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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Bot Weakness
        
(Message started by: Virgeist on Aug 26^th, 2008, 12:32am)

Title: Bot Weakness
Post by Virgeist on Aug 26^th, 2008, 12:32am

Has anyone made some sort of compendium detailing bot weaknesses? I'm searching for ways to finally advance on the bot ladder (I'm currently stuck at Arimazilla) and reading my way into becoming a better player is probably the simplest solution.

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by aaaa on Aug 26^th, 2008, 12:42am

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/twiki/bin/view/Arimaa/BotSlayer

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by Virgeist on Aug 26^th, 2008, 1:21am

thank you!
PS I felled arimazilla at long last whithin minutes of writing the previous post. Life can be funny sometimes.

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by Arimabuff on Aug 26^th, 2008, 5:37am

on 08/26/08 at 01:21:11, Virgeist wrote:

thank you!
PS I felled arimazilla at long last whithin minutes of writing the previous post. Life can be funny sometimes.

I think the whole point behind learning by climbing the bot ladder is to discover the bot weaknesses all by yourself. If you're given the tricks before even playing the bots, it's like a math teacher who would give his students the answers before the test. You won't get much out of the experience.

Believe me; I've been around long enough to know what I am talking about.

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by omar on Aug 26^th, 2008, 9:43am

I have to agree with Arimaabuff. There are well known ways to beat the bots and you could employ those to more quickly move up the ladder. However, it is much more fun, to discover you own ways of beating them. The main thing to remember is that all of the bots on the ladder are invincible by most anyone who is persistent.

But if you really get stuck you might want to look at the botSlayer page or recent games the bot has lost and see how others are defeating it. Of course it is not always trivial to repeat the game, and trying to copy a game can also be very fun in its own way.

Another approach is to read the Arimaa wikibook and learn various concepts such as hostage, frame, invade, false protection, swarm, etc. This will definitely help you improve your game while developing your own style of play. That can be quite fun too.

Depends on what kind of fun you are looking for :-) Best of luck in working your way up the ladder.

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by Virgeist on Aug 27^th, 2008, 12:28am

Yeah I did like you said at first, but I got frustrated with this particular arimazilla as I stopped playing for several months... Currently I feel that I'm getting better so don't worry, I won't go over to the dark side. ;)

Title: Re: Bot Weakness
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 27^th, 2008, 4:05am

I partially agree with the notion that one should learn to play Arimaa only by personal experience and discovery. What fun is a riddle if someone simply tells you the answer?

But I also partially disagree. I wouldn't have written the wikibook pages, and wouldn't be writing a print book now, if there weren't some fun in learning from someone else. Arimaa is not a puzzle that anyone can solve and be done with, at least not according to our current knowledge. You can learn everything everyone knows and still be baffled by the mystery of Arimaa, with plenty of uncharted territory to explore.

In any field there is excitement in learning something you didn't know before, but there is an additional excitement in learning something no one knew before. I definitely sympathize with people who want to get the basics down as quickly as possible, with help as necessary, in order to get on to the most interesting stuff.