> Did you do any sort of memoization of the minmax evaluation?
None. Considered it, but didn't really think it was worthwhile. I was mostly focused on having a good evaluation. I know a lot of my competitors did that, though, but without changing the evaluator it is, as I said, self-deluded.
> For example the expected value of moving up and left should be the same as the the expected value of moving left then up?
That isn't true; that ends up with the wall from the middle move in a different spot.
At any rate, there was a lot I could have done to improve the search speed/depth but I didn't have time, so instead I worked on a better evaluator.
It was pretty interesting -- I would frequently see stronger moves (as best I could tell, after analyzing a losing game) found at shallower levels of search depth discarded in favor of weaker moves at deeper levels. Presumably it assumed the opponent would maximize its Voronoi territory at a time when it was actually a bad thing to do.
> That isn't true; that ends up with the wall from the middle move in a different spot.
Oops yes you are right. They would only be of the same value if the map was symmetrical on the diagonal line going between the first position and the last one.
I wonder it they should be similar (at least in situations where you don't touch walls).
None. Considered it, but didn't really think it was worthwhile. I was mostly focused on having a good evaluation. I know a lot of my competitors did that, though, but without changing the evaluator it is, as I said, self-deluded.
> For example the expected value of moving up and left should be the same as the the expected value of moving left then up?
That isn't true; that ends up with the wall from the middle move in a different spot.
At any rate, there was a lot I could have done to improve the search speed/depth but I didn't have time, so instead I worked on a better evaluator.
It was pretty interesting -- I would frequently see stronger moves (as best I could tell, after analyzing a losing game) found at shallower levels of search depth discarded in favor of weaker moves at deeper levels. Presumably it assumed the opponent would maximize its Voronoi territory at a time when it was actually a bad thing to do.