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Pay attention to the road movement limits, because they make it so you can’t just mass like 8 blocks in one city and then move them all together to attack at once.
Pay close attention to the garrison limits of each town/city so you don't get units disbanded during the winter turn.
Most of the additional units you can recruit require that you control certain towns that you don’t start out controlling, so you want to be thinking about capturing those towns so that you can recruit those units.
Diplomacy
Misc. Thoughts:
- In casual games it seems important to keep your eye out for players who are likely to remain in alliances for longer than they should. The same thing happens a lot in casual games of Risk.
Questions to Answer:
What is the smallest functional game that you can make? In other words, if I wanted to have as few players as possible and as few territories as possible, but I also wanted to not violate any of the original rules, how many territories / players would I have?
Analysis of Simple Situations:
2-player games
2-square game:
If each player starts with one square and there are only 2 squares, the game will be a stalemate. [Is there any way to generalize this observation?]
3-square game
If the winning condition is to get 2 squares, this game should be a stalemate with perfect play (the pieces should bounce every time they try to move into the middle territory). However, with an imperfect opponent one player could win by convincing the other player to not
Misc Links
The Diplomatic Pouch Zine
PlayDiplomacy.com Forum Discussion - Diplomacy Game, Scoring and Game Theory
LessWrong.com - Diplomacy as a Game Theory Laboratory
David Rosen - Diplomacy and International Relations Theory (Part 1)
David Rosen - Diplomacy and Game Theory (Part 2)
Wikipedia - Edi Birsan (apparently one of the best Diplomacy players)
Demis Hassabis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demis_Hassabis
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/shee ... erId,2659/
YouTube videos about him: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... sabis&sm=3
YouTube - Systems Neuroscience and AGI - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjG_Fx3D0o0
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I’m playing through “The Conquest of Go” on Steam.
I do a single Tutorial in the Learning Center every day, and quickly review the previous day’s tutorial to remind myself of it (I’ll also review other previous tutorial if I don’t remember what they said).
I’m playing my first Campaign with settings like the following:
Board Size Distribution: I did 13 9x9 boards, 5 13x13 boards, and 1 19x19 board.
Difficulty Preset: Casual (slider all the way to the left to make it as easy as possible)
I started just doing a single 9x9 game per day.
Then I discovered the ‘Fortification’ (Go puzzles) feature and started doing some of those in addition to a game every day.
My idea is that once I conquer all the 9x9 territories I’ll go for the 13x13 territories.
Playing small boards
I’m carrying around my portable 13x13 board and using https://www.cosumi.net/play.html as my opponent. It has a very helpful post-game review feature where you can see how your moves compared against what the engine recommended.
5x5 board
In one post-game review I noticed that I missed a “suicidal” move that would have prevented my opponent from forming two eyes. So that’s a useful lesson you can learn from this board.
Others' advice
https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/2fdlwn/how_do_you_teach_beginners_heres_my_method/
tl;dr: I teach go quickly by playing a simplified game after one sentence of instruction. Beginners intuitively spot the need for each rule as we play instead of me lecturing.
Game 1:
Play on a 5x5 board.
Take turns placing stones or passing and whoever has more stones at the end of the game wins.
See how long it takes them to realize they're going to win because they went first.
If they don't point it out to me themselves, I'll ask them to predict who will win.
The point is to make them understand that just alternating placing stones on the board isn’t enough to have a game that can vary in its outcome.
Game 2:
Play on a 5x5 board.
Explain liberties and capturing with a couple of easy problems.
Hopefully they'll see that filling their second-to-last internal liberty will be suicidal (remind them that they can pass).
Game 3:
Play on a 9x9 board.
Give them a 5-6 stone free-placement handicap.
During this game, I'll create a ko and let it go back and forth a few times. They'll point out to me that it's lame and there should be a rule. So I explain the ko rule.
Within a game or two I'll point out that we don't have to take the time to place stones where it's obvious that only one player can place them safely, and then explain Japanese scoring as a progression from that.
