🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Apr 1, 2015 02:59 AM UTC:
I ran another set of trials with Chessv. I had it play all 12 combinations of armies playing white and black for 15 seconds per move. This is equivalent to the average time of 40 moves in 10 minutes, and it is also equivalent to the time 12 games playing at once for 3 minutes per move would get if they all shared the same processor. Zillions-of-Games was written before multi-core processors existed and so probably doesn't make use of them, but hopefully Windows 7 was spreading the load of 12 games among my four cores. Assuming it was, my ZOG trials had more than 15 seconds per move. Also, when some games finished, the remaining games got more processing power. Anyway, these games were each played sequentially, so that each one had as much processing power as it could get. Here are the results:
Playing white, Colorbound Clobbers beat Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights but lost to Remarkable Rookies. Playing black, they beat Nutty Knights, drawing Fabulous FIDEs and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 4
Playing white, Fabulous FIDEs drew Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies, losing to Nutty Knights. Playing black, they drew Nutty Knights but lost to Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 1.5
Playing white, Nutty Knights drew Fabulous FIDEs and Remarkable Rookies, losing to Colorbound Clobberers. Playing black, they beat Fabulous FIDEs, losing to Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 2
Playing white, Remarkable Rookies beat Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights, drawing Colorbound Clobberers. Playing black, they beat Colorbound Clobberers, drawing Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights. Total score: 4.5
This gives a ranking of Remarkable Rookies first, Colorbound Clobberers second, Nutty Knights third, and Fabulous FIDEs last. Like my three minute move trials with ZOG, Remarkable Rookies are first, and Fabulous FIDEs are last. One thing that is notable about the Chessv results is that there were several more draws. This is a good sign of balance between the armies. It's also notable that the first and last place armies each drew every other army once. The only two armies who never drew each other were Colorbound Clobberers and Nutty Knights, where the Colorbound Clobberers beat the Nutty Knights twice.
It's noteworthy that the Fabulous FIDEs have come in last place in my last two sets of trials. Ralph Betza came up with this game before the software for running computerized trials of the game was available. Over the course of 20 years, he came up with these armies by playing with people, presumably those who were very skilled at chess like he was. His target audience, after all, was the skilled chess player looking for a new challenge. When these armies are handled by people skilled and experienced in Chess, their familiarity with the Fabulous FIDEs would have made it easier for them to use them well, and their lack of familiarity with the new armies would lead them to not fully maximize their potential. So, armies that were technically stronger than the FIDEs would appear balanced with FIDEs in human trials with skilled chess players. I expect that is what happened here. All of the new armies are stronger than the FIDEs, but this didn't show up in human trials.
It showed up in the computerized trials, because the computer programs treated each army as a mathematical construct rather than as something familiar or unfamiliar. To the computer programs, no army was more familiar than another. It played each side with mathematical precision, bringing to light differences of strength between them. The Remarkable Rookies are probably the strongest, having seven major pieces.
Combining the results of the last two trials, the scores are:
Remarkable Rookies: 9
Colorbound Clobberers: 7.5
Nutty Knights: 6
Fabulous FIDEs: 1.5
This gives the same order as this trial.
Combining the results of all three trials, the scores are:
Remarkable Rookies: 13.5
Colorbound Clobberers: 12
Nutty Knights: 7
Fabulous FIDEs: 3.5
Again, we get the same order. So what factors might account for this? The Remarkable Rookies have seven major pieces, as I mentioned. So, in the endgame, Remarkable Rookies is likely to still have one or two major pieces, whereas other armies might not. Also, the Chancellor is more powerful than the Cardinal or Colonel. One of the strengths that all three new armies have that FIDE doesn't have is that their pieces can back each other up more easily. They each have different pieces with some moves in common, which allows them to continually protect each other more easily. One of the weaknesses of the Nutty Knights is in backward mobility. Although they are very good attack pieces, they can be useless in stopping a pawn promotion if they are too far away.
I ran another set of trials with Chessv. I had it play all 12 combinations of armies playing white and black for 15 seconds per move. This is equivalent to the average time of 40 moves in 10 minutes, and it is also equivalent to the time 12 games playing at once for 3 minutes per move would get if they all shared the same processor. Zillions-of-Games was written before multi-core processors existed and so probably doesn't make use of them, but hopefully Windows 7 was spreading the load of 12 games among my four cores. Assuming it was, my ZOG trials had more than 15 seconds per move. Also, when some games finished, the remaining games got more processing power. Anyway, these games were each played sequentially, so that each one had as much processing power as it could get. Here are the results:
Playing white, Colorbound Clobbers beat Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights but lost to Remarkable Rookies. Playing black, they beat Nutty Knights, drawing Fabulous FIDEs and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 4
Playing white, Fabulous FIDEs drew Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies, losing to Nutty Knights. Playing black, they drew Nutty Knights but lost to Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 1.5
Playing white, Nutty Knights drew Fabulous FIDEs and Remarkable Rookies, losing to Colorbound Clobberers. Playing black, they beat Fabulous FIDEs, losing to Colorbound Clobberers and Remarkable Rookies. Total score: 2
Playing white, Remarkable Rookies beat Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights, drawing Colorbound Clobberers. Playing black, they beat Colorbound Clobberers, drawing Fabulous FIDEs and Nutty Knights. Total score: 4.5
This gives a ranking of Remarkable Rookies first, Colorbound Clobberers second, Nutty Knights third, and Fabulous FIDEs last. Like my three minute move trials with ZOG, Remarkable Rookies are first, and Fabulous FIDEs are last. One thing that is notable about the Chessv results is that there were several more draws. This is a good sign of balance between the armies. It's also notable that the first and last place armies each drew every other army once. The only two armies who never drew each other were Colorbound Clobberers and Nutty Knights, where the Colorbound Clobberers beat the Nutty Knights twice.
It's noteworthy that the Fabulous FIDEs have come in last place in my last two sets of trials. Ralph Betza came up with this game before the software for running computerized trials of the game was available. Over the course of 20 years, he came up with these armies by playing with people, presumably those who were very skilled at chess like he was. His target audience, after all, was the skilled chess player looking for a new challenge. When these armies are handled by people skilled and experienced in Chess, their familiarity with the Fabulous FIDEs would have made it easier for them to use them well, and their lack of familiarity with the new armies would lead them to not fully maximize their potential. So, armies that were technically stronger than the FIDEs would appear balanced with FIDEs in human trials with skilled chess players. I expect that is what happened here. All of the new armies are stronger than the FIDEs, but this didn't show up in human trials.
It showed up in the computerized trials, because the computer programs treated each army as a mathematical construct rather than as something familiar or unfamiliar. To the computer programs, no army was more familiar than another. It played each side with mathematical precision, bringing to light differences of strength between them. The Remarkable Rookies are probably the strongest, having seven major pieces.
Combining the results of the last two trials, the scores are:
This gives the same order as this trial.
Combining the results of all three trials, the scores are:
Again, we get the same order. So what factors might account for this? The Remarkable Rookies have seven major pieces, as I mentioned. So, in the endgame, Remarkable Rookies is likely to still have one or two major pieces, whereas other armies might not. Also, the Chancellor is more powerful than the Cardinal or Colonel. One of the strengths that all three new armies have that FIDE doesn't have is that their pieces can back each other up more easily. They each have different pieces with some moves in common, which allows them to continually protect each other more easily. One of the weaknesses of the Nutty Knights is in backward mobility. Although they are very good attack pieces, they can be useless in stopping a pawn promotion if they are too far away.