Messages

1

Tutorial, training, online play / Re: Any info on how the AI works?

« on: 12/03/18, 10:26pm »

Wow, that was a very interesting read! Thanks for sharing the details, as I am a computer programmer myself it makes the game more interesting.

It's very impressive they can play so well in only 10ms, that speaks to a very well designed evaluation function.

I understand how Alpha-Beta works in the perfect information case like with Buggy (very cool by the way), and I even understand how it could extend to a game like Backgammon that has dice where each outcome has a fixed probability. But I'm hoping you can explain to me how this can work in Lost Cities where the actions your opponent can take depend on the hidden information...?

So suppose the bot would search each of the 8 cards in hand to either play or discard that card, then it would search a draw action. Is it going to have a lot of branches and search every card that's still in the deck, and assume they're equal probability? Or does it already know what card is on top of the deck and only needs to search the true outcome (which a human player wouldn't know)?

Then the same question for when the bot is searching the opponent's turn - would the bot search every possible card the opponent could have, or does it already know?

Anyway, I understand that you might not want to say too much about how the AI works, but I would appreciate any info you're willing to give

2

Tutorial, training, online play / Any info on how the AI works?

« on: 06/03/18, 05:14pm »

I've been really enjoying Lost Cities, and the AI manages to pull off some victories when I least expect it, which is great.

I would love to hear from the AI creator (Nicolas Guibert?) about how the AI is designed. Do the different bots have 'personalities', or how are the different strength bots distinguished, more computing time? Are there simple heuristics programmed in or does it use anything fancy like a neural network? Does it know the concept of bluffing or concealing information about its hand?

Thanks

3

Hanamikoji / Re: Hanamikoji feedback

« on: 22/12/17, 01:48pm »

Fantastic job on the game overall! This game is out of print where I live in Canada so I was thrilled to be able to play online.

My main feedback is that I would love to see the art in higher resolution to better admire the intricate details. On my Macbook (retina display) the art is noticeably blurry.

A few more minor things below:

- Keyboard shortcuts to use the actions would be great. There are only 4 actions, so being able to press the numbers 1-4 to select the action feels very intuitive. Similarly, prompts like "Pick a set of 2 cards" with a big A and B buttons, it would be nice to be able to press A/B on the keyboard.

- On the 'pick a set of 2 cards' you can only click the A and B buttons, which are small. The cards themselves should be clickable as I often tried to click them, and you can click the cards for the other actions.

- The message saying that the round is over appears above the main game board and pushes everything else downwards when it appears. Probably displaying it as an overlay would look nicer.

- It took me a long time to realize that the 2 numbers on the far left of the board were the current scores. Maybe those could be in black circles to make them look more similar to the points circles on the cards?

- I never looked at the 2nd pair of numbers on the left (number of geishas). This is partly that it wasn't clear to me what those numbers even were, and partly that it's easy enough to just look at the top of the board. Curious if other people use these, or if they could be removed to declutter the interface.

- The animations felt fine on first play, but on repeated plays they felt slow. I'd be happy with a setting to adjust the speed, or just decreasing the times all around by say 25%.