[Icfp04-discuss] K.I.S.S. Team Ants

[Matt Kearse]

>> Are there any other New Zealand entries?

> The DylAntz team was 4/7 NZ.

I'm also from NZ - I didn't manage to get a team together so entered
on my own.

My solutions are at.
http://netwin.co.nz/users/matt@netwin.co.nz/icfp2004/mattk-1.ant
http://netwin.co.nz/users/matt@netwin.co.nz/icfp2004/mattk-2.ant

I ran out of time to add many interesting strategies to them but at
least they manage to collect all the food on the few sample world maps
with 1 hive removed that I had time to test with.

One strategy I did implement which I haven't seen anyone else mention
yet (I haven't read all the participant pages yet so someone may have
mentioned it) is to avoid falling into ant traps by checking both
leftahead and rightahead for a foe ant before making any exploring
moves. If I see an enemy ant at either location, I move somewhere
else. This avoids all the static ant traps, but can still fall into
the clever non-static ant traps that some people came up with.

With a bit more time I'm sure I could have made my ants perform better
than they do now.

Matt.