On Jan 7, 2008 3:40 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Reently, while playing with the Quackle 20-second player, in the
> I play with the 20-second version when I get up in the morning to > speed things up, then switch to the Championship Player later on. I believe > the Speedy Player may not consider enuf options; I narrowly won that game > with my3rd bingo--it had 4--and, tho I didn't analyze it, I believe the > machine could have won if it considered more options. That's why I don't > use the Speedy Player, even when I want to play fast. Harking back to a discussion from some months ago on how to dumb quackle down to make a more enjoyable game for everyone but a few dozen world class players, one of the things a program can do is adjust its speed of play to be similar to the human opponent. There shouldn't be a special '20 second' player, it should adjust on the fly. Being careful to not copy the human exactly but more use it as a guideline, so that plays which deserve more time will get it (whether by the human or the computer) without gratuitously wasting time when Quackle has an obvious move just because the human took a long time on his immediately previous move. I add this to the list of things that a program needs to do, to mimic human play more closely. The only exception I would allow from 'auto mode' would be forcing maximum time when in competition mode. Early moves while adapting to the player's skill & speed ought to err on the low side; again, you don't want to start with strong play then be seen to be deliberately dumbing down the choices. That can totally kill the illusion of playing against another human. G
