Tutorial

At its heart, Galcon BOTS is a set of command line tools to enable you to engage in Galcon bot battles. All of the options can be changed via command line or via the config file.

Galcon BOTS includes a GUI to assist in launching all the sub-processes. On Windows click on run-launcher. On Mac just click on the app. You will be able to modify the config file via the config tab (or your favorite text editor.)

gbots launcher

Setup

Click on the app to start the setup process. Be ready to paste in your license keys. You will get to name len(keys)-1 bots.

gbots setup

Practice

If you are new to Galcon, try out the [practice] tab. You can adjust the difficulty in the config tab by giving yourself or the enemy a handicap.

gbots practice -handicap player+100,enemy+0

Server

Next, check out the [server] tab and watch some bots battle it out. You can adjust the speed of the battles, which bots, and handicap via the config.

gbots server -speed 12 -bots rand,sqrt,classic -handicap sqrt+100

Client

You can play on the local server yourself by starting up the [client].

gbots client -name phil

Bots

You can also add your own bots to the server. In config, set the exec command of your bots. Then press enter in the [bots] tab to start your bots.

gbots pipe -name bot -exec 'python bot.py'

To run a pipe/bot command from the launcher, update the config:

[cuzco]
name=cuzco
action=pipe
exec=python cuzco.py

The name you give to the ini section can be launched directly from the command line:

gbots cuzco

For bots to work you must first start the server or proxy.

Replays

If logging is enabled, you can use the [replays] tab to re-watch previous matches.

gbots replay logs/1234567890.log

Proxy

Once your bots are ready you can pit them against the world. Start up the [proxy] instead of the server and your bots will play online.

gbots proxy

gbots proxy -headless

Stats

See how your bots are competing world wide in the [stats] tab.

Config

Use the config tab to change the options. Any section that has action=pipe will appear in the bots tab. Any other section with an action will appear as its own tab.

vi config.ini

Help

For further help, please check out the [faq], or read the documentation for each of the [actions]. There is also a spec for the [protocol] available.

less tutorial.md
less faq.md
less actions.md
less protocol.md