GXC Press: HMC Wins Tech School Cyberbattle

HMC Wins Tech School Cyberbattle on the Harvey

Mudd College website, about the Tech Tournament '08.

Excerpts:

"The game has been a great activity for the school, both internally and externally," said Tyler Wolf '09, one of the HMC team commanders. "Around here, it has brought together a lot of people who otherwise would not interact much. For example, as a commander, I met several freshman from other dorms who wanted to help out."

"Several students also wrote computer programs to simulate battles, enabling the commanders to make better decisions. The programs told the commanders the degree of certainty involved in any attack."


"From this we were able to track the participation levels for each team in the game, and observe trends," explained Wolf, a computer science major. "For instance, we observed that separating one of a team's territory away from the rest of their empire resulted in a drastic reduction in participation. Presumably, the players who were cut off from their team became demoralized and stopped playing. This observation informed our strategizing, and we were able to use the same tactic to great success many more times."