From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2002-08-08T16:51:31+09:00
Subject: The whole 'Spades' thing: GA and cardbots

OK, I have more useful things to be doing.

But sometimes I like to code just for fun.
I can admit that here, right?  :)

What I had in mind for the Spades project
was originally a genetic algorithm type 
of thing.

That is, you define a genome based on some
options for bidding and playing, and you
play the members of the population against
each other as they evolve.

I think it's interesting from a GA standpoint
(disclaimer: I've never written a GA program).
For one thing, it's not clear that a simple
tournament would suffice to find optimal 
strategies. You might just find a "local
maximum" where the surviving members can beat
the previous generation, but couldn't 
necessarily have beaten some earlier 
generation.

For another thing, the game is typically 
played with partners. So we want to mix things
up so that partners have the chance to be
complementary or to shoot each other in the
foot. It's conceivable that an algorithm A
might fare very well when partnered with its 
own kind, but an algorithm B might do better
with an *arbitrary* partner and thus win
overall.

Too much for my poor brain.

Another interesting idea:

Implement a 'server' (say, via DRb) that does
nothing but referee games -- it shuffles and
deals, tracks bids, keeps score, kills players 
who break the rules, etc.

Clients connect and act as players. This is
like the old C-bots or whatever (there must be
a million variations). You're pitting your code
against someone else's code.

A player class need only have a fairly simple
interface. It would need to respond to messages
like 'bid' and 'play' and so on. Perhaps we 
could also have a method like 'broken_rule' so 
that the server can tell the client it's done
something illegal.

If it's all done via DRb, there's no chance (I
think?) for a client to cheat, say, by looking
into the object space and finding his opponent's
cards.

I'm really just dreaming, but I do think it would
make a fun project. 

If someone wants to work on it, let me know (the
GA or the cardbots). Otherwise, I'll probably just 
implement 40% of each one and quit.  :)

Cheers,
Hal