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coan.net: Personally, I don't hit a frog on my first shot very often. (Rarely, in fact). So, I wouldn't think it was worth it to start off 3 points behind. I suppose if there were more frogs on the board, it might be more worth it, but with the current configuration, I don't think it would help often enough to bother.
coan.net: Interesting. Two more points: if you go first, and you decide to shoot, you don't have a 'safe' shot, there's always the chance to hit something. Making your first action a guess doesn't give your opponent a field he can shoot knowing there's no frog there.
But here's another thing. Say starting with a guess would be a good thing. Then, wouldn't it be good for the player going second to start with a guess as well? But if both players start with a guess, followed by a shot on their guess, what about their third moves? Shouldn't that be a guess too?
The difference: Instead of each player having 5 frogs, there are 9 frogs that BOTH players are looking for. So your opponent will see your shots - will use the information you got in their next move (and you will use theirs).
So you have to be careful to not give your opponent too much information - and at the same time, don't be afraid to take more guesses since if you wait to figure out 100% where the frog is, your opponent will just swoop in and take it away from you!
coan.net: Unfortunally, it also means that it's an advantage to shoot squares where you will already know how it will reveal 0 (like shooting in the corner if your opponent shot (diagonally) one step away from the corner revealing a 0). Such a shot reveals no information at all.
AbigailII: Yea, it will be interesting to see how much cat/mouse type of play - that is would it be better to just make a dummy shot that you know will show a 0, or take a guess when you have a 33% chance (or 50% chance) - since a wrong guess will only cost you 3 points.
It will be interesting to see if a "safe" game or an aggressive guessing game will work the best.
joshi tm: Well if it ends up not working with the current point system, then of course I'm sure we can get Fencer to change that if needed..... but we won't know that for sure until we see a few hundred games played.
Nope, never played on MSN network - about the only place I've played minesweeper is the version that comes with windows.
coan.net: I did some calculating what the best action would be if there's a square showing a 1, and it has N neighbours that may have the frog (frog is still hidden). That is, there are N squares around the 1 that are not showing a number, and from the rest of the field, it cannot be determined whether they have a frog or not.
Obviously, if N == 1, you should guess the square, it will contain the frog with 100% certainty, and you will score 5. If N == 2, guessing one of the squares would be wrong. If you guess right, you score 5, but if you guess wrong, not only do you score -3, your opponent will score 5, so your expected result from guessing is -1.5. For N == 3, guessing is also wrong, but your expected score is less bad as in the N == 2 situation. If N == 3, you have a 1 in 3 chance of guessing right, so the expected score is 5 * (1/3) - 3 * (2/3) == -0.33. Note that after guessing wrong, you leave a situation where there are 2 squares that may contain a frog, and it's in your opponents best interest to leave it like that. In fact, for N >= 3, the expected score from guessing is 5 / N - 3 * (N - 1) / N == (8 - 3N) / N.
This will be a very defensive game.
And what we really need is a marker on the field indicating which squares have been unsuccesfully guessed.
coan.net: It's a very great game to play though. Basiccally, of course, it's just minesweeper, although you have to score by shooting mines.
Futhermore, there are some other rules: The board is 18x18 and has 51 mines (i think!) if a player shoots a mine, he'll score, and may play again. (This could cause a problem in BK. But there should be a solution. Just pass the game directly back to the player after every move he scores a hit, like Dice Poker Style. If he didn't score a hit, the move is directly passed to the opponent.) If a player shoots a zero, ALL squares adjadent to that zero will also open, if there are any zeros among them repeat for each one the process. So shooting zeros is very bad, for you opponent has lots of mines to score.
Conclusion, as, especially I read Abigaill's post, we should add more mines (frogs, sorry) and remove guessing. Just shooting.!
WellyWales: I would not think so - hurry and put that in the Bug Tracker so Fencer can find it and fix it.
note: I would think that since Fencer has it set up for the first middle square to be zero when the game starts, he did not remember to make the random frogs not to be put in the spaces next to the zero. (would be my guess on the bug)
WellyWales: I would think (and this is a total guess) - but I would think that the game would not be "created" until someone picked up the game - which gave it the game number 3022152
... which the last game mentioned in the bug tracker was 3021714
So I would guess your game was made after the last bug was "fixed" - but maybe it does have something to do with it sitting in the waiting room... but would not think so. (again, just guessing)
AbigailII: Interestingly, if you know there are two frogs in four squares, you shouldn't guess. However, if you know there are two frogs in five squares, you should guess.
