello

_____________________________________________ 
As you may have heard we went live with Electronic Art's AI programming competition on November 3rd. http://info.ea.com/company/company_tw.php


Since this our first foray into programming competitions we have decided to keep it small and is thus by invite only. We are challenging students at the following organizations (see rules on website for Canadian schools) to enter 4 or more AI programs, in doing so they will be competing for a high-end PC and a complete line of EA games.


It would be great if students from your school would enter into the Competition. For those schools who have 5+ entries into the competition, EA is going to donate a prize to your game development club and/or student society. If this interests you, please let me know and we can chat about next steps.


Also, I have a package of information about the competition. Please let me know the best mailing address and I can send this to you ASAP.


For your information, I have included some helpful tips for the competition which can be found below.


If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.


Thanks, 
EA's University Relations Team


Helpful Tips for Tank Wars Programming Challenge


So, you have decided to enter the programming competition.Ê You are going to write the AI that beats all others.Ê


What should you be focusing on:


1) You should collaborate with your fellow students who are also entering the competition.Ê This is a team competition.Ê We require that the code be written by a single author for each AI, however we do encourage discussions and the sharing of ideas.


2) You should test your tank AI out against other tank AI's.Ê Look out for weaknesses. 
3) You might want to build an internal representation of the world, remember that some of the worlds will have walls in them so you might have to do some path planning to find the health and fuel stations.


4) You might want to analyze your opponents behavior and see if you can determine any weaknesses in them. 
5) You want to iterate your AI's start off simple and build the behavior from there.Ê 
6) Carefully study the emergent behavior or your tank.