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It's an interesting game, mostly because unlike most modern games it's massively asymmetrical. Goals, strategies and attitudes are very different for the two pl
by mrec 8y ago
It's an interesting game, mostly because unlike most modern games it's massively asymmetrical. Goals, strategies and attitudes are very different for the two players, and despite the numerical lopsidedness in pieces it's much easier to win as the defender, and a slow cautious style is much more important for the attacker.
See Fetlar Hnefatafl for a modern codification of the (very vague) historical rules:
http://tafl.cyningstan.com/page/88/fetlar-hnefatafl http://tafl.cyningstan.com/page/88/fetlar-hnefatafl
- kwhitefoot 8y agoSounds a bit like Thud in which each player has to take a turn playing each side. See https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Thud https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Thud.
- UnderProtest 8y agoIt does sound a bit like Thud, doesn't it? From your link: Thud is a board game based on the earlier dwarfish game of Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl. It is played mainly by Dwarfs and Trolls... The game itself echos the game played by Vikings and Anglo-Saxons "Hnafletafle"- which literally means "Kings Table". Hnafletafle echos go beyond just the name. Like 'Thud' it is unusual in that it is an 'asymmetrical' game... In that Thud is a parody of it.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y agoNote that Thud! is a real-world version of the game, that is never precisely described in the books. Er, as far as I remember :)
- DrHuman 8y agoI actually wrote a toy app recently following the Fetlar rules as a React exercise: https://htafl.herokuapp.com/ https://htafl.herokuapp.com/ Not sure how it renders across machines but it looks ok on my Mac.
- mrec 8y agoYeah, I did the same (VanillaJS) a couple of years back, and started thinking about implementing a computer opponent, but it's really not clear what the evaluation function should be.
- formalsystem 8y agoYou need only codify the victory and loss conditions to build an AI using standard Reinforcement learning algorithms. Feel free to message me if you want more detail on how this would work. We should be able to hammer something out in less than a day.
- mrec 8y agoThanks for the pointer, but I'm afraid I have zero knowledge of ML and wouldn't be any help. I have to say I'm a bit sceptical that this approach can work purely based on win/loss conditions - an attacker victory in particular can often take hundreds of moves in Tafl games.
- DrHuman 8y agoAgreed. The only thing I could think to do would be look for pieces to capture in any given turn, but that would never get it to an end game condition. It's beyond my current capabilities to make a proper computer opponent, but it would be a good exercise.
- mrec 8y ago> look for pieces to capture in any given turn Not as a general rule. If you're playing as the attacker, you don't always want to take defender pieces even if they're "free" - they're more useful boxing their own king in.
- DrHuman 8y agoYea, it's not even a good strategy really. Just the only thing that I felt like I could code that would be a step up from just making a random legal move.
- zjacobi 8y agoI've played it a few times with friends and I have to agree the defenders have an easier time (although it certainly feels more intimidating to play the defender). I think defenders heavily benefit from most people's familiarity with chess. It's very easy to distract someone with pieces they can capture, then sneak your king out the side.