In both cases, you'll guess right often enough that you'll score more points for the right guesses than you'll lose for the wrong guesses. However, with four squares, if you guess wrong, your opponent can guess with a 2/3 chance of being right, which is good enough that the points he gets from guessing right outweighs the points you might get from guessing right. With five squares, you still leave your opponent with enough options that guessing is a bad idea, so you just get the payoff from your initial guess.
My first move in 2 price tournament games with white: Frog Finder (Jaak vs. DamnCat) and Frog Finder (Jaak vs. Holyman) You see that I shooted the same square in both games, allocation of my frogs is differen in those games. However it is a good game, if it is possible to delete tournament games and begin the same game anew? Or to have some safe squares - 4 corners or 5 (9) central squares!
After playing hundreds of moves (but only actually finishing a few games), here's my first evaluation of Frog Legs.
Play wise, it's quite boring. There's no real strategy, except from avoiding playing bad moves. If both players don't play any obvious bad moves, the game boils down to filling up allmost all the squares, delaying having to reveal essential information until there's no other move. And then it becomes a game of luck, with the frog(s) to reveal only having two or three squares. Games will last 70 to 80 moves, which, I think, will rank them along the longest games found here on BK.
As for strategy, I use the following guidelines:
Never guess unless the chance the square contains a frog exceeds 50%.
If you can shoot a square that is only surrounded by squares of which it's known whether they contain a frog or not, shoot it.
Never shoot a square that has only one unknown neighbour (an unknown neighbour is a square of which it's unknown wether it contains a frog or not) - you'll give your opponent 5 points if the square reveals a 1. (See below).
Avoid shooting squares that have an odd number of unknown neighbours; if the number reveals the same number as the number of unknown neighbours, your opponent can guess one more frog than you do. (This is a generalisation of the previous point).
Of course, the current score can influence things. If there are only N frogs to be found, and your are ahead more then 5 * N, by all means, narrow down where the frogs are as soon as possible - it's ok if your opponent guesses the remaining frogs.
Here's an example of where you shouldn't shoot:
+---+---+---+ 3 | | | | +---+---+---+ 2 | 0 | | | +---+---+---+ 1 | | 0 | | +---+---+---+ a b c
Don't shoot at b2. It's already known that a1, a3, c2 and c1 do not contain frogs; c3 is the only unknown neighbour of b2. So, if b2 reveals a 1, there will be a frog at c3 with 100% probability. Unless your opponent is making a very stupid mistake, you will lose 5 points.
I agree with AbigailII. Perhaps it would make more interesting games if shooting and guessing was not exclusive, but rather that player could guess after his own shooting (even multiple guesses should be possible).
This game is so booooring. What is your opinion about this changes: 1. You will shoot until you will discover number 1 or higher, or kill the frog, or you will guess. 2. If you guess successfuly, you can continue or you can pass your turn.
I think this changes could improve this game a lot.
lukulus: I'm guessing you are talking about Frog Legs. One of the things I liked about Frog Finder was that I was able to sit down with a friend in real life and test that game many times on paper before it was brought here. So I was able to get many of the rules, points and such pined down - and I think that shows in the finished game stats of it being a very balanced game [red 8731 (50.03 %) vs. blue 8694 (49.81 %)] After over 17,000 games, about 40 games difference between the 2 players.
Anyway, for Frog Legs it was harder to test in real life - since we would had needed to have a person just play the "computer" while 2 others did the guessing.... so it was not tested as much as the original.
One of the main goals of Frog Legs was to introduce more guessing - getting more to take chances, and making more guessing. Of course I see this goal failing mostly because a person who does guess and gets it wrong - their opponent then has a much better chance of guessing correctly.
If anyone has suggestions, I'm happy to read them. As for your suggestions, I think #1 would go to far. #2 wouldn't be that bad - but I don't think that would help in getting people to guess more often.
My idea: To hide where you guess at from your opponent. This way if there is a 50/50 chance of where the frog is, and you guess - your opponent can see you guessed - but WILL NOT KNOW WHERE. So that will leave your opponent with either (1) going on with their game like normal and leave you to guess correctly next turn, or (2) take a 50/50 guess themselves to try to find the frog before you.
coan.net: Having the game balanced doesn't necessarely make it fun. Flipping a coin is balanced game as well, but not really fun to play.
I think the "problem" with Frog Legs is that your move reveals information that can immediately be used by your opponent. This, in combination with low density of frogs (only 9 out of 169 squares contain a frog, which means that no matter how the frogs are placed, over half of the squares show a 0) makes for a dull game. The dullness lies in the 60 or 70 moves that are played before the game becomes interesting - no more "waiting moves" can be played.
I don't know if the flaw can be fixed - and I suggest to Fencer he won't make any chances to the game unless it was properly play tested.
