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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Game Timeouts and Replays
        
(Message started by: Meneldor on Dec 5^th, 2009, 5:24pm)

Title: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Meneldor on Dec 5^th, 2009, 5:24pm

I am playing on the bot ladder, and I had a number of timeouts that were due to the client not responding. I finally discovered that if I click on "Play Now" I could then "Unrate Game". But this is no longer possible, as it only applies to the last game. Anyway to fix this? I have had a large number of timeouts. One timeout was from the bot: I had all traps covered, and it seemed to have gotten caught in a loop analyzing it until it timed out.

Also, sometimes I want to replay a game from a certain position, how is that done?

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Arimabuff on Dec 5^th, 2009, 6:04pm

You can't replay a game from a given position. The feature doesn't exist... yet.

As a beginner your rating doesn't matter much since it is prone to quick changes as you will learn tactical tricks and the bots will get stronger and stronger.

At your level of play, focusing on a specific position is just a waste of time. You should play as many games as possible and try to learn a little with each situation, the more of them the better.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Meneldor on Dec 5^th, 2009, 10:08pm

on 12/05/09 at 18:04:34, Arimabuff wrote:

You can't replay a game from a given position. The feature doesn't exist... yet.

Well that's bad. In fact, it does not make any sense. How are you supposed to improve tactics and strategy if you can't take a "what if" scenario to explore a different path. Instead you will be forced to hack your way through the bots, and that will take longer unless you can explore different paths of the same game. Is this something that will be added in the future on this site?

Also, for bot development, this feature is indispensible for improving bots when they lose. Take a given position, and try it with a different bot.

I managed in one game to actually blockade in both an elephant AND a horse... and then goofed up and lost when the bot counter-attacked. I wanted to go back and play from that same position.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by tize on Dec 6^th, 2009, 4:07am

on 12/05/09 at 22:08:56, Meneldor wrote:

Well that's bad. In fact, it does not make any sense.

Well every feature takes time to implement...

You can already, in a way, replay a game. When you are reviewing the game, open a plan window from the interesting position. Of course you now have to play both colors for yourself, but its better than nothing.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 6^th, 2009, 10:17am

Another workaround for timeouts (although it doesn't solve the underlying problem) is to test whether your connection is live by chatting to the bot. If your chat doesn't echo back to you, then try refreshing the client window (the F5-key does it in my browser) to reload the latest game state. You will lose some clock time when refreshing, but that can still be better than losing the game on time and having to unrate it.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Meneldor on Dec 6^th, 2009, 4:14pm

Another question: I've been matched with bots below my level, I want to get rid of them. Easy way to do this? Or just do nothing for 24 hours? Will I automatically get rematched again, and if so, how to turn this off?

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by tize on Dec 6^th, 2009, 4:30pm

I think once you have played enough games (10-20 games???) you will no longer be matched with the bot ArimaaScoreP1 but with human players at about your rating.

Turn it off in the settings it's called auto postal or something similar.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by Simon on Dec 6^th, 2009, 7:11pm

I thought the auto postal was only supposed to give 1 game against ArimaaScoreP1 as a filtering mechanism. Perhaps it's because you selected multiple opponents to start with? I would suggest setting the # of simultaneous games to one and then finish your existing games with the bot, then if you get matched with a human, increase the number of games again.

Title: Re: Game Timeouts and Replays
Post by omar on Dec 6^th, 2009, 11:24pm

on 12/05/09 at 17:24:13, Meneldor wrote:

Also, sometimes I want to replay a game from a certain position, how is that done?

This feature would be nice and I've thought of adding it before. It would also come in handy for puzzles so that the bot plays the defending side. It just hasn't made it to the top of the stack yet. But I must admit, adding features is time consuming work and sometimes I just like to use my Arimaa time to play Arimaa :-)

You might want to get a copy of David Fotland's program which can be run your local PC. It can be used to continue games from previous positions. Check the 'Downloads' page for the link.