| Author |
Message |
Patrick S. Duff (Pduff)
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - 7:58 am: | |
Some rules files put the win-conditions in the moves logic, e.g. capturing a piece to indicate the win-conditions have been met. The actual win-condition just checks if the goal piece has been captured.
It must be difficult for Zillions to figure out how to play such games well, since all it can do is generate a move and check if it captured the goal. It probably has no idea what types of moves lead it closer to the goal, or defend against the opponent's future win. In other words, Zillions doesn't have any clue what to do in the opening or mid-game phases, and must fall back on general principles like "control the center", which may or may not apply to the current game.
I appreciate that one of the strengths of Zillions is that you don't have to tell it how to play. It generally does a pretty good job without any help, even without an opening book.
However, this doesn't have to be taken to extremes. I suggest adding a "(game-type ...)" command which game writers can include in a rules file to give Zillions a clue.
For example, "(game-type connection)" or "(game-type race-to-goal)".
Zillion's internal operations could then adjust themselves accordingly.
The developers would have to figure out what game types would be useful to them and let us know.
An alternative would be to let the move logic include a numerical indication of a move's closeness to the goal. When this reaches zero, the goal piece would be captured. Then Zillions could favor moves which have lower values over ones with higher values.
This would be optional for game writers, but available to them if they want to improve game play. |
David GLAUDE (Glu)
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 18, 2000 - 6:51 am: | |
(game-type ...) is really a good idea as it is an indication of how the engine should behave.
And maybe Zillions could support opening book in a standardised format similar to Game recording.
Also I would like to be able to save a game tree with the various variation on the main game. And of course I want to be able to add comment and good/bad move information.
David GLAUDE |
|