5 ms·
Eliminating guesswork from minesweeper kills a subtle metagame. The minesweeper metagame is not about how best to win a particular playthrough, but rather, how
by xamuel 6y ago
Eliminating guesswork from minesweeper kills a subtle metagame. The minesweeper metagame is not about how best to win a particular playthrough, but rather, how to proceed so as to achieve the fastest record time after many playthroughs.
Thus, the metagame includes knowing when to guess (since, for time-beating purposes, it is optimal to instantly guess as soon as you identify that a guess is necessary, not just to speed up that particular playthrough, but more importantly because it will allow more playthroughs to be performed in less time).
Similarly, part of the metagame includes figuring out how best to make initial guesses. Is it better to always initially make 1 guess, or 2, or 3, or does it depend on how much of the board the first guess opens up? Etc.
- lojack 6y ago> for time-beating purposes, it is optimal to instantly guess as soon as you identify that a guess is necessary Often that is the case, but sometimes you reach a point where you ultimately need to guess, but you can make an informed guess based on the number of mines remaining. Then the question becomes, is it worth guessing and potentially losing faster, or are you having a really good game and want to risk losing late in the game?
- mikewarot 6y agoWait, there's a timer involved? I always ignore those.
- rendall 6y agoMe too.
- koheripbal 6y agoThe optimal strategy is to fail-fast.
- koheripbal 6y agoThis is why I always click all four corners first. If there are mines there, I'd rather start a new game immediately rather than end with a guess.
- ouid 6y agoso you're saying that it's a different game.