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Topic: How common are games without victims? (Read 1489 times) |
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Ail
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Rabbits can't push Rabbits!
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How common are games without victims?
« on: Jan 21st, 2015, 4:54am » |
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I just continued a game that I saved last week.
It was on Level 6 of David Wu's Android-App.
I thought it looked rather grim.
Gold (my opponent) had challenged both of my traps while maintaining control over their own.
His pieces, including rabbits, in average were more advanced.
The e-h side of the board was more crowded in general.
My strategy had been to play as save as I could. But seeing my position falling completely appart, I said "screw it!" and tried for a breakthrough on the non-crowded side of the board.
With nothing but rabbits left behind, my camel could plow a way through and at the same time shield my goal-runner from returning lower-specimen.
He tried bringing his camel over but simply was too late.
However, after that successfull goal-attack I realized that throughout the whole game there hadn't be a single trapping. Every animal survived!
Winning my first game at that level after a long non-arimaa-pause in that fashion intrigued me.
So I was wondering how common that is. Does it happen more often on higher levels of play?
I'd also like to know if the inventor of the game tried variants that didn't even include traps at all and if so, did those usually stall at some point or was there still progress?
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Fritzlein
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Arimaa player #706
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Re: How common are games without victims?
« Reply #1 on: Jan 21st, 2015, 10:07am » |
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on Jan 21st, 2015, 4:54am, Ail wrote:However, after that successfull goal-attack I realized that throughout the whole game there hadn't be a single trapping. Every animal survived!
Winning my first game at that level after a long non-arimaa-pause in that fashion intrigued me.
So I was wondering how common that is. Does it happen more often on higher levels of play? |
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It is quite uncommon in high-level HvH games. I can't think of one off the top of my head, although I recall chessandgo once beat me in a one-capture game. Victimless games have, however, happened many times in HvB games. Indeed, when competitive bot-bashing was all the rage, there was a whole category devoted to beating each bot in as few moves as possible with no captures. Indeed, Omar set the precedent in the very first Arimaa Challenge in 2004. After having swept Bomb five games to secure victory, he started handicapping himself in small ways, and in the seventh game, he goaled with all 32 pieces still left on the board:
http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/showGame.cgi?gid=5318
By beating sharp this way, you have joined a long and hallowed bot-bashing tradition, even though you did so unintentionally.
Quote:| I'd also like to know if the inventor of the game tried variants that didn't even include traps at all and if so, did those usually stall at some point or was there still progress? |
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Yes, Omar experimented with having no traps at the same time he tinkered with many other rule variations. He worried that there would be a stalemate with no traps, but his main motivation for having traps was simply that Arimaa seemed more exciting when capture was a part of the dynamic.
I doubt that he specifically experimented with the exact rule set we now have minus traps, because it was a late addition to have the full 16 chess pieces on each side instead of fewer. With the full 32 piece set, it seems obvious to me that any good player would be able to defend forever even against the World Champion. It would almost certainly devolve into stalemate. I have little interest in Arimaa variants, but I'll give some free advice anyway: If you want to make a playable variant that has no possibility of capture, I highly recommend using fewer pieces on each side.
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Ail
Forum Guru
Rabbits can't push Rabbits!
Gender:
Posts: 52
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Re: How common are games without victims?
« Reply #2 on: Jan 22nd, 2015, 3:36am » |
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on Jan 21st, 2015, 10:07am, Fritzlein wrote:
By beating sharp this way, you have joined a long and hallowed bot-bashing tradition, even though you did so unintentionally. |
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Haha, I was happy that I had won at all. But doing so in a cruelty-free way felt somehow better than usual.
And it feels even better, now that I know it is not any more common in high-level-play.
"No animals were harmed in the making of this victory!" 
When I think about it again, I don't feel having no traps would be a worthwhile variant. Even tho the traps did not kill anyone in my game, their mere existence already heavily affected it. Had they not existed, there would have been very little reason for some of the pieces staying at certain areas of the board. Both elephants were tied to the f6 trap in order to prevent captures.
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