Not knowing where one has guessed changes the situation where there's a 50% chance of finding a frog: it will then become advantageous to guess. However, this makes it even better to shoot on squares knowing it will reveal a 0, as revealing a 1 (or an even higher number) becomes worse than it's now.
Here are some ideas that may work (although only play testing will reveal whether it actually does)
Increase the density of the frogs. There will be less no-information revealing moves possible if there are 25 or 49 frogs. It will not lengthen the game, as currently, between good players, most of the board will be shot anyway.
Give players two moves per turn. Then, in his/her second move, the player can use the information gained in the first move.
No guessing - just shoot the frogs (change them into bunnies). First to shoot 5 frogs wins the game.
If you shoot a square revealing a non-zero number, you get an extra turn (or a free guess)
Modifita de coan.net (11. Februaro 2008, 17:44:24)
AbigailII: In the idea of hiding where your opponent guesses, I'm trying to see how you would think revealing a 1 (or higher) would become worse than it is now. If I shot and reveal a 1, my opponent will still have the same chance of guessing where the frog is as they did before. Only now if they do decide to take a chance and guess (and guesses wrong), it would be to my advantage to try to guess also. But also lets say there are 3 possible places a frog could be (33% chance) - I may also decide to guess - at worse (if my opponent did not guess at all), at worse I would end up -1 point (guess wrong twice, then correct third time) - but also keep those points away from my opponent.
As for the other ideas (my quick opinions)
1. 49 just seems like way too many. 25..... now that might be interesting. It will leave less 0 spaces on the board - but also might "block" part of the board in which players would have to take "wild" guesses behind a "row" of frogs. (then again 49 might work - I would have to see what a board would look like)
2. I think that would end up with players on turn 1 taking a shot which only reviels 1 space - that way on turn 2 they could guess correctly. Would help speed up the game, but my quick thoughts is not make it much better.
3. To me shooting the frogs instead of guesses seems like more of a different game - that is possible a different variant other then a solution to help Frog Legs.
4. I think it would end up like #2 - that is players would try to only make shots that give information to just 1 space (that way they can use that information next). A solution which may not make the current game any better.
And yes, and idea should be thought out very well - tested outside of the site if possible before anyone tried to convince Fencer to change something. (which is why I would LOVE to hear from anyone with ideas or suggestions or comments about other ideas.)
Overall - I would like to see something small changed which will (1) not change the game too much and (2) make it so it is worth to take more wild guesses. when there less then 100% chance of guessing correctly.
coan.net: in the idea of hiding where your opponent guesses, I'm trying to see how you would think revealing a 1 (or higher) would become worse than it is now. If I shot and reveal a 1, my opponent will still have the same chance of guessing where the frog is as they did before.
Yes, but your opponent goes first, giving him the edge. Take for instance the simplest example, you reveal a 1, with only two possible places for the frog. Assumming both players now guess until the frog has been found, there are three possibilities:
Your opponent guesses right. Probability: 0.5. Score: -5.
Your opponent guesses wrong, you guess right. Probability: 0.25. Score: 3 + 5 = 8.
Your opponent first guesses wrong. You guess wrong. Your opponent finds the frog. Probability: 0.25. Score: 3 - 3 - 5 = -5.
So, your expected score after revealing a 1 with two unknown squares surrounding it: 0.5 * -5 + 0.25 * 8 + 0.25 * -5 = -3.
Things looks less grim if there are 3 unknown squares, but if both players guess until the frog is revealed, the player guessing first (the opponent of the player revealing the 1) has an expected gain in score of 0.44 (if I did my math correctly).
There's no real solution here, even if you play with the rewards/penalties. If, when a 1 (or a different number) is revealed guessing gives an expected positive score, the opponent of the revealer has an edge. Then it doesn't pay to make a move that may reveal a non-zero number. If guessing gives a expected negative score, we have the same situation as we currently have. And if the expected score is 0, it's just a blind luck.
AbigailII: One thing that would help is to have squares where the result must be a zero automatically be filled in with zeros. For example, if there are zeros at A2, B1, B3 and C2, it's impossible for B2 to be anything but a zero, since all adjoining squares are next to a zero square. This would eliminate (or greatly shorten) the phase of the game where both players shoot squares that they know will return zero, since any other move gives an advantage to your opponent.
Another improvement would be to increase the density of frogs, so that revealing a 2 is more likely. With the current scoring, guessing next to a 1 is always a bad idea unless there's only one possible location. But guessing next to a two has a variety of result. 2/2 and 2/3 are both good. 2/4 is bad, but 2/5 is actually good. (The 40% chance and 5/3 reward mean your guess has a net positive value, but it's likely enough that your opponent would guess wrong and then you would guess right, that at 2/4, it's a bad idea to guess.) If two's were fairly likely, guessing next to a spot with 3 or 5 unknown squares is much more attractive.
