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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> The Great Camel Hunt
        
(Message started by: jdb on Sep 18^th, 2006, 6:25pm)

Title: The Great Camel Hunt
Post by jdb on Sep 18^th, 2006, 6:25pm

While testing clueless vs arimazilla, the following position appeared.

1w Rc1 Re1 Rf1 Rg1 Rh1 Ra2 Rb2 Rd2 Hf2 Da3 Db3 Cd3 Me3 Hg3 Ch3 Ed4
1b ee4 rb6 hg6 ha7 dc7 cd7 me7 cf7 rh7 ra8 rb8 rc8 dd8 rf8 rg8 rh8
2w pass

To view, cut and paste the above into the planning window at:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/planGame.cgi

My question is, can the gold camel be taken hostage?

Title: Re: The Great Camel Hunt
Post by seanick on Sep 19^th, 2006, 2:06am

sure, given a particular response... not sure if there are any ways to prevent it...

mouseover the "answer" to see how I think ...

but this is too obvious, there must be something more complicated about the problem that I didn't see at first glance.

answer (http://ee4e.Me3n.Me4n.ef4w)

Title: Re: The Great Camel Hunt
Post by PMertens on Sep 19^th, 2006, 1:18pm

yes it can

Title: Re: The Great Camel Hunt
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 19^th, 2006, 1:38pm

I'm with seanick in failing to see the complication. Sometimes a threatened camel can hide in the middle of the board while the friendly elephant shields it from being taken hostage, but not here. Silver can certainly get the gold camel on to the silver half of the board and keep it there. This is an advantage to Silver in the given position. The only issue seems to be exactly how favorable the camel hostage will be. If the question were, "Can Silver get the gold camel hostage on h6, blocked from h7-h8-g7, with the silver elephant on g6 and the silver horse now on g6 on h4 instead?" then maybe not.