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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Strategy in a beginner's eyes
        
(Message started by: proof27h on Aug 2^nd, 2011, 3:06pm)

Title: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 2^nd, 2011, 3:06pm

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

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Swynndla on Aug 2^nd, 2011, 7:09pm

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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 2^nd, 2011, 11:58pm

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?

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Hippo on Aug 3^rd, 2011, 2:55pm

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 :).

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 5^th, 2011, 2:16am

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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by UruramTururam on Aug 5^th, 2011, 4:55am

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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by robinz on Aug 5^th, 2011, 5:14am

hehe - I like that analogy, because I'm quite a keen bridge player too but it had never occurred to me :)

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Hippo on Aug 5^th, 2011, 12:00pm

on 08/05/11 at 02:16:59, 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 (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=192069) 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 (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=169677) to Harren,
mistre allowed two turn capture (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=69901) to arimaa_master, and
Fritzlein allowed three turn capture (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=137854) to chessandgo.
All these games ended on time, and the actuall capture occured only in the game lost by capturer :-[

rabbits sacrified (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=172628) phant to delay the goal.

GnoBot allowed eight turn capture (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=190055) capture to me.

on 08/05/11 at 05:14:28, 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 08/06/11 at 03:01:56, woh wrote:

This is a game (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=42036) 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 ...

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Nazgand on Aug 5^th, 2011, 1:35pm

on 08/05/11 at 02:16:59, 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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by woh on Aug 6^th, 2011, 3:01am

This is a game (http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/comments.cgi?gid=42036) where the only legal move at 42s is to move the elephant into the trap. All other pieces were frozen.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 9^th, 2011, 2:27pm

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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Fritzlein on Aug 9^th, 2011, 2:48pm

on 08/09/11 at 14:27:58, 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

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 11^th, 2011, 2:43am

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=192814&role=v&side=w

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by arimaaphile on Aug 12^th, 2011, 8:18pm

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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 15^th, 2011, 2:25pm

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/java/ys/ms4/v5/js_sit.cgi?sid=3670974556&grid=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.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by mistre on Aug 15^th, 2011, 7:41pm

on 08/15/11 at 14:25:43, proof27h wrote:

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/java/ys/ms4/v5/js_sit.cgi?sid=3670974556&grid=3&rand=53783691

Clearly Arimaa mustn't be played too much; works best with plenty of patience.

The important thing is that you keep playing. We all don't improve at the same pace, but you will start to figure things out the more you get the feel of it. Having said that, it sometimes is useful to step back for a day or two and let any lessons you learned time to sink into your subconscious.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Hippo on Aug 16^th, 2011, 2:17pm

on 08/12/11 at 20:18:38, arimaaphile wrote:

What makes Arimaa that nice game is the ballance among attack and defense.
1) You cannot defend opponent's attack without making your own threats.
2) Sometimes your attack when correctly defended turns around to be a counterattack (pulling opponent horses to your trap could result in EH attack/successful swarm of the trap, and after the game swithed to the capture race the swarm becomes disadvantage, but when the game turns to goal race the swarm becomes again advantage...)
EH attack could result in H frame which could result in M breaking frame, swarm of the wing and or full e blockade here ... mostly the difference is only one step turning 4 steps maneuver to 5 step one ...

Title: Camel hostage again
Post by proof27h on Aug 27^th, 2011, 3:07am

OK, again the way to beat the next bot (Aamira2006Fast) was to take his camel hostage. Luck in the opening, mostly. After that, I gained the initiative - which seems to be of similar value as in chess. Roughly. Maybe even the most important factor.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 28^th, 2011, 2:23am

This game against GnoBot2005Fast seems to prove what I read elsewhere a few days ago: bots tend to value material over positional advantage. All heavy pieces were suddenly clustered on one side of the board, so I could steer a rabbit through on the other side. Imbalance and initiative, just like in chess. It's still hard for me to judge how much initiative I'll need to win the game. This time I had lost a camel and still won. Maybe the bot has some panic setting for being low on time so it didn't make the most aggressive moves near the end.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/gameroom/opengamewin.cgi?client=1&gameid=194587&role=v&side=b

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Hippo on Aug 29^th, 2011, 12:40am

on 08/28/11 at 02:23:28, proof27h wrote:

Yes this bot was not ready to rotate pieces out of the blockade. Rotating horse out quickly to defend the other home trap and rotating camel later would mean no chance for activity.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by proof27h on Aug 30^th, 2011, 2:26am

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/java/ys/ms4/v5/js_sit.cgi?sid=9768826692&grid=3&rand=49044361

This one also kept trying to trap my heavy pieces and finally left the other side of the board open. I guess I could have sacrificed the camel to end the game sooner but I don't know.

Title: Camel hostage bit once more
Post by proof27h on Sep 3^rd, 2011, 3:32pm

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/jsShowGame.cgi?gid=195275&s=b

(I refreshed the link by Simon's instructions; should work now)

It seems harder to force the stronger bots to take anything else but the camel as hostage. I managed to win this one pretty much the same way I've won the others: clump the heavy pieces on one side of the board and then do stuff on the other. This one already took loads of patience to beat.

It didn't want to risk its camel which made it possible for me to operate with the horse(s) in the middle game. Long-winded stuff.

Title: Re: Strategy in a beginner's eyes
Post by Simon on Sep 3^rd, 2011, 9:42pm

In order for people to be able to conveniently see the games you link, you should post the link to the finished game (look for it under your recent games, or in your game record). The link to the game that you use while the game is on doesn't work after the game is done.