It might also work to give points for finding frogs in neighboring squares. For example, it you got the number of points shown in the square for shooting an empty square, that would provide an incentive to shoot in squares that neighbor unknown squares. If the values are balanced correctly, it should be possible to create a situation where it's advantageous for me to shoot a square that might reveal neighboring frogs and then for my opponent to guess where a frog is.
troydaniels: It will be tricky to programmatically determine which squares have to be 0; it's easy to come up with examples, but it'll be hard to find all possibilities.
Here's a table with expected scores, assuming you guess, and subsequent guesses are only done if they give a positive score.
AbigailII: It's not that difficult to determine which ones must be zero. If you shoot in square S1 and get zero, then you need to check
for each unlabled square S2 next to S1
mustBeZero = false
for each labeled square S3 next to S2
if S3 is labeled with 0
mustBeZero = true;
endif
endfor if (mustBeZero) label(S2, "0") endif
endfor
This would cause the "barren plains" where there are no frogs at all to be quickly filled in. It also means that if there's a 1 two squares away that's next to a known frog, that won't fill in the square, which might be reasonable, since you might not want to do too much thinking for the players. If you wanted to also fill in those squares, replace "if S3 is labeled with 0" with "if S3 is labeled with the number of known frogs in neighboring squares".
AbigailII: I'm advocating for filling in the squares that are "obviously" zero. While obvious hasn't been defined, it doesn't apply here. This is an active part of the board, and most shots will reveal some information about where the frogs are. Figuring out that D4 is 0 is something a good player would do (and a bad player might not).
I'm not trying to automate the game so that there's little actual thinking for the players to do. I'm trying to eliminate the phase where there's a 5x7 block with a checkerboard pattern of zeros, and both players spend almost 20 turns filling it in, because the alternative is to shoot in an area like what you drew and risk giving your opponent an advantage.
troydaniels: Filling in *some* of the squares that are 0 is something that doesn't appeal to me at all. If some of the squares are filled in, but not all of them, you introduce a category of chance in the game where there's no such chance currently. IMO, either all 0-predetermined squares should be revealed, or none. Not all "obviously" zero for some vague notion of obvious.
In a game of Frog Legs, what would you do? Guess on c3 or not? If not, whould you shoot if a1 and a5 are showing 0s as well? Assume the score is equal, and at least 2 frogs are still missing.
Currently, the game lasts till all the frogs are found. However, there's usually no point in playing on if one player is more than 5 * F points ahead, with F the number of frogs to be found. (I say usually because theoretically it could be that all unknown squares could potentially contain a frog, forcing the player ahead to guess - but that's a situation that won't occur very often).
So, I suggest to add another winning condition: whenever you are ahead with a number of points more than 5 times the number of unrevealed frogs, you win. This will shorten many games by dozens of moves, where the player ahead is going to play frog finder, not caring who reveals the frog.
AbigailII: My proposal doesn't introduce any more chance than there already is. It automatically fills in the ones that are obviously zero (with a precise definition of obvious) but not the ones that a more complication intuitive process would also reveal to be zero.
I'm in several games right now where part of the board looks like below. The rest of the board consists of squares where, for either player, it gives the opponent an advantage if you guess or shoot in any square. Consequently, we're going through and filling in this section of the board with solid zeros. This is rather boring and time consuming and doesn't actually accomplish anything, since we're both making shots that we know will reveal a zero. I'm trying to create a rule that bypasses this part of the game. (It will probably be still be there with my rule, but much shorter.)
By the way, I'm not neccesarily opposed to long games. I play anti-backgammon, which can easily run into hundreds of moves. But most of those moves require actual thought (and auto-pass is there to skip many of the ones that don't). But under the current rules, Frog Legs usually leads to 50 or so moves where the only thought is to correctly figure out a square that won't matter (which is probably the same calculation you did in the last 10 moves).
troydaniels: Plus an idea that just popped in my head as I read your last post. (and an idea that may be good or bad - but not sure since I've only given it a thought for the past minute)
How about: 1 bonus point when your shot shows a 1 2 bonus points when your shot shows a 2 ... and so on for 3-8
Of course once a frog is guessed, the "1" that is shown for that frog NO LONGER gets bonus points.
Even though this may not solve the problem, but it could start to reward the player who makes shots to show more of the board - and not shots to "waste" so they don't give any information to their opponent.
Again, an idea I would have to think about a little more. (maybe even double bonus - 2 points for every "1" your shot shows, etc....)