[Updated] Battleship Game at CoinXerox - Provably Fair AI

[baumi]

As far as i know there is already a perfect strategy to play the original battle ships, it wouldnt be hard for someone to make a bot to play this one 100% efficiently

I think mathematically perfect strategy is not a problem for PvP Battleship. Certainly, there is a perfect strategy. But when you need to choose one square from N empty squares, mathematics is useless. And when you hit a ship, you don't need an advanced computation to search for rest of ship. Human reasoning is sufficient for that. I think, computer advantage is unlikely in the Battleship game.

EDIT: If anybody know about some mathematical analysis of Battleship game, post it here, please.

[patt0]

As far as i know there is already a perfect strategy to play the original battle ships, it wouldnt be hard for someone to make a bot to play this one 100% efficiently

I think mathematically perfect strategy is not a problem for PvP Battleship. Certainly, there is a perfect strategy. But when you need to choose one square from N empty squares, mathematics is useless. And when you hit a ship, you don't need an advanced computation to search for rest of ship. Human reasoning is sufficient for that. I think, computer advantage is unlikely in the Battleship game.

EDIT: If anybody know about some mathematical analysis of Battleship game, post it here, please.

I think there is a strategy to make a good bot to play this.
You aren't choosing only from n empty squares to find enemy ships in the beginning, but have to look at the size and how they can be on the board. So it's more of a good search strategy.

[rayhan]

This is great. xD Is there any way for us to place our ships? Or is it always random?
@rayhan you need to win by a greater number of shots. Maybe 14 to 20 or something lol. Less than that and you start losing bitcoins.

is it possible to make a profit we should won a landslide victory as 20-9
i mean, i get 20 points and the opponent only less than 10
is like that?

[patt0]

This is great. xD Is there any way for us to place our ships? Or is it always random?
@rayhan you need to win by a greater number of shots. Maybe 14 to 20 or something lol. Less than that and you start losing bitcoins.

is it possible to make a profit we should won a landslide victory as 20-9
i mean, i get 20 points and the opponent only less than 10
is like that?

The computer fires randomly so it's not a difficult game lol and I don't think you have to win by that much to profit. Maybe 20-12 or 20-13 is enough.

@baumi I didn't read everything, but this site seems to have some detail about building a program to win at battleship with good odds
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011

[MKMarvel]

House edge is too high. I sunk 20 and the CPU only got 14 and I lost mb. Not worth your time at that rate.

[baumi]

House edge is too high. I sunk 20 and the CPU only got 14 and I lost mb. Not worth your time at that rate.

As already mentioned here, house edge is not high. You cannot compare number of your hits to number of random hits generated by provably fair system! Read the thread main post for details.

I would like to publish two other statistics:

• On average, player wins in aprox. 92% of games (measured by hits you wrote about).
• Expected mean hits rate is: 19.85 for player and 14.17 for the dealer. So on the average player wins and the dealer has 14 hits only. To take a winnings you need to overcome the average outcome only - to destroy the dealer's fleet before he hits you 14 times.

Keep in your mind, there is no game Artificial Intelligence. Comparing the number of hits is confusing.

[baumi]

This is great. xD Is there any way for us to place our ships? Or is it always random?
@rayhan you need to win by a greater number of shots. Maybe 14 to 20 or something lol. Less than that and you start losing bitcoins.

is it possible to make a profit we should won a landslide victory as 20-9
i mean, i get 20 points and the opponent only less than 10
is like that?

The computer fires randomly so it's not a difficult game lol and I don't think you have to win by that much to profit. Maybe 20-12 or 20-13 is enough.

@baumi I didn't read everything, but this site seems to have some detail about building a program to win at battleship with good odds
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011

Thanks patt0, the article seems interesting.

We are seriously thinking about a more intelligent dealer. A dealer bot that doesn't play randomly but that are looking for enemy ships as a human does. It could be more fun and even payout odds confusion would be removed.

So far it seems that the biggest challenge would be to merge an bot program with provably fair system. How to include an dynamic behavior into fixed provably fair final shuffle? We need to resolve this first.

