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!)

Like I mentioned in my post, I have a handheld battleship game and that version is on it. I havent seen it on the internet sites though. Someone in feature requests where I posted this idea first said they saw it somewhere once but didnt remember where.

You can find the varient where you keep firing until you miss on sky games too :o)

Where did you find that verson ?
I have never heard about it before, it sounds great !!

I made this request a few months back but now BK2.0 is in place I wish to make it again. There is one more battleboats variant I would like to see. I will call it Battleboats Bonus. It is played like regular battleboats but the bonus is if you make a hit on your opponent you get to keep your turn until you miss. Actually you could make this a 2 variant request. You could play it with a dark version too if you would like. I havent seen this version anywhere else so this could be exclusive to the Brainking lineup of games. I have a handheld battleship game and this game variant is on it. I like this version and I think others would like it too.

if you install the auto-pass feature you could do it. If you get a hit the autopass would kick in and you would get to shoot again. If not it would be your opponents turn. Just a another reason to have the autopass feature as an option but for my game idea it would be mandatory feature built in.

You are a very kind man,,,,

BK2.0 will bring us Battleboats Plus AND Dark Battleboats!

Great work !!
Let`s get some more Battleboat games !!!

Hello everyone!

I ended up writing some Battleboat Rules and tips that were posted on this site's rules.

If you have some time, take a look at them and see if anything is missing, or if you have any other suggestions.

Feel free to post them here, or in my message box!

... good point (about possible not working with Dark and Plus)

<See post on features request. :>

Another Battleboat Idea: Loop Battleboat (Also can be Loop Battleboat Plus, Dark loop Battleboats, etc...)

Overview - if you can hit your opponenets ship with the correct amount of shots without missing, you don't give it time to "sink" and you capture it! You can then place it back into play as one of your own ships!

Details: Sink ship with correct # of hits = let say you make a hit, if you can finish hitting the rest of the ship without any "miss" shots - you capture it. So a 4 ship will take 4 shots from the first one that hit. (If you miss with one of them, the boat has more time to take on water and sinks - not letting you capture it.)

Place back on board: Not one can you place it back on the board, you can also place it in an area that your opponent already shot! (So instead of "hit marks" on the board, you will have a "1", "2", "3", "4", etc.... that way you you can tell when you last tried to shot in an area easier.

u well come and have a nice new year hope to play a game with u this year lol

ty chuck