Author |
Topic: Strategy in a beginner's eyes (Read 3657 times) |
|
proof27h
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6697
Gender: 
Posts: 11
|
 |
Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« on: Aug 2nd, 2011, 3:06pm » |
 Quote  Modify
|
So I've now beat a few of the easiest bots. So far it looks like the general strategic ideas would be:
1. get the elephants and camels busy with each other - don't get your camel trapped - use a clump of pieces to keep the opponent's elephant hemmed in
2. use the remaining pieces to trick a rabbit through somehow
Of course this simplistic strategy works with materialistic bots only. What's the next step?
Henri
|
|
 IP Logged |
|
|
|
Swynndla
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #1821
Posts: 235
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #1 on: Aug 2nd, 2011, 7:09pm » |
Quote Modify
|
One thing that attracts me to arimaa is that the best strategies are still up for debate, even among the top players. The history of arimaa has shown that just when playing a safe & conservative game was the "best" play, someone else would come along and play ultra-aggressively and do really, really well, and so everyone thought that was best ... for a while ... and after a while the general view change again...
As for playing bots, this old link might be interesting (it's an old link if I haven't mentioned that, and I don't know if it's what you're really after):
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/Bot_Slaying
You question "Now what?" is a common one, and i'm sure others can give some good advise.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Fritzlein
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #706
Gender:
Posts: 5928
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #2 on: Aug 2nd, 2011, 11:58pm » |
Quote Modify
|
The elephant remains important at all levels of play; it's just that you have to get more sophisticated at handling the opposing elephant when your opponent gets more effective at using it.
The next thing to start thinking about is probably trap control. Should you ever lose a piece in a home trap? Is it possible to always keep your home traps safe if you are careful? If nobody is losing pieces on their home side, under what circumstances do they lose pieces on the away side?
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Hippo
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4450
Gender:
Posts: 883
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #3 on: Aug 3rd, 2011, 2:55pm » |
Quote Modify
|
Why that many people prefer answers to questions? Does good questions help more than answers? Are we trained to ask good questions?
Yes, I like your answer  .
|
| « Last Edit: Aug 4th, 2011, 6:22am by Hippo » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
proof27h
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6697
Gender:
Posts: 11
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #4 on: Aug 5th, 2011, 2:16am » |
Quote Modify
|
So, having won Aamira2006P2 for the first time I still stay with my general feeling: if you lose your camel except as an intentional sacrifice, bets are mostly off.
This is kind of anti-chesslike in that there's one piece you almost never lose - I guess elephants are only lost through blunders (and maybe on levels I cannot yet fathom). And if you lose the second best piece there's little you can do. Hard to shake the chess assumption that any piece can be taken by any other piece, given the correct circumstances.
As a general strategy I would still go by my original two points, more or less. Except this time I managed to keep the opponent's elephant busy without involving my camel; the clutter of pieces by my left home trap and in the centre helped me wiggle a rabbit through along the side.
Interesting game, and also I notice it helps my chess a bit. I think Arimaa deserves attention; it seems fully as complicated as chess, and every bit as interesting.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
UruramTururam
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #2537
Gender:
Posts: 319
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #5 on: Aug 5th, 2011, 4:55am » |
Quote Modify
|
Arimaa resembles Bridge somehow. Good way of playing usually involves playing kings on queens and jacks on tens. Bad way is playing aces on jacks. In Arimaa if your elephant watches the opposing camel while opponent's elephant watches your horse - it indicates you stay better.
|
|
IP Logged |
Caffa et bucella per attactionem corporum venit ad stomachum meum.
BGG Arimaa badges - get your own one!
|
|
|
robinz
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #6110
Gender:
Posts: 65
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #6 on: Aug 5th, 2011, 5:14am » |
Quote Modify
|
hehe - I like that analogy, because I'm quite a keen bridge player too but it had never occurred to me
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Hippo
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4450
Gender:
Posts: 883
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #7 on: Aug 5th, 2011, 12:00pm » |
Quote Modify
|
on Aug 5th, 2011, 2:16am, proof27h wrote:
I guess elephants are only lost through blunders (and maybe on levels I cannot yet fathom). |
|
Suppose we know who is winning in each position of the arimaa game tree. Let us play another game where loser goes for
the longest game while winner for the shortest. I bet in optimal game tree of this game there is no loser elephant
capture as the first capture. (Don't count sacrifices for win.)
Forcing elephant capture having all pieces while opponent has only elephant and rabbit seems to be doable. It could be bot-basher challenge to force elephant capture with as much bot's remaining pieces as possible ... but it is not fair to state such a challenge having starting advantage . So the challenge is to force the bot to make suiciding step to the trap.
Recently Fritzlein goaled one step before the forced suicide. ... But the elephant was trapped long before...
There were at least 3 elephant captures (not intended by phant controler) even on the WC's.
I myself allowed one turn capture to Harren,
mistre allowed two turn capture to arimaa_master, and
Fritzlein allowed three turn capture to chessandgo.
All these games ended on time, and the actuall capture occured only in the game lost by capturer 
rabbits sacrified phant to delay the goal.