[Bitcoin_Mafia_Me]

Interesting game How often can you claim the free BTC?

[baumi]

Interesting game How often can you claim the free BTC?

Up to six times in the last hour.

[XinXan]

This is great. xD Is there any way for us to place our ships? Or is it always random?
@rayhan you need to win by a greater number of shots. Maybe 14 to 20 or something lol. Less than that and you start losing bitcoins.

is it possible to make a profit we should won a landslide victory as 20-9
i mean, i get 20 points and the opponent only less than 10
is like that?

The computer fires randomly so it's not a difficult game lol and I don't think you have to win by that much to profit. Maybe 20-12 or 20-13 is enough.

@baumi I didn't read everything, but this site seems to have some detail about building a program to win at battleship with good odds
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011

Thanks patt0, the article seems interesting.

We are seriously thinking about a more intelligent dealer. A dealer bot that doesn't play randomly but that are looking for enemy ships as a human does. It could be more fun and even payout odds confusion would be removed.

So far it seems that the biggest challenge would be to merge an bot program with provably fair system. How to include an dynamic behavior into fixed provably fair final shuffle? We need to resolve this first.

If you ever do that, the payout should be bigger and pay like 18/20 or something along those lines

[LiQuidx]

Nice and interesting game but as the other's have already stated house edge is kinda big. You could improve it by lowering it a bit

[asuryan180]

Nice and interesting game but as the other's have already stated house edge is kinda big. You could improve it by lowering it a bit

Yes it is a nice change to see a different game to show it's face on the gambling section, i love battle ships have done since i was a kid

The house edge does not need to be high to help make it a success it needs to be as low as you can possibly go without making a profit 0.5 - 1 is plenty enough for most sites and they have hung around for long enough.

Listen to your potential investors gamblers is a good start to making it a success

[baumi]

This is great. xD Is there any way for us to place our ships? Or is it always random?
@rayhan you need to win by a greater number of shots. Maybe 14 to 20 or something lol. Less than that and you start losing bitcoins.

is it possible to make a profit we should won a landslide victory as 20-9
i mean, i get 20 points and the opponent only less than 10
is like that?

The computer fires randomly so it's not a difficult game lol and I don't think you have to win by that much to profit. Maybe 20-12 or 20-13 is enough.

@baumi I didn't read everything, but this site seems to have some detail about building a program to win at battleship with good odds
http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/december32011

Thanks patt0, the article seems interesting.

We are seriously thinking about a more intelligent dealer. A dealer bot that doesn't play randomly but that are looking for enemy ships as a human does. It could be more fun and even payout odds confusion would be removed.

So far it seems that the biggest challenge would be to merge an bot program with provably fair system. How to include an dynamic behavior into fixed provably fair final shuffle? We need to resolve this first.

If you ever do that, the payout should be bigger and pay like 18/20 or something along those lines

Yes, definitely! AI changes probabilities from the base.

Good news is that we just finished functional prototype of provably fair Battleship AI. We need to test it now, recalculate statistics in order to estimate the new pay line / payout rules etc. If everything will go fine, I think within next 48 hours we can deploy the new version.

[Mitchell]

A good addition might be special powers. Like being able to send a strike that takes out 4 spaces for a part of your winnings (percentages or a fixed number based on your starting bet).

[u9y42]

A good addition might be special powers. Like being able to send a strike that takes out 4 spaces for a part of your winnings (percentages or a fixed number based on your starting bet).

I imagine recalculating odds and adjusting the AI to handle more options would be an issue, but I would also find it an interesting twist to the same old game - in fact, that reminds me - didn't "Sam & Max Hit the Road" have a battleship mini-game with specials? I'm pretty sure one of them was sending a "nuke", or something like that (took out 9 squares, if I remember correctly).

It might be a good game to take ideas from baumi, if you're looking for some.

EDIT: hmm, what about being able to move the ships? The interface would have to be changed, and it would fundamentally be a new game, but I always wanted to be able to do that, and not be called a cheater after.

[baumi]

A good addition might be special powers. Like being able to send a strike that takes out 4 spaces for a part of your winnings (percentages or a fixed number based on your starting bet).

