Team FACE - Epic-v4 Project Description

Inspiration

We were inspired to create the most competitive agent for the Case Closed game by combining the best aspects of multiple strategy approaches. Our goal was to develop a strategy that could consistently win while avoiding timeouts and handling all opponent types.

What it does

Elite-V4 is an intelligent game agent that uses adaptive strategy selection based on game phase. It combines Voronoi territory control for early/mid-game with endgame path optimization, using aggressive boost management to convert advantages into wins. The agent achieves a 100% win rate with zero draws against all tested opponents.

How we built it

We built Elite-V4 through iterative development and extensive testing. We started with multiple base strategies (Voronoi, Minimax, Endgame Path), then created hybrid approaches. After running comprehensive tournaments against counter-strategies and hybrid opponents, we optimized the winning combination into Elite-V4 with performance safeguards to ensure moves complete in milliseconds.

Challenges we ran into

The main challenges were balancing strategy depth with performance to avoid 4-second timeouts, converting draws to wins through better boost usage, and handling aggressive counter-strategies. We solved these by implementing capped search depths, early termination conditions, and aggressive boost logic that converts ties into victories.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of achieving a 100% win rate with zero draws, creating a strategy that beats all tested counter-strategies, and optimizing performance to complete moves in under 0.01 seconds (400x faster than the limit). Our agent successfully converts all games to wins rather than settling for draws.

What we learned

We learned that adaptive strategy selection outperforms single-strategy approaches, that aggressive boost usage in critical moments converts draws to wins, and that performance optimization requires careful balancing of search depth with early termination. We also discovered that deeper search doesn't always mean better results when time constraints exist.

What's next for Team FACE - Epic-v4

Next, we plan to compete in the Case Closed tournament and continue refining Elite-V4 based on tournament results. We'll monitor performance against real competitors and potentially add opponent modeling if needed. Our goal is to maintain the 100% win rate throughout the competition.