All of that can take less than 30 minutes, during which we've played multiple games and they told me when there needed to be a rule.
https://senseis.xmp.net/?DieterVerhofstadt%2FTeachingExperiences
Miss Du Yufeng, Chinese professional player and student at the department of Baduk in the university of Seoul, has asked me to elaborate more on the reasons why I have chosen to teach Go to beginners using the stone counting method, and why I abandoned the practice of capture go. Here is my reply to her:
I have been an advocate of capture go, because I liked the simplicity of it. You explain capture, lay down a cross-cut, set the objective (capture 1, capture 2, capture 5) and off you go! That was definitely a major improvement over the classical method, where you had to explain territory first and people were lost already before playing their first stone. I also liked very much the idea of territory forming naturally after a while, being "the place where your opponent's stones cannot live".
BUT, there were a few things nagging on my mind.
First, few of the students I instructed this way, seemed happy with the fact that they were not learning the real game, but that they started out with an educational device instead. There is some arrogance towards capture go: "we know the real stuff, we'll give it to you when you are ready for it".
Worse, it gives the false impression that Go is intrinsically difficult to play. Go is NOT difficult to play, it is however rich and difficult to master.
Thirdly, there are holes in the capture game. Let's say the beginners play "First to capture five". Now what if the first one passes? Then the game ends in a draw. You run into smart pupils doing such things.
Another small drawback is the initial setup of a crosscut. This is also unlike the real game.
Finally, the capture game does put an emphasis on capturing stones. While this has been the major argument of the opponents of capture go, I think it is the least of all, if you compare it at least to the classical method (using territory) because most westerners have a bigger problem than obsession with capture: they are obsessed with "making territory" and forget about the strengths and weaknesses of the existing stones.
So, when I found out about the stone counting method, I realized that most of the drawbacks of the capture go method would disappear, while keeping its advantages of simplicity and quick initialization.
First, the game is as much "the real thing" as what the experienced players play. The same objective, the same initial position, the same strategy. The only thing that differs is the way we count (and assess) the game.
Secondly, the explanation of the game is (in my opinion) closest to the origins of the game. The transition to territory counting is how the game has historically evolved (again, my opinion, this is not proven). Having the beginner experience the same feeling of "beauty of omission" is natural and pleasing.
There are no holes in the game, not with passing and not with the many issues the beginners have when they are bred with the classical method. Moves are never "losing points because played in one's own territory". Positions are never to be decided on after the game. Stones either live on the board or they are absent.
Finally, the focus of players starting out this way is on "putting as much living stones on the board as possible". This is the correct focus. I cannot prove it, but my impression with the students I have taught this way, is that they play a very natural kind of game, from the beginning.
In addition to stone counting, I let them play on very small boards (even the computer solved 5x5!)
I had a very satisfactory introduction session with 6 colleagues of mine. Well, I was satisfied, and they were at least very positive about it in speech.
I started with about 5 minutes telling the emperor tale, the spread to the rest of Asia and the popularity there (big) and here (moderate but rising!). Next, I explained the rules, with stone counting.
Empty grid of arbitrary size. We'll use 9x9.
You take turns and play on the vertices (points).
Who places more stones, wins.
Then I said "If this were to be the only rule, then it would be a very dull game and Black would always win, since there are an odd number of points.Then I explained the capture rule in my usual style, asking each particpant in turn for the number of liberties of this or that stone or chain.
One guy who had some notice of the game, asked about suicide. "Yes, I said, it is illegal". Another guy said "So that structure you have there after you captured a stone (he pointed to the ponnuki), none of these stones can be captured ever?" So I explained that capture goes first, then only the legality of a move is decided. They nodded. Another guy, who already played against the computer, said "So if you have two such surrounded spots ..." I cut him short and said "I know what you're about to say, but I deliberately avoided that issue, because it is not a rule, but a concept that follows from the rules. I'd rather have you discover that for yourself.
