Author |
Topic: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games (Read 522101 times) |
|
SpeedRazor
Forum Guru
Skepticism is the Immune System of Science
Gender: 
Posts: 72
|
 |
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #105 on: Jul 3rd, 2009, 5:08pm » |
|
One of the most interesting, and worst forum threads that I've ever read. Anywhere. I'm such a Big fan of Havannah, that I shuddered following through all of the leads/games, everything. I don't believe that I can be as tactful as others - so I won't. I understand that I may be barred from this, one of my favorite Games' website, but I just can't "sit on my hands..." (Note: your "Lasker" quote based on the preceding sentence quip is wrong: T'was Siegbert Tarrasch who said it. Just an observation.) Oh yeah, castling in chess is more important in hiding the one-step king, than in getting the multi-step rook to the center: but I do see your point about Fischer 960.
It's ... not going to get easier from here...
Christian, your essay was very insightful, but you're no more a "game whisperer" than most (in the same vein as everybody who likes movies is a 'film critic': matters of taste aren't arguable, or so says the ancient Latin proverb. Hey, who are we to argue with the Ancient Roman).
Now, down to brass tacks: I've taught ~untold~ many people Havannah, but I always, at first, teach it with TWO rules missing (Occam's Razor manifested, let's just say). Note: these are mostly Go and Chess enthusiasts whom I've taught - three or four dozen, realistically - which is quite easily reflected in which board they choose: triangular: play on the nodes; or hexagonal: play in the cells (Go and Chess players, respectively.) After a while, I add the remaining two rules, and so far, nobody wants to use them. None. Let me elaborate: the two rules that I omit are...
1. There are three ways to win. (Me: there are just two ways to win: ring, or connect three edges. I omit connecting corner to corner wins - not necessary), and...
2. Corner nodes don't count as being on an edge. (Me: corner nodes count for both of the edges that they are a part of)
Now notice, what used to be called a 'bridge', is now just a three edge fork: if you connect two corners, and corners count for what they obviously are (touching two edges each), than you AUTOMATICALLY have three (or four) edge connections: a win.
Why confuse people with a third winning condition, plus telling them that corners don't count as "edges"? What has actually changed? Now, connecting a corner to a non-contiguous edge will win, also. Tactics do jump up a notch, here, plus corners are more valuable: but only negligibly so.
Now ... I had presumed ... that you had already done the extensive play testing, and that you added those two, what seem to me as, superfluous rules because it was "necessary". The game might have been broken without them. But now, I think that all of my ASG friends may have been right all along: your game - which is, and I hope, will remain, a classic - is Flawed, as it is. The corner connection winning mechanism just adds confusion. After playing through your Hanniball games, I'm now convinced of it. It was added because 3:2:1 seemed more organic (whatever that means): 1 ring, 2 corners, 3 sides (even though 2 corners is ALWAYS 3 sides if edges are counted intuitively).
My apologies for being so forthright, and thank you for such a great game...
...Speedy
|
| « Last Edit: Jul 3rd, 2009, 11:45pm by SpeedRazor » |
 IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #106 on: Jul 4th, 2009, 5:23am » |
|
on Jul 3rd, 2009, 5:08pm, SpeedRazor wrote:| One of the most interesting, and worst forum threads that I've ever read. Anywhere. I'm such a Big fan of Havannah, that I shuddered following through all of the leads/games, everything. I don't believe that I can be as tactful as others - so I won't. |
|
Thank you, I appreciate frankness and indeed, there's no 'format' for inventing a game live & online so it was an ad hoc event, implicitly prone to lack of structure.
on Jul 3rd, 2009, 5:08pm, SpeedRazor wrote:
It's ... not going to get easier from here...
Christian, your essay was very insightful, but you're no more a "game whisperer" than most (in the same vein as everybody who likes movies is a 'film critic': matters of taste aren't arguable, or so says the ancient Latin proverb. Hey, who are we to argue with the Ancient Roman). |
|
I think in this metaphor you would be the one "who likes them" while the inventors are the ones who make them, right?
on Jul 3rd, 2009, 5:08pm, SpeedRazor wrote:Now, down to brass tacks: I've taught ~untold~ many people Havannah, but I always, at first, teach it with TWO rules missing (Occam's Razor manifested, let's just say). Note: these are mostly Go and Chess enthusiasts whom I've taught - three or four dozen, realistically - which is quite easily reflected in which board they choose: triangular: play on the nodes; or hexagonal: play in the cells (Go and Chess players, respectively.) After a while, I add the remaining two rules, and so far, nobody wants to use them. None. Let me elaborate: the two rules that I omit are...
