43 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
43 lines
2.4 KiB
Markdown
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# Minimax
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A game of perfect knowledge
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Perfect knowledge means all information is available to all the players. For example in chess, both
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players can see all pieces and where they are. In a game like poker, there is hidden information. You
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can't see what's in the deck and you can't see what is in other players hands. Minimax is nice because
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it has perfect knowledge without being too computationally expensive, so it works well as a demonstration.
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## How to play
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Game play is very simple in Minimax. To start you need to draw yourself a perfect binary tree.
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Then assign each leaf in the tree a random number (or "random" if you wann rig the game). Starting
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from the top of the tree, 2 players now take turns navigating down the tree. When you reach the bottom of
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the tree, the value at that leaf is the result of the game. The goals for each player are polar opposite.
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One player wishes to maximize the final value while the other wishes to minimize it. I'm not sure there is
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a winner or a loser in this game, but if you wanna develop your own method for determining a winner and
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and a loser then be my guest.
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## How the program works
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The program is just a command line version of minimax. Once you run the program you'll be prompted to enter
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a command. The command list is as follows:
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#### example
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Runs you through an example game if still feel a little unclear on the rules of the game
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#### help
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Brings up a help menu with a list of commands
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#### begin
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Begins the game
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#### set { key } = { value }
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Example: `set depth = 6`
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Sets some paramaters for the game. Currently the available paramaters are:
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- singleplayer - A boolean value which which sets whether you play against the computer or another person
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- depth - An integer value which sets the depth of the tree
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- min - One of either \"player_one\" OR \"player_two\". Sets that player's goal to minimize the value
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- max - One of either \"player_one\" OR \"player_two\". Sets that player's goal to maximize the value
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#### quit
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Exits the program
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### Playing the game
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Once you enter the begin command, a tree will be generated and the game will begin. Players take turns
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entering either `left` or `right` and when the end is reached the value will be announced. You can see
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where the you currently are in the tree by looking for the caret `^` underneath the branch point. You
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can also look for the right angle bracket `>` next to the line numbers on the left to see which row
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you are currently in.
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