I imagine recalculating odds and adjusting the AI to handle more options would be an issue, but I would also find it an interesting twist to the same old game - in fact, that reminds me - didn't "Sam & Max Hit the Road" have a battleship mini-game with specials? I'm pretty sure one of them was sending a "nuke", or something like that (took out 9 squares, if I remember correctly).

It might be a good game to take ideas from baumi, if you're looking for some.

EDIT: hmm, what about being able to move the ships? The interface would have to be changed, and it would fundamentally be a new game, but I always wanted to be able to do that, and not be called a cheater after.

Some special weapons might be interesting too. E.g. as you wrote to send the nuke, after that the dealer could send the nuke against the player. If both sides can use the same special powers, it's not necessary to recalculate odds. Very rough idea so far, but it has a value to take a note.

Moving ships seems more problematic. Moving make sense when opponent hit a ship at the first time. After you move the hit ship, opponent should see the hit square is not a hit anymore. Otherwise you are a cheater 

[zidane]

A good addition might be special powers. Like being able to send a strike that takes out 4 spaces for a part of your winnings (percentages or a fixed number based on your starting bet).

to get it we have to find it in battle,, good idea i thought

[XinXan]

A good addition might be special powers. Like being able to send a strike that takes out 4 spaces for a part of your winnings (percentages or a fixed number based on your starting bet).

I imagine recalculating odds and adjusting the AI to handle more options would be an issue, but I would also find it an interesting twist to the same old game - in fact, that reminds me - didn't "Sam & Max Hit the Road" have a battleship mini-game with specials? I'm pretty sure one of them was sending a "nuke", or something like that (took out 9 squares, if I remember correctly).

It might be a good game to take ideas from baumi, if you're looking for some.

EDIT: hmm, what about being able to move the ships? The interface would have to be changed, and it would fundamentally be a new game, but I always wanted to be able to do that, and not be called a cheater after.

Some special weapons might be interesting too. E.g. as you wrote to send the nuke, after that the dealer could send the nuke against the player. If both sides can use the same special powers, it's not necessary to recalculate odds. Very rough idea so far, but it has a value to take a note.

Moving ships seems more problematic. Moving make sense when opponent hit a ship at the first time. After you move the hit ship, opponent should see the hit square is not a hit anymore. Otherwise you are a cheater 

Yep you are right, as long as the bot has the same powers and knows how to use them wisely there is no need to recalculate the odds but then again what i want is PvP and maybe make the 1-tile ships 2-tile because its really annoying

[u9y42]

Some special weapons might be interesting too. E.g. as you wrote to send the nuke, after that the dealer could send the nuke against the player. If both sides can use the same special powers, it's not necessary to recalculate odds. Very rough idea so far, but it has a value to take a note.

Moving ships seems more problematic. Moving make sense when opponent hit a ship at the first time. After you move the hit ship, opponent should see the hit square is not a hit anymore. Otherwise you are a cheater  

Yes, for moving to work, a lot would have to be changed in the game, I guess. One way I see it being functional in this type of game is if board squares aren't considered only to be "shot at"/"not shot at", but rather "shot at N turns ago", perhaps with a numeric indicator, or a progressive change in color of said indicator in the targeted square, to show exactly how many turns passed since. This should give the player a way to determine how accurate the information he has about the board and ship positions is, and to adjust his tactics accordingly. I think this would make for a much deeper strategy game, but again, it would be a fundamental change in the way the game works.

Anyway, a few more ideas of special abilities that could be included:
Radar - temporarily reveals a small area of the board.
More Guns - allow players to temporarily have more than one shot per turn.
Reinforcements - I think I actually saw this in another battleship style game, but - call for additional ships, so you can keep on playing until they are destroyed. Considering the currently applied game rules, maybe allow only positioning ships in areas previously not shot at?

[kpitti]

Wow this is like sit back at school and play with my friend . Just piece of paper and pencil. A lot of fun.
I play several times and enjoy it. As mentioned here already I was confused first time when I won, but Lost . Now I understand logic behind.
I will bookmark it and come back for sure.