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Topic: Arimaa without captures? (Read 3302 times) |
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gatsby
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Would arimaa be playable if there were no captures? I know that Omar thought of it at some stage of arimaa design...
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aaaa
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #1 on: Apr 30th, 2008, 9:42am » |
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I really doubt it. I think that any reasonably competent player who will always have all his pieces at his disposal should be able to prevent goal and immobilization for an indefinite amount of time.
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jdb
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #2 on: Apr 30th, 2008, 5:51pm » |
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If there were no captures, a player could attack with everything...
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Fritzlein
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #3 on: Apr 30th, 2008, 6:15pm » |
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I don't think Omar ever experimented with a no-capture version with a full set of 16 pieces per side. I'm not sure but I think he had at most 11 pieces per side in the no-capture variants.
If there is one thing Omar's play testing showed definitively, it is that the way a game actually plays can be quite different than one's intuitions based on just the rules. My intuition about removing capture from Arimaa but keeping all other rules is that it would be a huge logjam every game with no way to make progress. It's hideous in my imagination. But if you playtested that variation and it turned out that forcing goal was somehow possible, I wouldn't be too surprised, and it might even have an impact on the way I play the standard game.
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omar
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #4 on: May 2nd, 2008, 3:38pm » |
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Yes, you are right Karl, we did try a version without any trapping but it didn't use the full set of pieces; didn't include the queen and four pawns.
Even with the fewer pieces the game would get a bit jammed up and crowded in the middle. Also the game felt a little dull because one did not have to be careful of suddenly losing a piece.
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gatsby
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #5 on: May 7th, 2008, 7:12am » |
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But the game could always be decided by score when it reaches some stablished number of moves, say 100.
Or we could decide games by using this rule:
If the game hasn't ended by move (say) 100, the game will be won by the player who has advanced more squares with one of his rabbits than the other player with any of his ones. If the tie persists, the game will be won by the last player who has had this kind of advantage in a previous position...
It is not very elegant, I know, but I am just trying to figure out how we could make it playable. Arimaa is of course much better than this...
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aaaa
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #6 on: May 20th, 2008, 1:17pm » |
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I wonder what kind of game we would get if traps could not be protected. Given that there would be a tension between not wanting lesser pieces hanging around the trap, while also not wanting to leave open a gap for a rabbit to get through, it's not obvious to me it would be that unplayable of a game. Would probably be a fast, racing one.
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99of9
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #7 on: May 20th, 2008, 10:35pm » |
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on May 20th, 2008, 1:17pm, aaaa wrote:| I wonder what kind of game we would get if traps could not be protected. Given that there would be a tension between not wanting lesser pieces hanging around the trap, while also not wanting to leave open a gap for a rabbit to get through, it's not obvious to me it would be that unplayable of a game. Would probably be a fast, racing one. |
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Interesting. I think this might emphasize the elephant domination even more. I think both players would want their elephant forward.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #8 on: May 21st, 2008, 8:13am » |
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I have a hunch that Arimaa without capture defense would be a straightforward race. An elephant could cut a path for a rabbit to reach goal, and not even the opposing elephant could stop it. Thus the only viable strategy would be to use your own elephant to cut a path to goal even faster. The distinctions from cat to camel would largely collapse, as all of those pieces would be just elephant fodder. Once we got good at racing, it would probably become like Halma (Chinese Checkers) where experts can count out many moves in advance exactly how long it will take them to get their marbles home, and races are usually decided by one or two moves. In standard Arimaa, the fact an elephant can be thwarted either permanently by an opposing elephant, or temporarily by a group of small pieces, creates both interesting deadlocks and interesting races.
My intuition is that eliminating capture would make the game unwinnable, but eliminating capture defense would make the game unstrategic. The same caveats apply, though: intuitions are often wrong, you have to play test, it takes a long time to be sure, etc. etc. Maybe there would be elements of defense which introduce strategic intricacies that are not obvious from the rules.