GnoBot allowed eight turn capture capture to me.
on Aug 5th, 2011, 5:14am, robinz wrote:| hehe - I like that analogy, because I'm quite a keen bridge player too but it had never occurred to me |
|
I prefer arimaa setup to the bridge one.
on Aug 6th, 2011, 3:01am, woh wrote:| This is a game where the only legal move at 42s is to move the elephant into the trap. All other pieces were frozen. |
|
but there was already a lot of captured pieces ...
|
| « Last Edit: Aug 6th, 2011, 7:54am by Hippo » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Nazgand
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #6461
Gender:
Posts: 87
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #8 on: Aug 5th, 2011, 1:35pm » |
Quote Modify
|
on Aug 5th, 2011, 2:16am, proof27h wrote:| I guess elephants are only lost through blunders (and maybe on levels I cannot yet fathom). |
|
I saw a game once(I lost the link) where the only legal move was to move an elephant in the trap, thus immobilizing the self.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
woh
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #2128
Gender:
Posts: 254
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #9 on: Aug 6th, 2011, 3:01am » |
Quote Modify
|
This is a game where the only legal move at 42s is to move the elephant into the trap. All other pieces were frozen.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
proof27h
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6697
Gender:
Posts: 11
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #10 on: Aug 9th, 2011, 2:27pm » |
Quote Modify
|
FINALLY beat that one 1600+ bot, I forget which, one of those 2-min blitz bots anyway. Took some doing. In any case, all of the games I've seen or played seem to be based on the same big idea: keep the opponent's elephant busy with your camel. If the camel is lost, the game is also lost.
Any examples of different play than that? It would be nice to see if the game can be won without the camel - if the opponent still has his camel. Would give ideas for different strategies.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
Fritzlein
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #706
Gender:
Posts: 5928
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #11 on: Aug 9th, 2011, 2:48pm » |
Quote Modify
|
on Aug 9th, 2011, 2:27pm, proof27h wrote:In any case, all of the games I've seen or played seem to be based on the same big idea: keep the opponent's elephant busy with your camel. If the camel is lost, the game is also lost.
Any examples of different play than that? |
|
There are many other big ideas than that. In fact, "keeping the opponent's elephant busy with your camel" is one of the less popular ways to win, because against a strong opponent, it can result in giving up your camel as a hostage, which can cause you to lose instead of winning. More popular is trying to keep the opponent's elephant busy with your horse, as in this game: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=10621
This is just one template linked from the botslaying page: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/Bot_Slaying
Quote:| It would be nice to see if the game can be won without the camel - if the opponent still has his camel. Would give ideas for different strategies. |
|
It's a pretty huge handicap to start without your second strongest piece. Obviously your opponent has to have some glaring weakness for this to work. But here is an example of a game won without a camel (and without two dogs!): http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=76800
This is just one of the games linked from the botbashing page: http://arimaa.com/arimaa/mwiki/index.php/Bot_Bashers
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
proof27h
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6697
Gender:
Posts: 11
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #12 on: Aug 11th, 2011, 2:43am » |
Quote Modify
|
GnoBot 2005P2 - I was surprised it couldn't sacrifice a cat to free its elephant. On the other hand, my subsequently freed camel must have been far beyond its horizon. Was beyond mine, too - although I knew it was my goal and the bot didn't.
Took me a long time to figure out that I could just pull its rabbits aside and push mine through, after I had frozen its camel.
Also, at this game I finally understood rabbits are pulled forward to paralyse the opponent's own pieces. Took me long to understand the tactical value of the fact that rabbits cannot backpedal.
Once more: Arimaa is an amazing game.
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=19 2814&role=v&side=w
|
| « Last Edit: Aug 11th, 2011, 2:48am by proof27h » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
arimaaphile
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6540
Gender:
Posts: 18
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #13 on: Aug 12th, 2011, 8:18pm » |
Quote Modify
|
I'm a beginner like you, proof27h, and I think the most important thing to do from the start is to find ways to keep elephant busy (like you said) or pin it somehow (with the zeal of enthusiastic newcomer I wholeheartedly believe it is one of the conditions of success in arimaa).
I think balanced distribution and effective use of pieces also important. If your elephant, camel, and horses all are on the same wing all the time then your other wing is weak and opponent can attack. In addition to this, if your elephant does the job of mere cat (freezing 3 rabbits with your elephant instead of cat) it is ineffective use of the powerful piece.
What else? Yeah, I still try to figure out how to fight against rabbit pulling strategy of bots (at least some of them consistently try to pull your rabbits). I lost lots of games due to that strategy.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
proof27h
Forum Full Member
Arimaa player #6697
Gender:
Posts: 11
|
|
Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
« Reply #14 on: Aug 15th, 2011, 2:25pm » |
Quote Modify
|
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/java/ys/ms4/v5/js_sit.cgi?sid=3670974556&gr id=3&rand=53783691
Finally beat this one after a couple of days' pause. I can't say how I did it but a major factor must have been the fact that the bot kept my dog trapped with its elephant during the first part. I don't know if it was a good idea to slip my camel behind the enemy lines but I've also won some weaker bot that way.
Clearly Arimaa mustn't be played too much; works best with plenty of patience.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
|
Home
Help
Search
Members
Login
Register
Reply
Notify of replies
Send Topic
Print