| Author |
Message |
Paul Blake (Thedalek)
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2003 - 9:40 pm: | |
This may not belong in this section. I apologize if it doesn't.
My understanding is that Zillions could not handle hidden information. Has that been changed in Zillions 2? Has the FAQ regarding "could Zillions support this game" been updated to reflect the changes made in Zillions 2?
The reason I ask all this is that I am a strong supporter of the German board game industry. Games like Löwenherz, El Grande, Settlers of Catan and others grab my brain's fun center and shake like a car with bad shocks (or a good stereo system). I'm also moderately proficient at programming, and even kludging workable solutions to unlikely problems. To this end, I'd love to be able to make games similar to these for Zillions, and I'm wondering if it is (at this point) possible.
I suspect that the biggest problem would be that of bluffing. |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2003 - 1:45 am: | |
Paul,
actually it is possible to implement a game with a hidden information for Zillions. However, the information will be hidden only from human player, not from computer opponent.
I created 3 hidden information games for Zillions (all requre Zillions version 2.0):
* Kriegspiel (http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/Kriegspiel.html)
* Dark Chess (http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/DarkChess.html)
* Stratego (I called it "Battle" to avoid possible legal issues) http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/Battle.html
In Kriegspiel the computer actually plays standard chess. As you don't see the computer pieces, playing against it is very difficult and usually you need to play variant, where the computer have a queen and two rooks less to make the play equal.
However, in Dark Chess and Stratego, the special logic to show/hide computer pieces so confuses Zillion's AI, that usually you compete on equal in Dark Chess and easily beat the computer in Stratego.
If you want to programm AI for your game yourself, in C++, then there is no problems implementing hidden information game. Simply create a ZRF rule for "open" variant of the game and then implement .dll plug-in engine, which would handle all hidden information. This certainly may require significantly more work, especially, if you want that computer opponent plays good. |
David Eugene Whitcher (Dralius)
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2003 - 6:57 am: | |
Dear Paul
If you are up to the task i would love to see someone focus on creating engines for games zillions can't play or can't play well. Having these engines available to the zillions community would cause an explosion of new games and improve the AI play of many existing games. Other than hidden information the two most common problems are with connection games like Hex or Twixt and games with a fixed goal that requires 7 or more moves to get to the location like Camelot. |
casimir (Casimir)
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 11:03 am: | |
Hi
I wrote an engine for my own game "Poulpy".
It implements a classic tree-search (alpha-beta) and some routines for game evaluation that may be useful.
It's Microsoft VC++ 6.0, i can send the sources to you if you want.
Caz |
Roger J Cooper (Rogercooper)
| | Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2003 - 9:32 am: | |
The Zillions engine can't handle (or handles poorly) randomness, hidden information, arithmetic, stacking and multiple moves per turn. To make a workable game, you have to transform your idea to something that Zillions can handle. Most of the 'German' games are based upon intricate mechanisms that can't be easily modified, but some of themes could be used. |
Eric Wald (Breadman)
| | Posted on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 - 9:16 pm: | |
The "notation" command is useful for hidden pieces. For example, in Battle.zrf, each of the PieceX pieces (ScoutX, SpyX) have the same image, but moving the cursour over one still displays its rank in the help tip at bottom. By using (notation: "Piece") in each one, the player has one less cheating mechanism.
Now we just have to prevent him from taking back moves... |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2003 - 1:10 pm: | |
Eric, thank you for advice! The "notation" command is really very useful for hidding the information from the human player. I will update Battle.zrf to use the "notation" command as you suggested. |
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