1. There are three ways to win. (Me: there are just two ways to win: ring, or connect three edges. I omit connecting corner to corner wins - not necessary), and...
2. Corner nodes don't count as being on an edge. (Me: corner nodes count for both of the edges that they are a part of)
Now notice, what used to be called a 'bridge', is now just a three edge fork: if you connect two corners, and corners count for what they obviously are (touching two edges each), than you AUTOMATICALLY have three (or four) edge connections: a win.
Why confuse people with a third winning condition, plus telling them that corners don't count as "edges"? What has actually changed? Now, connecting a corner to a non-contiguous edge will win, also. Tactics do jump up a notch, here, plus corners are more valuable: but only negligibly so.
Now ... I had presumed ... that you had already done the extensive play testing, and that you added those two, what seem to me as, superfluous rules because it was "necessary". The game might have been broken without them. But now, I think that all of my ASG friends may have been right all along: your game - which is, and I hope, will remain, a classic - is Flawed, as it is. The corner connection winning mechanism just adds confusion. After playing through your Hanniball games, I'm now convinced of it. It was added because 3:2:1 seemed more organic (whatever that means): 1 ring, 2 corners, 3 sides (even though 2 corners is ALWAYS 3 sides if edges are counted intuitively).
My apologies for being so forthright, and thank you for such a great game... |
|
You're welcome. I must say you choose very elaborate way to make a very simple point. And you're dead wrong. The bridge is the soul of Havannah, and you definition would change its role dramatically, not 'negligibly'. You're absolutely right that 'tactics would jump up a notch, but at the cost of refinements of strategy provided by the current game - not at all in the right direction.
I hope you'll excuse my frankness 
Now that I'm here, HanniBall has been officially launched at Zillions last month.
iG Game Center now features live Havannah, Dameo, Emergo, Shakti and Grand Chess.
Several bots are participating in havannah base-4 to base-7 tournaments at Little Golem. Best place to keep an eye on them is the hex/havannah forum.
cheers,
christian
|
| « Last Edit: Jul 4th, 2009, 5:40am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #107 on: Oct 21st, 2009, 11:39am » |
|
Hi all, long time no see. Last night, in bed, I thought "the rules of Superstar are in fact too complex". So I dreamed up 'YvY'. It has of course never been played, let alone playtested - sue me  . Here's the board:
Grey is taboo, the orange pairs, called 'bricks', are part of the playing area.
Players take turns to place one stone. A player may pass without losing the right to move next turn. A 'chain' is defined as usual, a 'loop' is a chain surrounding at least one cell completely, regardless of whether this cell is vacant or occupied, or by whom (as the 'ring' in Havannah).
A player completing a loop wins - this is the sudden death way to end a game.
If no loop is completed, the player with the highest score at the end of the game (on two successive passes) wins.
A chain is worth two points less than the number of bricks it connects - thus connecting chains pays off. A player's score is the sum of the scores of his chains.
The game may end in a draw.
|
| « Last Edit: Oct 22nd, 2009, 1:26am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #108 on: Oct 22nd, 2009, 9:11am » |
|
There's a thread on it @ LG and David Bush pointed out a misstatement in the rules.
"A chain is worth two points less than the number of bricks connected" isn't meant to go into the negative, so you don't lose a point by having a stone on an otherwise disconnected brick.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
omar
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #2
Gender:
Posts: 1003
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #109 on: Oct 24th, 2009, 11:03pm » |
|
Nice to hear from you Christian. Perhaps you should move this post to as a separate thread so it can be found more easily.
Can you give some examples of chains and what their scores would be just to make it very clear. Also why do you call it YvY (neat name)?
It's funny that you thought of this game yesterday. Because yesterday I also had an idea for a game. I usually try to avoid thinking about new games, but I just had to try this one because it's rules are about as simple as Go. So this morning Aamir and I did some play testing trying to see if there are any obvious flaws in the game. We didn't find anything wrong so far. Even though I am tempted to post the rules, I am going to hold off until I've experimented with it some more.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #110 on: Oct 25th, 2009, 5:45am » |
|
on Oct 24th, 2009, 11:03pm, omar wrote:| Nice to hear from you Christian. Perhaps you should move this post to as a separate thread so it can be found more easily. |
|
It's no big deal.
on Oct 24th, 2009, 11:03pm, omar wrote:| Can you give some examples of chains and what their scores would be just to make it very clear. Also why do you call it YvY (neat name)? |
|
It's very easy. Connect 3 bricks and you score 1 point, connect 5 and you score 3. Provided they're separate chains, they total 4.
