Corewar Tiny Evolver TEV v0

The Corewar Tiny Evolver is a small (< 1.5K) program written in GWBasic. After a couple of hours evolving, TEV is capable of producing programs able to compete with hand-written progams and enter the Corewar nano hill.

Instructions

Place TEV0.BAS, TEV0.BAT and a selection of benchmark warriors in the same directory. The parameters in line 10-20 are set up for the nano hill but can be adjusted if required.

Run TEV0.BAT. Evolution will continue until you decide to terminate the program. Throughout the process, the best warrior can always be found in the file BEST.WAR.

Program Layout

• batch file: generate a list of benchmark warriors, run the evolver
• 10-20: set evolution parameters (see Parameters)
• 30-50: initialise the evolver
• 60-110: mutate current warrior based on how well it performs
• 120-130: write current warrior to file
• 140-180: benchmark current warrior, abort if poor performance
• 190: if benchmark warrior is best to date, save a copy
• 200-220: replace a lower scoring warrior with current warrior
• 230-250: if score below threshold, discard warrior and select another
• repeat from 60

Parameters

The evolution parameters are set in lines 10-20

• K: coresize
• L: maximum warrior length
• P: number of warriors in the evolution pool
• R: number of rounds per benchmark battle
• M$: addressing modes to be used
• O$: opcode/modifier combinations to be used
• P$: pMARS command line

TEV0.BAT

@dir /b /o-d *.red >w.evo
@echo END >>w.evo
@gwbasic tev0
@erase ?.evo

TEV0.BAS

10 P$="pmars -s 80 -p 80 -c 800 -l 5 -b -k -P":R=142:L=5:P=20:K=80
20 O$="mov.ispl.bdjn.f;xxxx":M$="<@>{*}$#"
30 DIM W$(500),A$(L,P),B$(L,P),C(L,P),D$(L,P),E(L,P),S(P):RANDOMIZE TIMER
40 W=0:OPEN "w.evo" FOR INPUT AS #1:M=LEN(M$):H=80
50 INPUT #1,W$(W+1):IF W$(W+1)<>"END" THEN W=W+1:GOTO 50 ELSE CLOSE #1
60 FOR I=1 TO L:IF RND*S(1)/H<.6/L THEN C(I,1)=(C(I,1)+INT((RND-RND)*K))MOD K
70 IF RND*S(1)/H<.7/L THEN E(I,1)=(E(I,1)+INT((RND-RND)*K))MOD K
80 IF RND*S(1)/H<.3/L THEN B$(I,1)=MID$(M$,INT(RND*M)+1,1)
90 IF RND*S(1)/H<.4/L THEN D$(I,1)=MID$(M$,INT(RND*M)+1,1)
100 IF RND*S(1)/H<.3/L THEN A$(I,1)=MID$(O$,INT(RND*LEN(O$)/5)*5+1,5)
110 NEXT I
120 OPEN "w.evo" FOR OUTPUT AS #1:FOR I=1 TO L
130 PRINT #1,A$(I,1)+" "+B$(I,1);C(I,1);","+D$(I,1);E(I,1):NEXT I:CLOSE #1
140 S(1)=0:FOR I=1 TO W:SHELL P$+" w.evo "+W$(I)+" >s.evo"
150 OPEN "s.evo" FOR INPUT AS #1:INPUT #1,Z$:CLOSE #1:Z=1
160 IF MID$(Z$,Z,1)<>" " THEN Z=Z+1:GOTO 160
170 S(1)=S(1)+3*VAL(LEFT$(Z$,Z))+VAL(RIGHT$(Z$,LEN(Z$)-Z))
180 IF I>W/5 AND S(1)*150/H<I*R THEN 240 ELSE NEXT I
190 S(1)=100*S(1)/(W*R):IF S(1)>H THEN H=S(1):SHELL "copy w.evo best.war"
200 FOR J=2 TO P:IF S(J)>S(1) THEN NEXT J:GOTO 230
210 FOR I=1 TO L:A$(I,J)=A$(I,1):B$(I,J)=B$(I,1):C(I,J)=C(I,1)
220 D$(I,J)=D$(I,1):E(I,J)=E(I,1):NEXT I:S(J)=S(1)
230 IF S(1)>H*.9 THEN 60
240 Z=INT(RND*(P-1))+2:FOR I=1 TO L:A$(I,1)=A$(I,Z):B$(I,1)=B$(I,Z)
250 C(I,1)=C(I,Z):D$(I,1)=D$(I,Z):E(I,1)=E(I,Z):NEXT I:S(1)=S(Z):GOTO 60