although i have never looked back at anybodys previous games,it would be foolish to keep using the same set ups all the time.
they are asking for it if you ask me?

I have fun playing A new version of Boats... It is call outline... Trying not to find the boats... Each person gets 5 accidental hits...
I know it is long but it is fun... It is the anti Battleboats game...

No, Ellie

can we now see our opponents boat board setups when the game is over? we never were able to.

I just asked and found out all the public can see all the tournament games

no way is that cheating..it's SMART!

Sunfire over on the tournaments board asked if that is posible..So let me rephrase it. I don't even know if the tournaments are public always. LOL Ask Fencer

good point.... Are all tournaments public?

Guess Fencer should have an automatic private game for all Battleboats versions. But what do you do about the tournaments that are always public?

I think they did win on their merits. hey figured out your tactic or strategy and beat you. Its not their fault that you are so predictable.

I think that battleboats is one of those games where you should only play private games if you want to be really good at it. Then the only person who could learn anything from your play would be the person you are playing, and rightly so. But they would have to beat you to actually know your placement for that game. And would have to play you often to figure any patterns. And you could always mix things up once in a while. if you think they are playing against your tendancies.

Yep they didn't win on their on merits

Its not cheating at all, but if a person decides to use an old game set up (as saved in the game editors) it is up to them.
If there opponent then looks back through games and sees what they think maybe the same game, they will win of course, BUT then what is either person getting out of it.
Is all the winner would get would obviously be a win, but using no tactics at all apart from looking at old games that there opponent had played. The loser would just have proved there is little point having Battleboats in the game editor now we have a Random placement option.

Of course its not cheating. Studying how your opponent plays is a wise thing to do in any type of game.

Is looking at your oppenets past Battleboat games cheating?

My short opinion: no

My longer opinion: I think of it like football coachs looking at the other teams past games. Things you can learn from looking at your oppenets past games:

1) How they setup the board - After looking at a few games, you can usually tell if the person likes to place boats around the edge, maybe 4 pieces near one side with the 5th on the opposent side. Maybe they have a habit of putting all the pieces next to each other, or maybe never have any pieces touching - all good tips to help play against the person.

2) How they look for ships. If their first shot is always A1, and the B2, and then C3, etc... well then you know exactly where you can put boats so your oppenet will take a long time to hit any of your ships.

So my suggestions:

1) Use Random setup. It's cool that BrainKing now has this, so use Random - and if you want then change 1 or 2 of the boats.

2) NEVER use saved boards. OK, you can possible use some saved boards, but be warned not to use the same board very often.

3) Never look for your opponenets boats the same way. If you always use the same searching pattern, they can easly place their boats off of your pattern.

Personally I have not used the option to look at opponenets games for a couple of years now - when i was back on IYT and had more time, but if I had more time - I personally believe it is just a way to improve yourself to study up on your opponenets past games.

What do others think?

I've recently won a prize tournament, but I really don't need the prize - so why not create my own tournament to give away the prize!

Tournament: Battleboat Plus

Prize: 6 month knight membership (Fencer already has waiting for winner)

Format: 2 games per player since white does have an advantage

Time: 4 days per move

Start Time: September 15, 2004

Where to signup: SIGN UP HERE!

Other rules: No cheating, and have fun!

LOL - I am glad it is not just me. I reported this weeks ago when it happened in a couple of games to me, but when myself and Fencer tried to make it happen, it wouldn't.

Well I have just went through 3 games where I sunk a ship before hitting submit, and have not seen the same bug. I will still watch my games closly to see if I can see this.

battleboats plus..

IMCK - You may want to post it to the Bug Tracker - Since I know Fencer gets a message everything there is something new in there, and I don't think he reads all this message boards daily.

I will start paying attention to my games to see if I can see the same thing. Did it happen for you with Battleboats or Battleboats Plus?

I just had a glitch in a game, where I had 2 ships left to sink, and after I made a shot, it showed I had 1 ship left to sink! I used the back button to restart the move, and the second time it did not happen, but at the end of my move, I in fact had sunk another ship with that move.... yikes!

It's not a big to problem to use "clear board" action and start over :-)

Nope, like I thought. For "Back" to work, the entire position would have to be stored in the URL, which it is not. Clicking "Back" does absolutely nothing to the board set-up :-)

I have not tried, but you could just hit "previous page" in the browser?

