I just read all the comments because the author states that one program collects the maximum amount of stones, and another competitor's program figured out how to collect an additional stone.
Does this not make sense to anyone else? Can someone please explain it to me?
My understanding was that the competitor's program collected a strategic number of stones N in such a way which forced the other program to be able to collect at most N-1 stones on its next turn. I'm not familiar with the rules of Mancala but I presume they allow for strategies such as this.
There's a difference between collecting the maximum amount of stones and collecting more stones than the opponent. I suspect the winning program also tries to minimize the stones the opponent will be able to collect, thus preserving its marginal advantage.
Maybe the "one more stone" strategy leaves more options to the decider algorith and is therefore less likely to get stuck in a local maximum that ultimately leads to a loss.
Comments
I just read all the comments because the author states that one program collects the maximum amount of stones, and another competitor's program figured out how to collect an additional stone.
Does this not make sense to anyone else? Can someone please explain it to me?
My understanding was that the competitor's program collected a strategic number of stones N in such a way which forced the other program to be able to collect at most N-1 stones on its next turn. I'm not familiar with the rules of Mancala but I presume they allow for strategies such as this.
There's a difference between collecting the maximum amount of stones and collecting more stones than the opponent. I suspect the winning program also tries to minimize the stones the opponent will be able to collect, thus preserving its marginal advantage.
Edit: Apparently colanderman beat me to it.
Maybe the "one more stone" strategy leaves more options to the decider algorith and is therefore less likely to get stuck in a local maximum that ultimately leads to a loss.