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Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Battlecode Programming Competition

Massachusetts Institute of Technology via MIT OpenCourseWare

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This course is conducted as an artificial intelligence programming contest in Java. Students work in teams to program virtual robots to play Battlecode, a real-time strategy game. Optional lectures are provided on topics and programming practices relevant to the game, and students learn and improve their programming skills experientially. The competition culminates in a live Battlecode tournament. This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

Syllabus

1. Introduction to Battlecode.
2. Writing Your First Player.
3. Navigation.
4. Git Repository.
5. Swarms, Artillery, and Mines.
6. Numerical Strategy.
7. The Lost Lecture.
8. Lessons from the Sprint Tournament.

Taught by

Maxwell Mann

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5.0 rating, based on 1 Class Central review

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  • Profile image for Vishal Sharma
    Vishal Sharma
    The Battlecode Programming Competition is an exhilarating deep dive into AI strategy and distributed systems. Unlike standard coding challenges, it requires you to write autonomous code for a virtual army, forcing you to think critically about resource management and pathfinding under strict computation limits.

    The learning curve is steep, but the MIT-provided resources and the active community make it accessible for determined students. It’s more than just a course; it’s a high-stakes experiment in optimization. Whether you win or lose, you'll leave with a much sharper understanding of Java and real-time decision-making algorithms. Highly recommended for competitive programmers!
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