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Arimaa >> Site Discussion >> Beginner bots and beginners
(Message started by: Fritzlein on Sep 25th, 2005, 1:27pm)

Title: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 25th, 2005, 1:27pm
Omar,

Now that the beginner bots are online, what are the requirements for beginners?  I'm just wondering if it is easy for them to get started.


[EDIT] I just tested this, and it seems that newcomers can't play any games at all, because the server keeps telling them to play unrated games first.  Either that block should be removed, or ShallowBlue needs to come back on line.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by Arimanator on Sep 25th, 2005, 2:41pm
Another possiblility is for the unrated flag to be on for a beginner until he gained the right to play rated games.

Also a written list of the weaker bots for beginners would be nice bot Loc p1 for instance shouldnt' cause much more difficulties than Shallowblue and could be a suitable replacement.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by Fritzlein on Sep 25th, 2005, 4:09pm

on 09/25/05 at 14:41:16, Arimanator wrote:
Another possiblility is for the unrated flag to be on for a beginner until he gained the right to play rated games.


That's a good idea, but it would require an additional change.  At present a newcomer with his unrated flag turned on is still be unable to sit down against a bot offering a rated game.  Therefore newcomers are in a bit of a catch 22.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by grey_0x2A on Sep 25th, 2005, 4:15pm

on 09/25/05 at 14:41:16, Arimanator wrote:
Also a written list of the weaker bots for beginners would be nice bot Loc p1 for instance shouldnt' cause much more difficulties than Shallowblue and could be a suitable replacement.


umm as a beginner I whould like to say the Loc p1 kicks my butt but, that
shallowblue and arimaaton are push overs for me. There is a shortage of lower level bots above the (shallowblue & arimaaton) level IMHO. I do not know what the other noobs/week players think though.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by nbarriga on Sep 25th, 2005, 4:40pm
I quickly managed to beat shallowblue and arimaalon, but it took me a while to be able to beat arimaazilla. I think we need an intermediate bot between arimaalon and arimaazilla.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by nbarriga on Sep 25th, 2005, 4:56pm

on 09/25/05 at 16:40:26, nbarriga wrote:
I quickly managed to beat shallowblue and arimaalon, but it took me a while to be able to beat arimaazilla. I think we need an intermediate bot between arimaalon and arimaazilla.


I changed my mind :) I just played bot_Loc2005P1 and i think it maybe fills the gap between arimaalon and arimaazilla.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by omar on Sep 26th, 2005, 1:26pm
Actually I plan to put the beginner bots online again. I was suspecting that maybe the bot scripts are going crazy sometimes on the new server and causing the network overload which seems like a DOS attack. Since I've had them offline we haven't had the problem; so there is reason to think that it could have been caused by the bot scripts. I will be putting them online again with logging turned on. If the network overload problem occurs again, hopefully the logs will help me trace down the problem.

Title: Re: Beginner bots and beginners
Post by omar on Sep 26th, 2005, 1:32pm
We had touched on the topic of replacing the beginner bots with other ones to add more variety to the style of play and more gradual steps between the strength of the bots. I think we definitely should do that. I would also like to include the beginner bots in the matchOffline kit. We had considered using the *2005P1 and *2005P2 bots as the replacements. But I now think it would be better if we create the beginner bots from the sampleC bot that is currently provided in the matchOffline kit. That way we can have full control over the source code of the beginner bots in case I ever need to recompile it from scratch on a new system and also to make it open source in the matchOffline kit. Also we would have full control over the evaluation function and can tweek it as needed to adjust the strength and style of the bots. Some of the bot developers here are already very familiar with the sampleC bot code and could probably help in creating these beginner bots.



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