Other Games Considered Unprogrammable
Other Games Considered Unprogrammable
...or at least very difficult (just as Go)
If you think Computer Go Programming is too difficult (even the rules are difficult to get correct: ko/superko, life and death/seki, end of the game, counting etc) to start a own program, here are some alternatives:
Lots of games exist, for which no good computer opponent exists. Often no-one has ever tried to get a good opponent working. Particularly interesting are games, where the human player seems to be able to beat even the strongest (currently possible) computer opponent. (See also: Intelligence)
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Similar to Go in the aspects:
- that the branching factor is high
- once set, a stone stays on the board & doesn't move
Especially interesting are the following two:
Hex
- (solved up to 7x7, already very strong programs exist, however less strong than humans on boards larger than 9x9)
- kde-opponent "six-0.5.0.tar.gz" is very good for example
- See computer-olympiad-pages for a list of papers on hex
Havannah
("unprogrammable"?!, $1000 for computer that beats human)
havannah is very similar to hex:
- has a very large board
- it has 3 connection-goals instead of one in hex (connect either 3 sides or 2 "corners" or make a circle)
- See especially (
http://www.mindsports.net/Arena/Havannah/ReadMe.html) very good material available there; also article on strategy
Is a strong opponent possible with hex methods? -- ab
Dots and Boxes
ilanpi: I find this game similar to Go in many ways. I believe
that it might be more difficult than Go, because there is
a parity condition where I could give it inherent instability.
It has been completely analyzed by computer up to the 5x5 dots
case (16 boxes). The 6x6 case (25 boxes)
is unsolved as of 2002. I have played these sizes
and have found the play quite similar to 7x7 Go, and therefore
similarly much simpler than 9x9 Go. Unfortunately, it seems
hard to get a good game on anything larger than a 5x5 dots
board, so I don't think much concrete is known about Dots
strategy for larger sizes (as compared to go, for example).
I have written a web site
about Dots: http://cf.geocities.com/ilanpi/dots.html
- excellent page!
Twixt
another "connection game"; almost no programs exist currently, so they are also weaker than human players; difficulty..?
http://www.johannes-schwagereit.de/T1.html the program Twixt T1, with source
Some discussion, for example "Anti-computer" abstract games.
Search in newsgroups: twixt in rec.games.board.*
and
twixt in rec.games.abstract (newsgroups).
Twixt-Variant: Twixt PP, no links are ever removed, own links may cross other own links; this may be easier to program, with those few and difficult special cases left out, where links had to be removed.
Similar to chess
While the upper two were for the Go players, the following one is for the chess players
Arimaa
- (a new chess-like game with larger branching factor)
- there's a prize of $10000 for a computer program that defeats a human player before the year 2020
-
http://arimaa.com/
Shogi
Anonymous opinion: I've heard this is hard for the computers too.
Bildstein's opinion: I've played quite a few ganmes of Shogi against a friend who learned the game in Japan, and he consitently beats me. But he has told me that he has some Shogi software (which he bought in Japan) that consitently beats him even on the easiest difficulty level.
Other
ktron
ktron: Seems very difficult to me too. Although this is an "action"-game, if you remove the time pressure from the human player you can also look at it as a strategy game, played on a graph, with branching factor 3 and possibly large depth.
Given the condition for winning (being the last player with a legal play), Tron would seem to be well-suited to the kind of analysis so popular on SL.
Zertz
Gerhard:
The Zertz game ( http://www.gipf.com) is also difficult for computers since you must look a large number of moves (ususally > 10) ahead. The different winning possibilities and strategy changes during the game can make this a computational difficult problem. I know of only one Zertz-playing program that plays extremely poor.
Computer Olympiad
-
http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/olympiad2005/
-
http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/Olympiad2004
-
8th Computer Olympiad 2003
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http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/Olympiad2002
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6th Computer Olympiad
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The 5th Computer Olympiad at MSO 4
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http://www.google.de/search?q=computer+olympiad Computer (Game Programming) Olympiad(s)
International Computer Games Association
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http://www.cs.unimaas.nl/icga/ International Computer Games Association
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http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/ University of Alberta GAMES Group
Mind Sports Zine (non computer-topics)
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http://www.msoworld.com/mindzine/news/front.html Backgammon Bridge Cards Chess Classic Go Oriental Scrabble
See also