Re: Problems with auto-roll and auto-play functions

[MK]

On 1/18/2024 6:31 AM, Ian Shaw wrote:

> The code doesn’t "/make an exception for the bot/".
> The bot already ALWAYS automatically decides whether
> to roll or move. The exceptions are for the human,
> to speed up our play when the decision is trivial.
> ... the human allowed to make their own move, EXCEPT
> if the auto play options are checked for forced
> moves or greedy bearoff,

Hi Ian,

GnuBG's implementation of auto-roll and auto-play is
a very bad patchwork and needs to be  improved.

The latest version of play.c has the following code:

1621 StartAutomaticPlay(void)
1622 {
1623  /* FIXME? doesn't PLAYER_EXTERNAL imply automatic task as well ? */
1624  if (ap[0].pt == PLAYER_GNU && ap[1].pt == PLAYER_GNU) {
1625   automaticTask = TRUE;

https://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/gnubg/gnubg/play.c?revision=1.485&view=markup

This is what I meant by "exception for the bot". It
defeats the use of auto-roll and auto-play settings.
(In programming, I consider such hard-coded values
as exceptions.) There is no reason to make the bot
always auto-roll and auto-play. The bot's behavior
should be controlled by the auto-roll and auto-play
flags just as for the human player.


> If the bot looked at the auto-roll or auto-play
> options, how would you expect behaviour to differ 
> from what it does now?

>   * The bot will always roll if it can’t double.
>     Auto-roll can't change this.

Why not? It should act as the auto-roll flag says.

>   * The bot will always play a forced move. Play
>     forced moves can't change this.

This is fine. Forced moves are obviously forced.

>   * The bot will always select the best bearoff
>     play.

Selecting the best move is not an issue here. Bot
should obey the auto-play setting before moving.

Also, there should be a separate auto-play setting
for all moves, forced or not. All other auto-play
settings should be secondary/complimentary to this.

Ideally, all settings that effect player behavior
should be kept in each player's profile record in
a profiles file allowing unlimited records for bot
and human players alike but this may be too much
to expect from GnuBG. :(

> You can’t make the gnubg engine only be itself
> for some moves, and ask you to make the choices
> for other moves.

There is no reason for this arbitrary, unnecessary
limitation. Bot can wait to roll and/or move until
it's told to do so (i.e. "play" command). If the
user wants it to play automatically, he can just
select the auto-roll and auto-play setting. Simple
logic and clean implementation...

> The Options, Players dialogue does have a 3rd
> option for an external player.

There is a comment in play.c (see above quoted) to
hard-code automaticTask even for external player.
I can't believe it. Please don't do that. It also
should act according to auto-roll and auto-play
settings.

> You didn’t say what script language you are using.
> As far as I know, gnubg only supports Python.

I don't know Python but it may be worth learning
it just enough for this purpose. Otherwise I may
try a Windows process to read/write to the console
of a child process or such. A collectively created
Python script may be the best option as it can be
modified and reused by all GnuBG users for similar
purposes. I hope people familiar with Python will
contribute efforts towards this.

> It’s interesting that you think the cube decision
> can be improved upon. ... What’s your algorithm?

I will reply to this separately in order to not
talk about too many subjects in a single thread.

MK