Re: [B1cc-contact] B1cc-contact post from anatha@cs.technion.ac.il requires approval

[FloF <bla...@gm...>]

Hello,


> From: Anat Hashavit <an...@cs...>
> To: b1c...@li...
> Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:19:01 +0200
> Subject: Chinese checkers questions
> Hello,
>
> I am using you're Chinese checkers program and I have  a few questions:


> 1 - Is there support for N players?


Yes : you can choose the number of players in the "new game" dialog : 2, 3,
4 or 6 players. The players may be human or artificial, as you want.



> 2 - About the simple distance heuristic , it is a bit unclear , do you have
> some kind of formula you can send me?
>

This is detailed in the report, which is unfortunately only in french.

The simple distance heuristic is an evaluation function for the
alpha-beta/minimax algorithm.
It simply computes the sum of the distances of the opponent's pawns to his
goal, minus the sum of the distances of the current player's pawns to his
goal.

Hence, the more the current player's pawns have moved towards their goal,
the higher the computed value will be. And the more the opponent's pawns
have moved towards their goal, the smaller the value will be.

This expresses quite well the idea of moving your own pawns while blocking
the opponent (remembering that the higher the value computed by an
heuristic, the better should be the game situation).

We called that heuristic "simple" because one can then add some more
strategies, like favoring grouped pawn moving, covering the middle of the
board, etc.

Thanks,
>
> Anat


You're welcome, I hope  this is more clear now.

Best regards,
Florent Foucaud