Counting TicTacToe

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59 Comments

over 2 years ago

10x10 (and any other even-sized board) is a trivial draw. If you mirror your opponent's moves, the grid fills symmetrically and the score is equal. Switching back to 9x9 should fix this. 9x9 had a strong bias for player 1 because they get an extra turn, but now there's a second round to balance the player 1 advantage which was added after the switch to 10x10. Since the winner is whoever gets the most points in both rounds combined, the game is balanced.

trictrac Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Hello Waffle3z, another possibility is to put some aleatory even number of holes inside the grid (not symetrical) : more variety of boards and not an evident avantage for the first player as for odd sized board.

darkhorse64 Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

There is one very important thing missing from the statement. You should explain that, during a game, each player plays two matches with reversed colors in order to avoid the first player advantage and keep the game balanced. The final score is the sum of the points scored by each player during the two matches. Therefore, a bot should be able to restart with a fresh state. For instance, if the number of available moves is 100 (resp. 99), you have a new game and you are the first (resp. second) player. I found this was the easiest way for a proper restart detection.

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

TNX, I add your sentence to rules and add "Round x" to the game screen is it ok now?

trictrac Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

✅ Approved the contribution. Comment: Well Done ! The game is well balanced (P1 / P2). Thanks RezaSi ! It's time for bots to compete !

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

TNX :pray: Let's compete :))

darkhorse64 Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

✅ Approved the contribution. Comment: It's a nice little game well suited for beginners. Kudos for RezaSi for being so responsive to our suggestions !

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

TNX for your suggestions :pray:

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

* ADD mirror matches and scores sum for a better balance between the first and the second player

darkhorse64 Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

There is a bug in the referee. When the game restarts and you are the first player, oppRow and oppCol should be (-1, -1) instead of repeating the last move of the previous game. Boss 2 is crashing against my revised bot.

Cegwe Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Tried it out for a while and had some fun. It's interesting trying to develop a strategy with such an easy opponent as boss 1, and as I saw in league my strategy was only 8th where I thought it would do better. Could be a lot of fun if more people made bots for this one.

Cegwe Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Was able to reach top 3 where all of my battles fall between 1-2 points within each other. Really fun battle to optimize, I can't wait to see this concept expand.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Here is my contribution for Boss 2. It is a MCTS bot that looks for win/tie/loss instead of point difference in score. https://tech.io/...

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

* The board size changed from 9*9 to 10*10 !

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I notice! my bots died :( The 10x10 I think will really balance player 1 and player 2. Great change!

derjack Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Not that my mcts bot is smart yet, but my local tests indicate 1st players has huge advantage, it wins most games.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I think you'll really like the new 10x10 board. No dead-centre anymore. 1st and 2nd player can both have equal number of centre pieces if they both play a greedy algo.

darkhorse64 Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

* It would be nice to be able to display a short message in the player area. * Please recap the scores in the final screen * Draw case (equal scores) is not handled by the referee

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

RezaSi, the way this is done in other multis is that everything after the expected arguments is treated as the users message. I've really liked this in games like Ultimate Tic Tac Toe and Connect 4 to display debug and prediction info.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

✅ Approved the contribution. Comment: Actually, I like this game as-is. I think the first play does have an advantage, but it is still good without addressing that. If that was addressed with allowing the second player to steal the first players first move, that would be a great improvement (but not necessary)

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

TNX, yes I think so. I will try to add more turns and after the board is complete, swap the first and the second player with an empty board, Finally, sum all scores. I think it will be fairer than that.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Once you add a few wood leagues I'll approve it. Nice contribution. Message me if you want my greedy code and mcts code as boss

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Tnx for your advice, It's ok to add few wood leagues just with the better Boss? I think it needs some change on the game, if it's ok I will add it and get your help for codes.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I've also tested a MCTS w/ bitboarding that explores a monster number of simulations. It is definitely stronger than centre-greedy-first, so there is certainly some depth of strategy to this game.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

This is the code I'd recommend for the 2nd boss which simply plays the closest available move to the centre import java.util.Scanner; class Player { public static void main(String args[]) { Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in); while (true) { // discard opponent move in.nextInt(); in.nextInt(); int validActionCount = in.nextInt(); int row = -1; int col = -1; int center = 20; for (int i = 0; i < validActionCount; i++) { int r = in.nextInt(); int c = in.nextInt(); if (Math.abs(r-4) + Math.abs(c-4) < center) { row = r; col = c; center = Math.abs(r-4) + Math.abs(c-4); } } System.out.println(row + " " + col); } } }

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

The first person definitely has an advantage starting to 4,4. If the second person has the option to steal the first move, then the first player has to make a move that makes the game even. You can see this concept in Connect 4. I'd definitely recommend this improvement to balance this game.

Wontonimo Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I like this game. I would suggest the following AI bosses: - first boss is random - second boss plays closest available move to the centre - third boss (if you have time and energy) plays UTC w/ ET Great game. Easy to get started and beat random.

jacek Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

You may add another wood league with better-than-random bot. Bigger chance to become puzzle of the week and it will filter out bad, crashing bots in league.

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I add 2 wood leagues with random and better than a random boss, If it's ok we can go for approval? :)))

CodinBot Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I hope you received enough feedback from the community to improve your contribution. Once you have made the necessary updates, publish your contribution!

Pywon Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

I say, this was a nice idea tbh

FreezeRain Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

-Obstacles on the map -maps with different layout - not always rectangular -different type of symbols giving different amount of points. small "x x x" -> 3 points, "X x x" -> 5 points. -Earthquake spell that randomly rearranging part of the map -Bonus score for merging "xxx" and "xxx" in one long sequence "xxxxxx"

UnicornP Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Needs a lot of work, since you just started developing this after all. » "Player who have greater count of three in a row wins the game" Does this mean that 4-in-a-row beats 3-in-a-row? Two 3-in-a-rows beat one 3-in-a-row? Does a 4-in-a-row count as two 3-in-a-rows? Based on the final board of the intro play sequence, you get 1 point for every 3-in-a-row on a board, which means that a 4-in-a-row is 2 points because there are two different 3-in-a-rows. » When does the game end? » How big is the board? » What is the time allotted per turn?

RezaSi Unnamed CodinGamer

over 2 years ago

Yes, the statement is not completed, I will try to make it better as soon as possible, if you have suggestions pls send them! -The game ends when the board is completed! -9 * 9 -100ms But I think it's not "a lot of work" :)) BTW tnx for your advice.