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mistre
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #9 on: May 21st, 2008, 10:28am » |
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It is amazing how Arimaa was developed to be so balanced between offense and defense. Making any changes to the rules would likely upset that balance. Arimaa without captures would just turn into a boring roadblock, while Arimaa without protected traps would dissolve into a pure calculated race (as Fritzlein said).
I think Arimaa is perfect as is, but if anyone wants to experiment with variants - here are some ideas:
1) Have a piece (a mouse) that could push the Elephant, but can be pushed by all other pieces except rabbits and the elephant. (this idea has already been posed in earlier threads).
2) Replace one Horse with a piece between the strength of Camel and Horse. (this was also proposed before). I think Lion was proposed, but this could be any other animal of our choosing (Alligator, Rhino, Giraffe, etc.)
3) Board Sizes/No of traps. I don't think this has been talked about, but you could develop custom boards which or slightly bigger/smaller, have fewer traps, more traps, traps in different locations, etc.
Two specific ideas - 9x9 board with 5 traps (1 in the center, the others in normal positions OR 4 traps in a diamond configuration.) Players could either have 2 additional pieces or just leave two blank spaces in their setup rows. Call it Arimaa Deluxe.
On the other end of the spectrum, shrink the board to 5X7, still 4 traps, but they are only one space apart. Each player has one of each piece and 5 rabbits. Call it Arimaa Jr.
Arimaa already has amazing depth as is, but creating variants could lead to something fresh and exciting for old vets or designed to pull new players in (an easier version).
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ChrisB
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #10 on: May 22nd, 2008, 12:25am » |
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I too find standard Arimaa to be "just right", yet am intrigued by the variants mistre described. I'm especially curious how Arimaa Jr. (5X7 board) would play out. I'm guessing that immobilizations would happen more often.
The five trap version of Arimaa Deluxe has also been discussed before, see:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;action=display;nu m=1173723636
If some day computers surpass humans in Arimaa by simply thinking much faster rather than smarter, a larger scale arimaa may be the ticket for humans to regain supremacy:
This could be accomplished by some combination of a larger board, more pieces, more steps per turn, and possibly even using hexagons instead of squares. Adding more steps per turn should be especially confounding for computers, since the branching factor would increase dramatically. However, we would likely need to add some movement limitation rules to avoid easy captures and goals. One possible limitation rule, which is simple but may be overly stringent, is prohibiting pushes, pulls and rabbit advancements after the first four steps.
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| « Last Edit: May 22nd, 2008, 12:54am by ChrisB » |
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mistre
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #11 on: May 22nd, 2008, 5:46am » |
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I did not know that someone else had the idea of a 9x9 board before. Thanks for pointing out that thread, Chrisb.
Arimaa Jr. (5x7 board) might work better with 3-step moves instead of 4 as trap density would be higher.
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ChrisB
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #12 on: May 22nd, 2008, 7:49am » |
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It's interesting that two players came up with the exact same board for an expanded arimaa!
Three vs. four steps for 5x7 arimaa is an interesting question. Maybe four steps would still work despite the higher trap density since a single piece could defend two traps. But, then with four steps might it be too easy to immobilize the other side? [edit] It would be interesting to test out both alternatives.
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| « Last Edit: May 22nd, 2008, 8:16am by ChrisB » |
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Arimabuff
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #13 on: May 24th, 2008, 8:11am » |
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As far as I am concerned, Arimaa without captures would be boring. Every major board game has captures: Chess, Checkers, Othello, Go... you name it. I don't think these games would have achieved the same level of popularity without captures.
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Werner
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Re: Arimaa without captures?
« Reply #14 on: Jul 11th, 2008, 4:03am » |
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How about 9x9 with 4 traps (c3, c7, g3, g7)?
Each side with 9 rabbits, 2 cats, 2 dogs, 2 horses, 2 camels and 1 elephant?
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