Re: TIB: Othello

To: "TI BASIC LIST" <ti-basic@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se>
Subject: Re: TIB: Othello
From: Michael Van Der Kolk <mikev@iserv.net>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 20:59:56 -0500
Delivered-To: ti-basic-outgoing@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se
Reply-To: ti-basic@lists.ticalc.org

On 12/19/98 6:00 PM TI-Basic Digest from philhuck@club-internet.fr wrote:

>I'm planning to do an Othello game (I have already done one for two players
>on the same calc) for two players with the link cable and one player vs the
>calc. Has anyone an idea how I could code the AI (artificial intelligence)
>of the calc and how to transmit data with the link in assembly ?
>Thank you.
>
>MP <philhuck@club-internet.fr> <http://mp.ifrance.com>

If you like I've written an AI for Othello which is semi-decent (any else 
that's played might say otherwise) Currently the program has a little 
flaw, corner moves seem to have a problem, which I'll have fixed shortly 
now that it's Christmas Break. Just visit my site 
<http://www.iserv.net/~mikev/> and download a copy for the 92/92+. All 
that I ask is if you cannibalize the code I get a little credit.

Basically the algorithm I use board that has weights of how important a 
square is and then the program takes a random sampling or all if you like 
of available squares to take and adds the weight to the pieces that would 
be taken, the program then takes the highest point total or a random move 
between the highest if there is more with the same value. I found that 
the best level of difficulty is a little above a couple of sample and 
well below the maximum number of samples. I'd attribute this to as when I 
play the more piece I give to others the better the end of the game turns 
out for me (This could be because I played some bad players or I played 
some decent players and it really is a good strategy).

Hope this helped,

Michael Van Der Kolk
mikev@iserv.net
http://www.iserv.net/~mikev