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Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

paper-tactics.com

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Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#81

Post by Timshel »

airstrike wrote: post #34
Kharacternyk wrote: post #2

Hi HN, I played this game a lot in school over here in Ukraine and was surprised that there is almost no coverage [1] of it in English. So, I built this tiny website where one can read the rules and play the game online. There is also an optional game mode that is impossible IRL on paper (with the "fog of war"). The game is usually known as "virus wars", but I didn't feel like registering a domain name with the word…

I would suggest listing players "looking for partners" somewhere so I can join their game instead of being specifically limited to finding someone with the exact same variants as me. I may be fine with, say, any number of neutral units, so I could be matched with anyone looking for 15%, 25% or 35% instead of having to guess which number will yield a match quicker

I second this :) Alternative could be to list open games.

Anyway was fun to learn thx OP :).

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#82

Post by PoignardAzur »

There's a pitfall with the settings: because there are so many settings, and you can only connect with people using the same settings, and there's no lobby or way to know which settings other people have set, if you change any setting you're likely locking yourself out of the matchmaking pool, until you erase your cookies or remember the initial config.

Otherwise, fun game, good implementation!

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#83

Post by tmountain »

Jorge1o1 wrote: post #8
Kharacternyk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot is not very good, unfortunately. It's mainly useful to help understand the rules, as in your case. If you're interested in playing with an experienced player, ping me at nazar@vinnich.uk :) > Which is the standard lenght of the turns? The usual setup is a 10×10 grid with 3 moves per turn. More moves means more interesting manoevres are possible. I like 7 moves on 12×12.

So the source code of the bot is here: https://github.com/Kharacternyk/paper-tactics/blob/master/pa... It seems like there's an evaluation function but there's no state search / recursive minimax tree for the bot. I think if we added a 10-ply lookahead minimax algo for the bot here it would be pretty good. [1] I will probably do it myself if I end up having a bit of free time this weekend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

Monte Carlo tree search is another “easy” way to build a decent AI for a game. I love it because you simply define the rules of the game in a purely functional way, and it does the rest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_tree_search

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#84

Post by brnt »

Kharacternyk wrote: post #77
gwervc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also "unknown in Europe" then explains the game is played in Ukraine... I understand some level of clickbait is needed to catch attention but that straight up lying here. I expected a game from Asia, Africa or South America.

I'm sorry, it's not intentional. When Ukrainians refer to Europe, they almost always mean the EU. We need some mental shift to consistently include ourselves when talking about Europe.

Altough I am from the Netherlands and people here do this too (everything east of Germany is not Europe...), it always bothered me we call Eastern Europe eastern! The eastern third of Europe is Russia! Ukraine and the rest of 'eastern' Europe are really central Europe. AFAIK the Poles do this correctly consistently.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#85

Post by radarsat1 »

Jorge1o1 wrote: post #8
Kharacternyk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bot is not very good, unfortunately. It's mainly useful to help understand the rules, as in your case. If you're interested in playing with an experienced player, ping me at nazar@vinnich.uk :) > Which is the standard lenght of the turns? The usual setup is a 10×10 grid with 3 moves per turn. More moves means more interesting manoevres are possible. I like 7 moves on 12×12.

So the source code of the bot is here: https://github.com/Kharacternyk/paper-tactics/blob/master/pa... It seems like there's an evaluation function but there's no state search / recursive minimax tree for the bot. I think if we added a 10-ply lookahead minimax algo for the bot here it would be pretty good. [1] I will probably do it myself if I end up having a bit of free time this weekend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

I was wondering about the architecture because I want to be able to make little games like this, so I'm super happy to see the source here, thanks for posting it! And looks like you put a lot of thought into the architecture too, going to study it.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#86

Post by purplepatrick »

I’ve been playing it for several days now without fully understanding all the rules. I like it but I win every game easily. I just neutralize the opponent’s marks and then lock them in. I’m not quite clear on how to make it harder…

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#87

Post by im3w1l »

Kharacternyk wrote: post #65
im3w1l wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the bot is very weak. My first game I had no real idea what I was doing. Half the game I thought I had to maintain contact with my starting square or lose, until I managed to wall in my opponents starting square and didn't win. Then I tried to make as many walls as I could because I didnt like my pieces being captured and walls seemed more solid. Suddenly it said I won and I was like wait how, turns out I had…

Yes, very weak is probably a better description. I haven't learnt the theory behind AI opponents properly yet, so this bot is essentially a weighted random choice.

Now I feel negative. The rest of the implementation was very nice. Pretty ui and everything worked well.

Re: Show HN: Play a pen-and-paper game that is almost unknown in the US and Europe

#88

Post by gus_massa »

Kharacternyk wrote: post #65
im3w1l wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the bot is very weak. My first game I had no real idea what I was doing. Half the game I thought I had to maintain contact with my starting square or lose, until I managed to wall in my opponents starting square and didn't win. Then I tried to make as many walls as I could because I didnt like my pieces being captured and walls seemed more solid. Suddenly it said I won and I was like wait how, turns out I had…

Yes, very weak is probably a better description. I haven't learnt the theory behind AI opponents properly yet, so this bot is essentially a weighted random choice.

My guess is that for 1, 2 or 3 moves per turn it's possible to make a bot that looks ahead 2 or 3 rounds using brute force and then use AB pruning to pick the best move.

With 7 moves per turn the search space is too big and it looks difficult.

I tried a few games with neutral pieces, and it' move difficult to beat the bot.

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