<commit_before>---
layout: doc_page
title: Frequently Asked Questions
short_title: FAQ
toc: true
---

## General Questions

### What is Halite II?

Halite II (the game) is a multiplayer turn-based strategy game played on a virtual rectangular board; the objective of the game is to be the last team standing by mining planets for Halite and destroying all opponents.

Halite (the tournament) is an online programming competition where human coders write bots that play the Halite II game against each other.

### Where does the game come from? Who invented it?

Halite I was created by <NAME> and <NAME> during a summer internship at Two Sigma in 2016. The game format is inspired by the 2011 Ants AI Challenge sponsored by Google. Halite II was created by <NAME> and <NAME> in 2017 at Two Sigma, with assistance from Ben and Michael.

### Why did you invent it?

Halite’s creators heard about the Ants AI Challenge a few years too late :-(
They couldn’t find any other competitions quite like it, so they decided to create one.
Due to the success of Halite I, Two Sigma decided to create a new iteration on Halite I and re-host the game.

### How are rankings computed for the private alpha?

Rankings are based on the outcome of organized games where bots play against each other. A good analogy is the Elo rating systemused for chess.

Bot rankings are computed using a Bayesian algorithm variant of the Glicko system, specifically using the TrueSkill Python library available here. The game coordinator picks groups of 2 or 4 bots to compete against each other at a time, and uses TrueSkill to update the bot ranking based on the match outcome.

Tiers are based on the percentile rank. The top 1/512 players are considered Platinum; the next 1/256 are considered Diamond, then the next 1/128 are Gold, 1/64 are Silver, and the rest are Bronze.

### How are the winners decided?

Winners are simply the highest ranked players on the leaderboard at the end of the competition. So, submit early and often!

### Is there a prize for the winners?
<commit_msg>Clarify Ben & Michael's role in Halite II<commit_after>---
layout: doc_page
title: Frequently Asked Questions
short_title: FAQ
toc: true
---

## General Questions

### What is Halite II?

Halite II (the game) is a multiplayer turn-based strategy game played on a virtual rectangular board; the objective of the game is to be the last team standing by mining planets for Halite and destroying all opponents.

Halite (the tournament) is an online programming competition where human coders write bots that play the Halite II game against each other.

### Where does the game come from? Who invented it?

Halite I was created by <NAME> and <NAME> during a summer internship at Two Sigma in 2016. The game format is inspired by the 2011 Ants AI Challenge sponsored by Google. Halite II was created by <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, and <NAME> in 2017 at Two Sigma.

### Why did you invent it?

Halite’s creators heard about the Ants AI Challenge a few years too late :-(
They couldn’t find any other competitions quite like it, so they decided to create one.
Due to the success of Halite I, Two Sigma decided to create a new iteration on Halite I and re-host the game.

### How are rankings computed for the private alpha?

Rankings are based on the outcome of organized games where bots play against each other. A good analogy is the Elo rating systemused for chess.

Bot rankings are computed using a Bayesian algorithm variant of the Glicko system, specifically using the TrueSkill Python library available here. The game coordinator picks groups of 2 or 4 bots to compete against each other at a time, and uses TrueSkill to update the bot ranking based on the match outcome.

Tiers are based on the percentile rank. The top 1/512 players are considered Platinum; the next 1/256 are considered Diamond, then the next 1/128 are Gold, 1/64 are Silver, and the rest are Bronze.

### How are the winners decided?

Winners are simply the highest ranked players on the leaderboard at the end of the competition. So, submit early and often!

### Is there a prize for the winners?

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