A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
- One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
- A competition involving a number of matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches. These are common in those sports and games where each match must involve a small number of competitors: often precisely two, as in most team sports, racket sports and combat sports, many card games and board games, and many forms of competitive debating. Such tournaments allow large numbers to compete against each other in spite of the restriction on numbers in a single match.
In game theory, a kingmaker scenario in a game of three or more players, is an endgame situation where a player who is unable to win has the capacity to determine which player among others will win. This player is referred to as the kingmaker or spoiler. No longer playing for themselves, they may make game decisions to favor a player who played more favorably earlier in the game. Except in games where interpersonal politics, by design, play a decisive role, this is undesirable.
A round-robin tournament is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn. A round-robin contrasts with an elimination tournament, in which participants/teams are eliminated after a certain number of losses.
In video games, artificial intelligence (AI) is used to generate responsive, adaptive or intelligent behaviors primarily in non-player characters (NPCs) similar to human-like intelligence. Artificial intelligence has been an integral part of video games since their inception in the 1950s. AI in video games is a distinct subfield and differs from academic AI. It serves to improve the game-player experience rather than machine learning or decision making. During the golden age of arcade video games the idea of AI opponents was largely popularized in the form of graduated difficulty levels, distinct movement patterns, and in-game events dependent on the player's input. Modern games often implement existing techniques such as pathfinding and decision trees to guide the actions of NPCs. AI is often used in mechanisms which are not immediately visible to the user, such as data mining and procedural-content generation.
Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords is a 4X turn-based strategy by Stardock for Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to the 2003 game, Galactic Civilizations, and was released at retail and on Stardock's online subscription service, TotalGaming.net, on February 21, 2006. An expansion, Dark Avatar, was released in February 2007. A second expansion, Twilight of the Arnor, was released in April 2008.
A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each player may take on only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played in a different order. Conversely, a video game with linear gameplay will confront a player with a fixed sequence of challenges: every player faces every challenge and has to overcome them in the same order.
Empire: Total War is a turn-based strategy and real-time tactics video game developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. The fifth installment in the Total War series, the game was released in 2009. The game, which focuses on the early modern period of the 18th century, was announced at the Leipzig Games Convention in August 2007. The macOS version of the game was released by Feral Interactive on 10 June 2014. The Linux version was released, also by Feral Interactive, on 8 December 2014.
Strategy is a major video game genre that emphasizes thinking and planning over direct instant action in order to achieve victory. Although many types of video games can contain strategic elements, as a genre, strategy games are most commonly defined as those with a primary focus on high-level strategy, logistics and resource management. They are also usually divided into two main sub-categories: turn-based and real-time, but there are also many strategy cross/sub-genres that feature additional elements such as tactics, diplomacy, economics and exploration.
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers is a video game based on the popular collectible card game of the same name, published by Wizards of the Coast. It was released on June 17, 2009.
There are a number of competitions and prizes to promote research in artificial intelligence.
Artificial stupidity is a term used within the field of computer science to refer to a technique of "dumbing down" computer programs in order to deliberately introduce errors in their responses.
Nick Arcade is an American children's game show created by James Bethea and Karim Miteff and hosted by Phil Moore, with Andrea Lively announcing, that aired on Nickelodeon in 1992, airing originally during weekend afternoons, with reruns airing until September 28, 1997. It was taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando. In Nick Arcade, two teams of contestants played two initial trivia rounds, with the winner advancing to the "Video Zone" to play against the virtual "Video Game Wizard" of the day.
The computer game bot Turing test is a variant of the Turing test, where a human judge viewing and interacting with a virtual world must distinguish between other humans and video game bots, both interacting with the same virtual world. This variant was first proposed in 2008 by Associate Professor Philip Hingston of Edith Cowan University, and implemented through a tournament called the 2K BotPrize.
AI War: Fleet Command is a real time strategy computer game created by independent developer Arcen Games. The game was first released on the Arcen Games website and Impulse on June 2, 2009, before getting a Steam release on October 16, 2009 that coincided with the release of version 2.0. AI War blends the 4X, tower defense, and traditional RTS genre to create something that was hailed as unique but with a steep learning curve. Players go up against two artificial intelligence (AI) opponents that are superior to the player. The objective is to destroy the home planets of both AI opponents.
Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a subgenre of strategy video games in which two teams of players compete against each other on a predefined battlefield. Each player controls a single character with a set of distinctive abilities that improve over the course of a game and which contribute to the team's overall strategy. The typical ultimate objective is for each team to destroy their opponents' main structure, located at the opposite corner of the battlefield. In some MOBA games, the objective can be defeating every player on the enemy team. Players are assisted by computer-controlled units that periodically spawn in groups and march forward along set paths toward their enemy's base, which is heavily guarded by defensive structures. This type of multiplayer online video games originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy, though MOBA players usually do not construct buildings or units. Moreover, there are examples of MOBA games that are not considered real-time strategy games, such as Smite (2014), and Paragon. The genre is seen as a fusion of real-time strategy, role-playing and action games.
Competitive programming is a mind sport usually held over the Internet or a local network, involving participants trying to program according to provided specifications. Contestants are referred to as sport programmers. Competitive programming is recognized and supported by several multinational software and Internet companies, such as Google and Facebook.
Prime World was a freemium massively multiplayer online role-playing game and multiplayer online battle arena hybrid game, internally developed by Nival and available for PC and Mac with companion apps for Android and iOS platforms.
Vainglory is a free-to-play video game with in-game purchases, developed and published by Super Evil Megacorp for iOS, Android and PC. The game is a version of the MOBA wherein two opposing teams of three or five players fight to destroy the enemy by controlling the path between the bases, which is lined by turrets and guarded by AI-controlled enemy creatures called minions. Off the path, players battle for control points that provide resources. The game was released for iOS on November 16, 2014, after being soft-launched for over half a year, with the Android version being released on July 2, 2015. A Mac and Microsoft Windows version of the game was released in July 2018. Through cross-platform play, players on all four platforms can play together simultaneously.
Forts is a 2D real-time strategy video game developed and published by Australian studio EarthWork Games. It was released on April 19, 2017. Forts started development in March, 2003, as a game originally based on early bridge building games. Forts had sold over a million copies as of March 9, 2022. In Forts, the player builds a base, defends it, and acquires weapons through tech trees in an attempt to destroy the opponent's reactor.
