| Author |
Message |
Carl Johan Ragnarsson (Cjr)
| | Posted on Friday, August 18, 2000 - 6:27 pm: | |
In games where a move consists of several jumps at times, as checkers, each _complete_ move should be played in this time.
Also, it should be able to specify times longer than 3 minutes but not oo. |
Keith Carter (Keithc)
| | Posted on Sunday, August 20, 2000 - 10:46 pm: | |
Overall the times for the computer player work because of the way each additional ply takes progressively more time. I would like the option of inputing the time for the computer player. |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 2:52 pm: | |
I had imagined that the Zillions programmers respect the difficulty and limitations playtesters experience in having no automatic control over the number of plies searched or moves searched and in having inadequate automatic control over time when using 1-2 AI opponents.
We wait patiently. The anticipated ZOG 2.00 was NOT revised in this manner. It is now mid-2003. Time ... |
Jeff Mallett (Jeffm)
| | Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
> control over the number of plies searched
Granted the time keeping settings are simplistic, much more in line with a casual user's needs than authors'/play-testers'/junkies'. There will be more options in the next major update (whether that's 2.1, 2.5, 3.0... I don't know.) However, note that you do actually have full control over the plies searched in the current version, as that's what the strength slider does. For details, see the "Fixed-depth/fixed-nodecount search?" thread. |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 4:28 pm: | |
I must apologize for nearly losing faith in the Zillions programmers. I look forward to the next major update of ZOG with enhanced time controls.
I now understand the "strength" slider better after experimenting with it. Unfortunately, I never saw any reason to previously until you pointed-out its capabilities. Given 3 poetic options- "pushover", "better", "expert"- I chose "expert" long ago and left it there, thinking noone serious would intentionally want their AI opponent to make moves of less than the best quality possible (within the chosen time constraints).
Although it carries absolutely no markings as such, the "strength" slider has 11 notches. From left to right- The first 10 notches command 1-10 plies of search depth completion; the 11th notch commands an unlimited number of search plies (unless a time limit is defined). Why be literary when an exact mathematical definition can be applied and is needed? Recommendation- Supplement the vague adjectives with search ply number markings. |
John Kewley (Jkew)
| | Posted on Sunday, June 01, 2003 - 3:53 pm: | |
The ply-search doesn't seem to store what it
searched the previous move.
e.g. it search 10 levels deep in a few minutes,
it makes its move, the other player moves, and then it starts off and takes 30s to get to 8 levels deep, when this info could have been
stored.
Is this how it works?
cheers
JK |
Derek Nalls (Omegaman)
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 9:23 am: | |
afterthought-
When the Zillions program was introduced in 1998, the "strength" slider notched to automatically execute up to 10-ply moves was probably at the limit of what fast computers could handle within a reasonable time.
Today, I own a dual-2.4 Ghz CPU (effective speed- 4.8 Ghz) which can go 10-12 plies deep within a reasonable time and perhaps, 12-15 plies deep on a marathon run. Performance benchmarks depend upon the actual game being run.
Accordingly, I think the "strength" slider should now be enhanced to execute 1-16 ply searches automatically upon the next revision to Zillions. |
David J Bush (Twixter)
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - 1:40 pm: | |
For serious chess players and other gamers, "time controls" can mean a variety of things. I hope some future Zillions will implement some of these popular time control methods for human versus human play over the Internet. For example, a "sudden death" time control allots a set amount of time, say 5 minutes, for you to make all your moves in the game. "Increment per move" means each time you move, a set amount of time, say 5 seconds, is added to your countdown clock. Of course each player could see the time remaining for both sides. Some sort of "time stamping" method would be highly desirable, so you do not lose time on your clock if your Internet connection is slow.
All this might more properly be the domain of a Zillions server, but until that happens, it would be great of two players over the Internet could play a timed game. And the same time controls might be applied to human versus machine play as well. |
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