# IEEE CoG 2026 Specifics

This competition will run in conjunction with the
[IEEE Conference on Games 2026](https://cog2026.org/).

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## 🗓️ Submission Deadline

**August 30, 2026 — Anywhere on Earth**
(i.e. entries must be submitted by midnight UTC−12)

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## Introduction

The IEEE CoG 2026 competition will focus on the **fully observable**
mode of the game. Future competitions may switch to the
**partially observable** variant.

Please see the main [Submission Instructions](../submit_entry.md)
for details on how to submit an entry.

> ⚠️ We strongly recommend submitting your entry well before the deadline.
> Non-functioning entries will **not** be accepted.

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## Game Variants

Game parameters will follow the default configuration,
except for the following, which will be **uniformly randomly sampled**
from the ranges below (the same as for WCCI 2026):

- **Number of planets**: 10–30
- **Neutral ratio**: 0.25–0.35
- **Growth rate**: 0.05–0.2
- **Transporter speed**: 2.0–5.0 units/tick

**Game duration** is fixed at a maximum of **2000 ticks**.

Games will run at **20 Hz**, giving agents **50 ms per decision**.
However, this is a real-time competition: agents may take longer
(but will act on stale information), and if both respond quickly,
the game will run faster.

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## Evaluation

The winner will be determined using the **average win rate over all games**
and/or the result of a **round robin between the leading distinct agents**.
The purpose of the leading-agent round robin is to identify the agent that
performs best against other strong agents, rather than relying only on
results accumulated against the full field.

These measures will usually identify the same winner. Strong agents in
Planet Wars typically beat weaker agents in nearly every game, although
the field does not always divide neatly into distinct strong and weak groups.
Where needed, the organisers will consider both measures when identifying
the best overall agent.

- The league will begin shortly after the deadline and be updated continuously.
- Submitted entries may be re-evaluated as new submissions arrive.
- The live leaderboard is available here: [Live Leaderboard](https://github.com/SimonLucas/planet-wars-rts-submissions/blob/main/results/spring-2026/leaderboard.md)

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## Prize Money

**There is no prize money for the IEEE CoG 2026 competition.**

This is an academic competition focused on advancing research
in multi-agent AI and real-time strategy. Winners will be
recognized at the conference and in related publications.

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## Open-Sourcing Entries

Open-sourcing your agent is **not required** for this competition.

However, we encourage participants to share their code —
for example, by linking to a public GitHub repository —
to support reproducibility and future research.

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## Terms and Conditions

By submitting an entry, you agree to the competition
[Terms and Conditions](https://github.com/SimonLucas/planet-wars-rts/blob/main/competitions/competition_terms.md).