After which we started to play. It was interesting to see how all kept a balance between putting live stones on the board and trying to remove the opponent's. Halfway the game, they started realizing some stones were lost anyway and not worth saving nor capturing. Soon they understood there were areas controlled by either player, unworthy of investment. Within the course of one game they were developing strategies. One player made many diamond shapes, but he commented himself that he could have done better economically. Another player had a firm grasp on the concept of Take 'n Give and tried to control the larger share of the board, fencing in his opponent towards the side.
Two players resigned their first game ever, because they understood they were never to get more stones on the board than the opponent. All players had understood the concept of territory within one game. All players were enthusiastic and surprised by how much there is to the game of Go. They had an idea of what lied ahead of them.
This introduction session exceeded my wildest expectations, if only for the fact that all participants had discovered territory and two eyes all by themselves.
https://www.nordicgodojo.eu/post/9/how-should-we-teach-go-to-new-players
In Japan, recently, the professional go player Ō Meien has launched a commercial product called jun-go (literally ‘Pure Go’). Jun-go essentially replicates the rules of Go into a beginner-friendly form. Below is how I would list its rules:
Basic setting: A square grid board usually of 19×19 lines; two players, one has black and the other has white stones.
Procedure: Players take turns to either place one stone of their color on an empty intersection on the board or pass. Black starts.
Capturing: If after a player’s move a stone or stone chain gets completely surrounded by opposing stones, so that it has no empty neighboring intersections (called ‘liberties’) horizontally or vertically, it is captured. Horizontally or vertically neighboring stones of the same color form a stone chain and share their liberties. The opponent’s stones take precedence.
No repetition: A player cannot play a move that would repeat an earlier whole-board position.
End of game: A game ends when two consecutive passes occur (in other words, when neither player no longer wants to continue playing). The winner is the player with more stones on the board.
Why jun-go is better:
‘Territory’ is the single most difficult concept that is taught to new players, and I suspect needlessly complicated or outright misleading explanations of territory are what drive so many new players away.
When you and your beginner friend get tired of continuing the game, you can count the number of stones on the board and easily determine the winner.
Now I realize that, while you can explain Go through the idea, ‘have more living stones on the board,’ you can actually also do the opposite: ‘capture more stones from the opponent’ can also be the goal of the game through a very minor rules change. Let:
Basic setting: Same as above
Procedure: Players take turns to either place one stone of their color on an empty intersection on the board or to
passadd a stone to the opponent’s captures. Black starts.Capturing: Same as above
No repetition: Same as above
End of game: A game ends when two consecutive passes occur (in other words, when neither player no longer wants to continue playing). The winner is the player
with more stones on the boardwho has captured more stones from the opponent.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/1fabpkx/any_experience_teaching_go_on_a_6x6_board/
danielt1263
I only use odd sizes.
I start with 5x5 (sometimes even 3x3 if the student is very young). The student plays black and the teacher plays white and no komi. Most people will start winning games by the 3 game or so. Once they get the pattern, they won't loose anymore. That gives them confidence. Then I bump up the board size to the next odd value (so from 3x3 to 5x5 to 7x7 to 9x9).
Keep in mind that 3x3 and 5x5 go are solved and it is known that perfect play wipes white completely off the board. There is no reasonable way to make the game fair on these board sizes so don't expect students playing each other to have a good experience on them.
The 7x7 board has not yet been fully solved, but correct komi has been determined to be 9 if you want students to play against each other.
By playing with Chinese rules and no komi, the new (black) player is winning after just a couple of games even if white manages a seki. Then I move them up to 7x7 and they start loosing again, but it only takes a couple of games before they start winning again. Then they move up to 9x9 (still with no komi) and they start to see how the size of the board strongly affects difficulty and they understand why they are loosing. Once they have won a 9x9 game with no komi, it's time to swap sides and have them play white (and introduce komi).
What helps greatly though seems to be me assessing the liberties for each group on the board after every move. That seems to really help new players, but on a 9x9 board the number of groups can get pretty large.
I find that for raw beginners, the komi sounds like cheating or is too abstract. They see all their stones being taken and get frustrated and all the "no you really won because of komi!" in the world doesn't help. I find that students expect to loose their first few games, but if they loose a half-dozen games in a row, they will give up.
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