[Kde-games-devel] kigo

[Sascha Peilicke]

On Monday 26 October 2009 18:22:02 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Inge Wallin wrote:
> > Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> >> For kigo, a better "easy" level of difficulty might be to take the gnugo
> >> moves and have a random chance of a: taking the best one, b: taking a
> >> suggested move at random, c: taking a totally random move.
> >
> > I strongly advice against using a random move.  A close game can be
> > totally destroyed by just one bad move, and at least my enjoyment of the
> > game would disappear if my opponent threw away moves like that.
> 
> Perhaps not the 'totally random' option toward the endgame then.
> (Actually I was intending that mostly for the opening few moves anyway.)
> 
> However I think there is a hole in your expectations. Human players make
> mistakes. Sometimes even colossal mistakes in endgame. Why should the
> computer be different?
>
> Personally, my enjoyment is lessened by the opponent being 99.999%
> predictable. (I've noticed the first move isn't fixed. But after that,
> it's not hard to replay identical games.)
> 
> Obviously, mistake rate goes down with skill level. Which is why I made
> this suggestion w.r.t. *easy*, not hard(er).
> 
> It sounds to me that what you dislike is a novice opponent. Well, that
> is no conflict with my suggestion; just don't set the AI at easiest.

I still believe that such an _improvement_ should be made directly in the 
backend. Kigo can't assume that it's actually a GnuGo backend, other engines 
(even commercial ones) could provide a less predictable opening game. 
Therefore and to avoid ugly hacks (the GTP wrapper is already ugly) I strongly 
object against random moves. So to say, this discussion is off topic and 
should be moved to a GnuGo devel list.
-- 
Kind regards,
Sascha Peilicke
http://saschpe.wordpress.com
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