Now connect them to get one chain connecting 8 bricks, scoring 6 points.
So the connection brings 2 additional points.
The aim was to get a very simple low-res scoring system in a connection game. It's all about winning by 1 or 2 points or ... sudden death.
The loop is of course the tactical disruption tool in the scoring strategies. Loop threaths must be met regardless of the score.
on Oct 24th, 2009, 11:03pm, omar wrote:| I usually try to avoid thinking about new games, but I just had to try this one because it's rules are about as simple as Go. |
|
The best ones wait till you're trying to avoid them so this sounds very promising. Let us know if and when you're ready
PS. The name. The 'Y' connection, no pun intended, had little to do with it. I had decided on 'bricks' to emphasize simplicity, and the chains were like 'ivy' creeping in between. Then I misspelled 'Ivy'.
|
| « Last Edit: Oct 25th, 2009, 6:30am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #111 on: Oct 26th, 2009, 10:20am » |
|
David J Bush worried about the margin of draws, and probably rightly so, and made an interesting suggestion to try to eliminate it. I liked it enough to go along and make YvY a joint invention. It also led to an elegant rephrasing of the score.
Not to mention a new board:
See the thread at LG for the ongoing developments.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #112 on: Oct 28th, 2009, 6:16am » |
|
I'll gladly trade my original game for the one that evolved after David's suggestions.
Here's the new YvY board - let's call this one base 4/5.
YvY
The green cells are 'sprouts' and a closed chain of like colored stones is a 'group'.
The game has a swap and players may pass without losing the right to move next turn.
Loops must surround at least one cell completely (vacant or occupied doesn't matter), and win regardless of the score.
The score for each player after two successive passes is:
The number of occupied sprouts minus twice the number of groups involved.
That's the same as before, but phrased more elegantly.
'Bad sprouts' are vacant sprouts the occupation of which reduces the score for either player doing so.
Close off a vacant sprout with two white stones, and close off those two stones with black ones, and you have a bad sprout.
In order to end in a draw, an odd number of bad sprouts is necessary, but not sufficient.
YvY © MindSports/David J Bush
P.S. This game was invented without the use of a board or pieces, and without ever being playtested, something that cannot be done ...
|
| « Last Edit: Oct 28th, 2009, 6:19am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
SpeedRazor
Forum Guru
Skepticism is the Immune System of Science
Gender:
Posts: 72
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #113 on: Oct 28th, 2009, 11:07pm » |
|
I SO want to study your new ideas, Christian. If I told you my Mom is flagellating up/down with anger as we speak, you may understand Gbye.
Okay, I'm back on the computer - no time to study your new hexagonal-themed idea. Tomorrow. As Abstract game designers, and Mathematicians/Programmers, you guys MUST also know: http://www.cameronius.com/
Please don't be insulted if I say that he rocks - one day - as cool as you are, Christian/Omar! That's saying a lot! Probably you already know him ...
|
| « Last Edit: Oct 29th, 2009, 7:14am by SpeedRazor » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #114 on: Oct 29th, 2009, 12:04am » |
|
on Oct 28th, 2009, 11:07pm, SpeedRazor wrote:| Please don't be insulted if I say that he rocks - one day - as cool as you are, Christian/Omar! That's saying a lot! Probably you already know him ... |
|
Oh yes we do, and you're quite right, Cameron is an icon in the abstract games world, a great designer and an expert on connection games
Speaking of which, there is an aspect of YvY that begs playtesting. The whole point of David's suggestion to take an odd number of single-cell sprouts, was to eliminate draws.
Consider: with all sprouts occupied, one has an odd number, and one an even number. Both must subtract an even number, i.e. 'twice the number of groups involved'.
So with all sprouts occupied, a draw cannot occur.
