roach: Ranked Online Arena for Computer Hive

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2543889/proposal-online-ai-hive-arena

Requirements:

• Users (humans) should be able to register players (AI) with the server
• Each player should be publicly ranked using an ELO system, and have a secret authentication token associated with it
• Any agent with a valid authentication token should be able to engage in matchmaking, and eventually play a game with the sever
• Games should be publicly accessible as UHP sessions
• The server should provide a default AI player to play against if nobody's playing
• ELO rankings should be publicly viewable
• The server should matchmake players according to their ELO rankings

Some baseline rules:

• Tournament rules (no Queens on turn 1)
• Only base Hive and PLM are valid
• If a player disconnects or times out, it counts as a forfeit
• Games will use time control to prevent neverending games
• If there's a major rules bug in the server engine, all ELO scores can/will be invalidated

Multiplayer model:

• All players must implement the UHP Engine interface to play. roach will provide a thin adapter layer to ease the burden of writing this for each AI
• The adapter will only require that an AI provide a stdin/stdout interface that, given a UHP GameString (and possibly the remaining time), provides the AI's next move

API:

• POST /matchmaking (auth) - join matchmaking
• GET /matchmaking (auth) - poll status of a matchmaking ticket
• GET /play (auth) - player's websocket endpoint for their active game
• GET /games - list of all completed games
• GET /game/:id - info for a game, including metadata and UHP session
• GET /players - list of all players
• GET /player/:id - info for a player
• POST /player - create a new

pre-beta TODO:

• [x] update ELO after games
• [x] docs for writing AI
• [ ] turn timer
• [ ] default player in matchmaking
• [ ] test game endpoint?

post-beta TODO:

• [ ] add Users (w/ oauth?) to manage multiple Players
• [ ] game viewer
• [ ] view active matches