But that is a work around - I agree that an option like that would be good, and probable not too hard to make?

Would it be possible, that when given the random board you could have the opportunity to choose another random board, if you don't like the one given? It's not difficult to do now, (Just use undo position, then choose random again..), but, lazy person that I am, it would be great to just be able to click and get a new random board, right from that same screen..

Thanks Fencer, i wont mention it again lol :o)

awesome Fencer! :-D

Cool - have to go try that out!

Did somebody request a random position generator?
I've just added this feature.

I'm beating Dirkpretty bad right now!

I think the current version of Dark Batleboats isn't all that "dark". You still get to see the board of your opponent.
Here's a variation I know that seems even darker (and more challenging):

- each player gets three shots in turns
- after each round of shots the player is told how many hits he got and the type of ship that was hit . But he's not told where the hits occurred (of course you know it was in one of those three positions but you don't know which one). This is often played with a pencil so people can mark possible positions and unmark them once they are sure that the shot wasn't in a given spot. Other players have the boats drawn on the side of the board and start marking away the squares to know what they've hit so far.

So instead of just guessing the direction the ship is in you also need to guess it's actual position first. As a matter of fact you often finish the game without knowing exactly your opponent's board configuration (who cares where the enemy was as long as he's down with the fishes? :))

This version of course takes slightly longer to finish but is far more chalenging because you must be much more attentive to the game than in the standard variation. As a way to compensate for the great amount of luck usually involved in battleboats :)

So does anyone know this variation? what do you think of it? (it's actually easier to play than to explain)

Yes, it is jmd. You have to be a member to add your picture on here. If you ever become a member, you can send a 40x50 .jpg to info@brainking.com, and Fencer'll add it for you :-)

I wouldn't normally show any of my games, but this was a bit of a special one against Dirk (who was unbeaten till this morning).

MM Vs Dirk

If so how did you get it on the site?

lol - maybe it'll help others who have a similar question anyways :-)

DUH.. Thanks, I just found that, and was coming back to remove my question.. lol.. but I'll leave it, so it doesn't look like you're talking to yourself..
lol

You can just click on the ship on the board, and it'll remove it :-)

Hmm... I'm sure I'm probably missing it somewhere, but, while setting up my game board, how do I remove a ship if I change my mind about where I just placed it????

bill107 - I took a look, and so far you have only sunk 1 boat.

I have sunk second Boat but only records one sunk

You can save positions either in the Game Editors found on the left (or top) links or after creating your set-up for a game. As far as I know, you can save as many as you want and can call them whatever you like. Instead of creating a new set-up for the next game, you can load your previously saved position and either leave it as is or make changes to it (and re-save it, if you like).

When you are on the page where you are going to set up your board for that particular game, there is an option to "Load position", and you type in whatever you named that starting position in the games editor.
I THINK I'm right about that.. I actually haven't started a new battleboats game in a while.. so I'm just going on what I THINK I remember..
Someone correct me if I'm wrong..

I know you can save stating positions in these games, but cant seem to find out how to use them to start a new game...

Can anyone help me? Thanks :)

For the "Fast Start" tournament, I will try to keep them going today as fast as I can.

BUT unlike with BK1.0, I CAN NOT start a tournament right away. There is a script that runs every hour to see if any tournament has passed the time limit and will start it automaticly.

What I will do (and have done for those tournaments), is go back in and set the date as "already expired", and once the script runs again (Withing 1 hour) the tournaments will be started!

But I'm sure I'll be going through a few of them today, so keep checking them out and sign up for all that you like. (Plus I also have the BIG TOURNAMENT which has all 3 new games, and I'm sure will get many people to sign up!

open to invites for boats plus and dark :o) once waiting room working there are some invites on there too :o)

BBW your two battleboats tourneys are filled. Please start the tourneys. I have to go to work soon. :-)

thanks :o)

Yup, They went through - and I accepted them. Still open for more from others if you are interested!

Since there is a bug with the waiting room postings of battleboats games, I signed up for your two tournaments for plus and dark battleboats.

Hi BBW, ive sent you an invite, can you see it or is it like the waiting room?

Battleboat Plus & Dark Battleboats - If anyone is looking for a game, since it looks like a bug is currently not letting people see all the games in the waiting room - Feel free to invite me to a game of either/both of these new games.

(If others are looking for a game - feel free to post in here that you will also accept invites!)