Whether or not this was a good decision would depend on the frequency in which 'bad sprouts' occur. My guess is that they will occur occasionally. It is not likely that one would occur in the opening, or even middle game: there are other priorities at these stages. So the cradle must be in the finer points of the endgame. It is admittedly hard to make a calculated guess about the frequency of occurence of bad sprouts without a great number of games between seasoned players. As it is, the first ideas about strategy haven't even been established.
|
| « Last Edit: Oct 29th, 2009, 1:05am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #115 on: Oct 31st, 2009, 10:27am » |
|
Finding YvY
Inspired by the deafening silence I'll try to show what you're looking at and how it will behave. As for playtesting: Ed and I just started our first game - you can find it in the MindSports Spectators Section at the bottom of the scroll box.
First a rerun of the rules in a nutshell:
An YvY base 4/5 board
The diagram shows a base 4/5 board, with 27 cells called 'sprouts' along the edges.
There are two players, black and white. White moves first by putting one stone on the board, after which black has the option to swap.
After that players alternately put one stone on the board. Players may pass their turn without losing the right to move next turn. The game ends by sudden death or when both pass on successive turns.
Groups
A 'group' is a number of connected stones of like color. A single stone is a group by definition. An 'involved group' is a group containing one or more sprouts.
Loops / Sudden Death
A 'loop' is a group that completely surrounds one or more cells. Whether or by whom such cells are occupied is irrelevant.
A player completing a loop wins immediately, regardless of the score.
The Score
If no loops are completed the game ends after the players both pass on successive turns.
Now all uninvolved groups are removed from the board and the player with the highest score wins.
A player's score is the number of sprouts he occupies minus twice the number of his groups (now all involved).
This is equivalent with an involved group having a value equal to the number of sprouts it contains minus 2.
However, if a group is located inside a group of like color (as a result of the removal of uninvolved groups), the two count as one group.
connections, loops, cutting points
If black occupies F1 he gets one point but at the same time creates a new involved group that cannot be connected anywhere, costing two points, the net result being the loss of one point.
If white occupies F1, the same applies initially. However, at the end of the game, the black group of 2 is removed and a white stone on F1 is considered connected to the surrounding white group. So for white the net result is the gain of one point.
Note: a purely theoretical consideration: suppose black has a group around the 5 white stones, including stones on D1 and H1. Now the white group is uninvolved too and situation is the reverse. Black can occupy F1 and eventually score +1, white cannot occupy it because it would render -1.
History
You may have noticed that the history's still evolving - I solved the 'bad sprouts' problem and eliminated draws halfway the article - but its still all here and at the LG forum. To give my critics credit, this version is better than the first version (the one with the 'bricks') thanks to David's contributions, that gave it a final push in the right direction. The organism was only too happy to slip into this better outfit.
Nevertheless the basic subject of this thread is met: barring the one game currently played between Ed and me, the game has been completed without any playtesting whatsoever, and I'll try to have a go at its 'character at high level play' in all openness.
The twilight zone between Go and Hex
I posted a question at LG asking if anyone knew other abstract boardgames besides Craige Schensted's Star and my own Superstar where connections rendered scores.
There was no answer, so I figure there may not be all that many. However, I found the inventor formerly called Craige, himself improved on his creation. I must say I like this one better, because it shifts the counting from vacant cells adjacent to the board, to actual cells (or points rather) on the board. And what a board! A beautiful 'hexpentagonal' plane with slightly rounded edges.
Like Hex, Star is pure 'pathfinding'. But where Hex is abysmal in a life or death situation, Star is abysmal in a point scoring situation, and not a very convenient count either. There's nothing wrong with that, or Go would have the same defect, but back then I thought I'd make it a bit livelier, and created Superstar.
Superstar isn't all that bad either if you get to know it, but it doesn't exactly invite you to get to know it. Complex rules and complex counting of stars, superstars and loops, are too much of a treshold for that.
That thought occured to me a few days back, followed by "a loop should simply win", followed by the consideration that simultaneously merging the concept of stars and superstars, would reduce counting to just one aspect instead of three. And it would keep the loop in play as monkey in the snakepit, introducing similar tactics as the ring in Havannah into the general 'pathfinding' strategies.
The merger is still visible in the 'bricks' of the first version. It's not a flawed game. What's wrong with it is that this one is so much better. The most important push was due to David's quest to eliminate draws. The final piece of the puzzle was the removal of uninvolved groups at the end and defining enclosed groups of like color as 'connected' to the enclosing group.
To speak with Michael: This is it.
