conga: A Python repository from ttezel

##Conga

#An AI that plays Conga

The game of Conga was developed by Matin Franke, and published by “Das Spiel Hamburg” in 1998. It is a two-player game played on a square 4X4 board, as shown below:

                     _______ _______ _______ _______
                    |       |       |       |       |
                    | (1,4) | (2,4) | (3,4) | (4,4) |
                    |_______|_______|_______|_______|
                    |       |       |       |       |
                    | (1,3) | (2,4) | (3,3) | (4,3) |
                    |_______|_______|_______|_______|
                    |       |       |       |       |
                    | (1,2) | (2,4) | (3,2) | (4,2) |
                    |_______|_______|_______|_______|
                    |       |       |       |       |
                    | (1,1) | (2,1) | (3,1) | (4,1) |
                    |_______|_______|_______|_______|

Initially, Player 1 has ten black stones in (1,4) and Player 2 has ten white stones in (4,1).

The players alternate turns. On each turn, a player chooses a square with some of his stones in it, and picks a direction to move them, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The move is done by removing the stones from the square and placing one stone in the following square, two in the next one, and the others into the last one. The stones can only be moved in consecutive squares that are not occupied by the opponent; if a direction has less than three squares not occupied by the opponent in a row, then all remaining stones are placed in the last empty square. If a square has no neighbouring squares that are not occupied by the opponent, then the stones in that square cannot be moved.

You can move stones from a square to a (series of) neighbouring square(s), provided the squares you are moving to are not occupied by the opponent. It makes no difference if the squares are free or occupied by yourself. You do not need any of the squares you are moving to be free; they could all already be occupied by your other stones. The only distinction is between squares that are occupied by the opponent (which block you) and squares that are not occupied by the opponent (which you can move to).

The goal of the game is to block the opponent, so that they have no legal moves. In other words, all of the opponents’ stones must be trapped in squares that are all surrounded by the player’s stones.

Here's a screenshot of two Agents playing Conga. Player 0 (blue) just won against Player 1 (red):

###To start a 1-player game of Conga (you versus the AI), clone the repo and run:

  python 1pgame.py

###To start a 2-player game of Conga, run:

  python 2pgame.py

#Agent

class representing an Artifically Intelligent agent that plays Conga.

##Agent API

###Agent(player, hfunc, maxDepth)

Create an instance of Agent.

  agent = Agent(0, 0, 3)

params:

####player 0 for Player 1 or 1 for Player 2

####hfunc

This specifies the heuristic function that the AI will use to decide which moves are the best.

Supported hfunc values are:

0: makes move that minimizes number of moves opponent will be able to make
1: makes move that maximizes the number of moves Agent will be able to make over opponent

This decides the score that is assigned to each board state, which decides the moves that the Agent makes.

####maxDepth

the maximum depth in the game tree that the Agent should explore and evaluate the score of. I have found that a maxDepth of 3 provides the best performance and wins against the opponent in few moves.

##Methods

###.updateBoard(board)

updates the Agent's copy of the board. Make sure to call this after the opponent plays, before the next call to .getBestMove() or .getRandomMove(). board is a CongaBoard instance.

usage:

 #opponent makes a move:
 board = opponent.makeMove([2, 3], [3, 3], opponent.player, board)
 
 #update player's board state
 player.updateBoard(board)
 
 #get player's best move to make this turn
 move = player.getBestMove()

###.getBestMove()

returns the most competitive move for the Agent to play on the board. This is determined using the heuristic function.

The output looks like this:

  print agent.getBestMove()

  #prints: 
  #{'to': [2, 4], 'from': [1, 4]}

###.getRandomMove()

returns a random move for the Agent to make on the board.

The output looks like this:

  print agent.getRandomMove()

  #prints: 
  #{'to': [4, 2], 'from': [4, 1]}

###.makeMove(fromTile, toTile, player, board)

returns the new board state after the move is made.

params:

fromTile: [x,y] of tile
toTile: [x,y] of first tile in direction of move
player: 0 or 1
board: CongaBoard instance

usage:

  board = agent.makeMove([2,3], [3,3], 0, board)

#CongaBoard

class representing a Conga game board.

##CongaBoard API

creating a new game board (initialized at default state):

  board = CongaBoard()

###.territory

Dict used for [ row, column ] lookups on the occupant of a tile on the board.

  print 'territories:', board.territory

  print 'occupant of [4,1]', board.territory[4][1]

###.amount

Dict used for [ row, column ] lookups on the amount of pieces on a tile on the board.

print 'amounts:', board.amount

print 'amount in [1,4]:', board.amount[1][4]

###.draw()

draws the Conga Board in the terminal. Each tile is colored as such: blue for Player 1, red for Player 2, and yellow for unnocupied tiles.

Each tile is marked with the # of pieces on that tile.

License

(The MIT License)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

ttezel/conga

License