Need a routine

Question

hi all
technically this isnt a java question but as ur all great help when it comes to problem solving i thought id ask anyway.
Basically i need a routine for automatically determining a battle outcome in a calculated combat arena for a game im making (www.3202ad.com)
i need to know (just the pseudo code will be fine) the way to do the loop for the attack structure.
ill explain what i want and ive even prepared a diargram of how i want it to go :)
what i want is this. A number of players all enter an arena, then i need to loop through these players and in turn each player automatically attacks another player until there are no players left (i already have done the attack code so dont worry about that)
basically lets say there are 4 players in the arena, my initial idea was to have
loop until only 1 player is left
player 1 attacks player 2, then p3, then p4.
then player 2 attacks p3,p4,1
p3 a p4, p1, p2
p4 a p1, p2, p3
if a player is killed in this attack then they are not attacked as they are no longer in the running. The loop goes again until there is only 1 player left.
This isnt very fair though as if ur player 1 then u either kill everyone first go or u get wiped out straight away. what i want is a code structure for something like this
p1 attacks p2, p2 attacks p3, p3 attacks p4, p4 attacks p1
p1 a p3, p2 a p4, p3 a p1, p4 a p2
p1 a p4, p2 a p1, p3 a p2, p4 a p3
this then allows each player to get an attack in with each loop but i also need to take into consideration if the player is destroyed so if p1 is destroyed after the first wave then it would go like this maybe
(second wave) p2 a p4, p3 a p2, p4 a p2. p2 gets attacked twice now though, hmm maybe thats just gonna be the way it has to be unless u can think of a solution.
anyway here is my lovely diagram to show it :p
<img src="http://www.sysdia.net/pattern.gif">
if that doesnt work then goto
http://www.sysdia.net/pattern.gif
Ok so this is my pseudo code for my basic attack
lovely eh ;)
anyway so what i would just love is someone to help me in figuring out how to come up with the theory for it (im sure its easy, im thinking bubble sort methods for some reason, something i remember from a long time ago)
so for my first idea the code would be
while user count>1
loop user array (stores all users)
with user
user is in arena
get all users into new array (exclude current user from first array)
other user is in arena
attack (this user, other user)
by the way when a user is killed (this is done in the attack bit, they will no longer be in the arena so they will be skipped).
anyway thats for my original idea, any ideas for my more fairer way, or even a better way?
oh and the game is done in php and mysql if thats any help but as i say pseudo code is fine :)

Answer 1

Aaaand here it is in Java:class Player {
  int _id = -1;
  public Player(int id) {
    _id = id;
  public void attack(Player victim) {
    System.out.println(this +" vs. " + victim);
  public String toString() {
    return "p" + _id;
public class AttackAlgorithm {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int numAttackers = 4;
    Player[] p = new Player[numAttackers];
    for (int j=0; j<numAttackers; j++) { p[j] = new Player(j+1); }
    int start = 1;
    int timesThruLoop = 0;
    while (timesThruLoop++ < numAttackers - 1) { // For 4 atks, loop 3 times
      for (int attacker = 0; attacker < numAttackers; attacker++) {
        p[attacker].attack(p[start++ % numAttackers]);
      start++; // move progression up by 1
}It produces the following attack sequence:
p1 vs. p2
p2 vs. p3
p3 vs. p4
p4 vs. p1
p1 vs. p3
p2 vs. p4
p3 vs. p1
p4 vs. p2
p1 vs. p4
p2 vs. p1
p3 vs. p2
p4 vs. p3
Does this answer your need?
Grant