Character
I don't hesitate to call Star a quintessential "Gonnection" game. Although that qualification has already been taken by Gonnect - a game that developed in the opposite direction: employing territorial mechanics for an absolute connection goal - I'll use it here for convenience.
Yet Star falls short of Go in the tactical realm. Not that it doesn't have deep tactics, but they are not all that pluriform. That's why I made Superstar in the first place, overshooting the target.
YvY, more than Havannah, will have the feel of Go, very much a game of territorial influence. It's resolution is lower because there are only 27 sprouts to be divided. The bright side is that counting is too easy to be distracting and a swap seems to remedy too much of an advantage for the first player.
After that it's a fine line: as in Havannah or Go, it can be a one point difference that makes all the difference, and at its highest level it almost certainly will be.
At its highest level, too, the loop will be a constant presence in the equation, without ever materializing. In Havannah a ring may materialize as the consequence of a simultaneous deadly threat, but in YvY you're inclined to prevent one at all cost, because it's a choice between sudden death and losing one or two points.
Of course loops might materialize in less high level games.
The 'influence' aspect comes from the risk of occupying a sprout: unconnected it will cost a point, so taking one is a risk to begin with, and taking one under an 'umbrella' of the opponent is probably a bad idea. In consequence an umbrella, or 'influence' will be a leading strategical concept.
So where does YvY fit in? Thematically it's in the "Gonnection" class that as far as I know holds four games, two of which are more or less redundant.
For the 'feel' of it, it resembles Havannah as 'something in between Hex and Go', but YvY leans more to the Go side in that a player can accumulate, whereas Havannah is all about one winning structure. Stripped from the 'loop' YvY would be a Star variant. The loop provides what is lacking in Star: pluriformity of tactics. A pluriformity that strongly resembles havannah's.
Let's have a look at the diagram again.
connections, loops, cutting points
In Star a black stone at "X" would be a rock solid connection in the fast majority of cases, and the white groups would have no escape. In YvY however, white A and B cannot be defended both, because then C would mean sudden death.
The loop is the basic tool to gain tempo, force cuts an draw defensive stones in the process, which are the primary source of 'uninvolved' groups.
There'll be no end to YvY's inticacies. Thirty years after its invention, Mirko Rahn (current rating at LG: 2102) taught me a new 'basic tactic' in Havannah, by making me its victim three times in a row. I'm a slow learner. The thing is called a "blockbuster" and requires the preparation of a second stone at some distance, but then it makes a block impossible. So I can still learn in Havannah, and YvY will not be different in this respect.
That's my prediction about its general behaviour at high level play, should it ever come to that. There's no need to take my word for it however, as far as I'm concerned YvY should be able to care for itself.
I don't know about David, but I guess he feels the same.
We hope you enjoy the game
YvY © MindSports / David J Bush
|
| « Last Edit: Nov 2nd, 2009, 5:01am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #116 on: Nov 5th, 2009, 12:50pm » |
|
In Go, if it is said that a certain group is dead, it doesn't mean that the group is a group, nor that dead is dead in the formal sense. The 'group' may consist of several smaller groups or loose stones, and all of them may have liberties, or they wouldn't be on the board in the first place.
In YvY (and other games) a similar semantic freedom is used. Formally a group must be connected, but when I say that in the endposition both players have two groups, it is said in this semantic freedom.
Also, vacant sprouts under a player's control simply count as belonging to the enclosing group. Of course they could be formally occupied, like one could formally enclose dead groups in Go. It just isn't done because experienced players know and agree on the situation, or both wouldn't have passed.
Here we're halfway
Here both have passed
Here the uninvolved groups have been removed
The single white stone bottomleft formally is an 'uninvolved group' - of course it isn't within the semantic freedom between experienced players. Likewise the bottomleft red 'group' fomally consists of three groups.
The count
Both have two groups, so that evens out. White occupies two sprouts and controls five, red occupies three and controls five.
Red wins by one point.
Note: In this example the situation didn't arise, but if the final position has groups that include precisely one sprout, without contolling others, then such groups may be removed since doing so doesn't alter the score difference: both gain a point.
|
| « Last Edit: Nov 6th, 2009, 2:10am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #117 on: Nov 27th, 2009, 2:23am » |
|
YvY will be launched @ MindSports shortly. Here are the rules as I've posted them a @ Little Golem to see if David or others might have any comments. In a small section on strategy and tactics I predict the game's behaviour at high level play.
