dmangame

debugging

Writing an AI is easy enough, but debugging an incorrectly functioning AI can be a pain.

exceptions

When writing an AI, you probably want to find out whenever your AI throws an exception. When running the game normally, each AI runs in its own thread of execution. When an AI throws an exception, its in that thread, so the game will continue to run after an AI throws an exception. The exception will be printed to screen. You can log the game output with:

python main.py ai/simpleai.py > game.log 2>&1

Alternatively, if the game is run with the –profile option, gameplay will stop when an AI throws an exception. This is because profiling requires that the execution stays single threaded in order to profile each AI more accurately.

highlighting the map

There are three functions in ai.AI for printing debug information on the map.

    def highlightLine(self, start, end)
    def highlightRegion(self, start, end=None)
    def clearHighlights(self)

The AI can paint a line, a square or a region onto the map using these. The objects will stay persistent from turn to turn until the AI calls clearHighlights(), so an AI can accumulate more and more information on the map.

In order to see the highlights from a given AI, use the –hl option before the AI’s name when loading it:

python main.py --hl ai/simpleai.py

This tells the game that you want to see what this AI is printing on the screen. The debug information will be visible in the GUI and in the web replay.