Dipgame

"DipGame" is a Multiagent Systems' testbed developed at the IIIA-CSIC in Barcelona. Apart from entertaining human players, the goal is to allow Artificial Intelligence researchers to test their models by implementing them into a bot. At DipGame you can find the software tools needed to develop such bots. Registered players can play against bots or other players. It's actually the only application for playing Diplomacy against bots negotiating.

The game was invented in 1954 as a boardgame by Allan B Calhamer.

There is already a large community that plays and develop their bots. Dipgame is been selected as a testbed because human beins can play negotiating against other people or bots. If you don't create aliances you can't win,but probably there will be moments where you must lie.

Diplomacy is a strategy board game that situates the player in Europe in 1901 with the goal of conquering the Continent. Each player is in charge of the armed forces of a major European power and must decide which battles its various units should fight. Diplomacy is played by 7 players that compete but that also have to co-operate to be able to win. Players secretly negotiate to settle alliances. They select whom to ask for help, argue to get information AbOUT other agents' goals, and so on. All the game is about building trust and reputation, maintaining relationships, negotiating deals, arguing with the aim of persuading other players,... Trust is very important in Artificial Intelligence. Trust depends on time and the number of experiences, and the importance of this experiences.

This game doesn't depend on random. The possibility of creating bots allows us to experiment and simulate situations that happen in real life. People negotiate in real world to obtain benefits or satisfaction, people trust and distrust.

Their motto is : In Diplomacy, your victory is not given by swords, but by words. And it is your tongue what will have to be sharp, not your weapon. What it is important in this research is the possibility of the different players to negotiate, as the goal of the research is to teach to the computer to negotiate as a human being would do. Previous works in this field failed because of the lack of experiments.

Bot develpoment

Bots are software agents (programs) that play. In dipGame you can play Diplomacy against bots. You also can develop your own bot. This is specially interesting for multiagent systems' researchers as described in Fabregues & Sierra, 'Diplomacy game: the test bed'.

These are the resources that you will need:

dip A framework for bot development.
dipNego A communication library that allows players to negotiate.
dipWebClient A web-based interface to visualise and play games.
dipGameManager A program that receives the movements that each player want to perform, manages the game and informs those players about the outcome of their movements.
dipBots Available bots. Use them as an example of how you can develop your own.
dipTestbedTools A sourceforge project is already available for the development of these tools at http://diptestbedtools.sourceforge.net.

Applications

Artificial Intelligence will be used by big companys in orders to make decisions. Computers are able to resolve complicated algorithems and the computers will decide for us. This doesn't mean that the whole world will be in the computers hands, although they will be able to negotiate with people or other computers in very different ways, such us large purchases for a company,etc..