When will I ever learn 
YvY is played on a special board. The image shows a 'base-9' one, with 9 sprouts - the green cells - along any two adjacent sides. MindSports also provides base-7 and base-5 applets.
Rules
> The game starts on an empty board. Players move in turn to place one stone on an empty cell. White moves first. The second player is entitled to a swap
The MindSports applet will shortly offer the swap under the 'choose' button. The result will be a switch of color of the stone on the board.
> A player may pass his turn, without losing the right to move on the next one.
Groups & Loops
> A 'group' consists of a number of connected like colored stones. A single stone is a group by definition.
As in Go, a 'group' is most of the time meant in a less formal way as a group of 'cooperating' stones.
> A 'loop' is a group that completely surrounds one or more cells. Whether or not such cells are occupied, or by whom, is irrelevant.
Object
The game ends in one of two ways:
> By sudden death: if a player completes a loop he wins, regardless of the score.
> After both players pass on successive turns: now the player with the highest score wins.
Life & Death
> A group lives if at least one of its stones occupies a sprout, otherwise it is (as yet) dead.
Territory & Scores
> If a game ends by the players passing on successive turns then dead groups are removed from the board before the counting starts.
> After the removal of dead groups, any group fenced in by a group of like color, is considered part of that same group.
> The score of each player is the number of sprouts he controls (that is: sprouts occupied or fenced in by his stones) minus twice the number of his groups.
If, for example, one player has followed a center oriented strategy, resulting in one group controlling 11 sprouts, his score would be 9. The other player controls the remaining 16 sprouts, so if he managed to do that with three groups, he has 10 points and wins, but if he needed four he has 8 points and loses. This is a game of 'divide and rule'!
Note: if one player's score is even, the other's will be odd, so the game cannot end in a draw.
Strategy & Tactics
In terms of tactics, YvY first and foremost requires reading the hexplane the same way as in games like for instance Hex and Y, but the presence of the loop as an absolute criterion to win makes its tactics much more Havannah like. In fact YvY might be considered a 'generalized Havannah' in which the concept of corners and sides has been replaced by by an odd number of evenly distributed sprouts and the goal is, roughly speaking, to connect as many of them as possible with as few groups as possible.
Not surprisingly, the strategic dilemma of Havannah - 'spider' versus 'snake' - is revisited here. The edge is important to get control of a sufficient number of sprouts, but the center is clearly the area where connections are made. One may sacrifice a couple of sprouts to connect one's own live groups, as in the example given in the rules: one group controlling eleven sprouts wins if the opponent has four groups or more, and loses if he has three groups or less. The resulting tension between moving near the edge or higher up is totally reminiscent of Havannah, as is the loop, that fulfills the same tactical role: a tool to cut and/or connect.
There are important differences nonetheless. In Havannah the fastest connection is usually very important, whether it be ring, bridge or fork. A frame doesn't mean much if the opponent has a faster one. In YvY the score is accumulative, and in terms of the absolute win, a loopframe will usually not face a faster threat (the only option being a faster loop). So basically framing is winning.
Another difference is that YvY will usually have a 'Go type' opening, with claims staked out along the edges, whereas Havannah can have many different types of opening. YvY definitely feels more Go-like than Havannah.
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
christianF
Forum Moderator
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #4019
Gender:
Posts: 804
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #118 on: Nov 27th, 2009, 11:34am » |
|
P.S. Concerning Havannah, here are some photos of "The long Night of the Sciences 2009" in Jena, Germany.
It included a human versus computer Havannah tournament with two strong players and the two strongest programs to date (scroll down). Here are the games.
P.P.S. YvY has been launched @ MindSports.
|
| « Last Edit: Nov 27th, 2009, 11:39am by christianF » |
IP Logged |
|
|
|
omar
Forum Guru
Arimaa player #2
Gender:
Posts: 1003
|
|
Re: Essay by Christian Freeling on inventing games
« Reply #119 on: Dec 9th, 2009, 10:48pm » |
|
Thanks for sharing the pics with us Christian. Wow, Ed's Havannah set is really nice. Much better than the one I made: http://arimaa.com/havannah/. Can I buy one of those signed by you. Haven't had much of a chance to play Havannah this year, but I shall return
|
|
IP Logged |
|
|
|
|
Home
Help
Search
Members
Login
Register
Notify of replies
Send Topic
Print