Detective Go

How about this: rather than the fugitive being compelled to reveal the same information every turn, the detectives can choose which type of information to receive. So basically they can ask one question which the fugitive has to answer truthfully. My first instinct was that a predetermined set of allowed questions would be needed, but a purer variant is to allow any yes/no question. Then any of these would be legal:

  • Are there any fugitive stones on the first line?
  • Are any detective stones in atari?
  • Are there any fugitive stones adjacent to this particular chain?
  • Are there any fugitive chains with more than one stone?

I think one question like this per turn wouldn’t be too powerful. A binary search could reliably find a single stone in a handful of turns, but since the fugitive is constantly placing new stones that wouldn’t be very useful. But over many turns the detectives could potentially gather enough bits of information to make useful deductions if they are clever with their questions.

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With general binary questions, one could apply something like group testing to figure out the locations more efficiently.

A wrinkle to this problem is that the underlying signal is changing across time between sample (questions), but I think there are generalizations to handle this.

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Now we have a combination of Go, Battleship, and Guess Who

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Now I just need to figure out how to work this one into the mix…

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The rules as stated seem to be very much against the fugitive. Especially the rule allowing the detectives being able to kill a group with more than two eyes. So, for the game where there are 3 detectives, the fugitive must make a group of 4 eyes to ensure it can’t be killed. That is a big ask. As soon as any of the fugitive’s chains is discovered, it will be destroyed very fast.

Since the detectives are coordinating, they are playing as a unit. It is essentially the fugitive playing an opponent who gets 3 moves for each his moves. That is already a very large penalty.

It may work better to play each turn in order, not simultaneously. Like this:

  1. Fugitive moves
  2. Detective 1 moves
  3. Detective 2 moves
  4. Detective 3 moves
    And repeat.

That way, the fugitive has a least a fighting chance to make living groups since they will only need two eyes per group.

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Note that the fugitive only needs to create a single living group to win, whereas the detectives need to find and kill all of the fugitive stones, and eventually build up to prevent any other survivable groups from springing up.

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I think the fugitive has a very good fighting chance as is, on a 17x17 board against 3 detectives.

Actually, now that we’re playing this, I would’ve probably been willing to bet for a 16x16 board :stuck_out_tongue:

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Ahh, I was misinterpreting the goal. Thank you for the clarification.

Having said that, I still see it as a monumental task to make a living group with 4 eyes against a collective opponent that gets 3 moves per each fugitive move. It will be very interesting to see how the play turns out.

Go fugitive!!!

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The rules at the moment are simple, elegant and fine as they are. The only thing I noticed and think it’s worth pointing out, is that as long as the detectives don’t find the fugitives stones, there is very little interaction between the detectives and the fugitive, at least from the detectives point of view. I’m not yet used to submitting moves but getting no feedback :sweat_smile:

It’s not a bad thing though. The game has a very mysterious feeling side to it :slightly_smiling_face:

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A few questions:

If a detective stone is captured, do the capturing fugitive stones get revealed? Only those directly removing liberties, or the entire chain?

If the fugitive places a stone next to a revealed stone, does the newly placed stone get revealed? If it connects a revealed and an unrevealed group, does the unrevealed group get revealed as well?

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No, capturing detective stones does not directly reveal any fugitive stones. However, by inference, one may conclude that some stones must exist.

Yes to both questions (assuming that “group” means a solidly connected chain). Each fugitive chain is either hidden or visible. Once it is visible, it will always remain visible (until it is captured, if that happens). Any fugitive chains that merge with a visible chain, also become visible.

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This leads me to another question:

Is the fugitive required to notify the detectives when a hidden capture occurs?
I would say no. I think it is upon the detectives to keep track of their stones and notice it.

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How could the detectives notice this?

If some detective stones are captured (even if entirely by hidden fugitive stones), then I don’t really think it would be necessary to announce it, since I believe it would be immediately obvious to the detectives. Note that they have the full game history in the thread, so they can easily see how the board position changes between images.

However, as the fugitive, if I manage to capture some detective stones, I would probably make it a point to emphasize it with some sort of snarky image, gif, or meme.

On the other hand, if the detectives happen to capture a hidden fugitive chain (without ever revealing it), then there is no indication, and I would not reveal that information.

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I would urge you to put up your snarky response only after they notice the capture. Don’t help them. They already have a large advantage.

After reading the replies to this post, I have to clarify one thing:
When I said “They already have a large advantage”, I was not making any comment about the game which is currently in progress. I was simply referencing that, in my humble opinion, the rules give the detectives a built-in advantage.

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I think it would be insulting, if I assumed that they wouldn’t immediately notice the capture.

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I would not feel insulted, but I feel confident that I will notice if a stone is missing.

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I’m pretty sure I would notice it as well, since I’m keeping my own copy of the game in a tab to make my screenshots…

I still disagree. :stuck_out_tongue:

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For the future: I believe you should not reveal your opinion regarding an ongoing game here, assuming that you are in the kibitz thread.

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I don’t think they are in the kibitz thread, though… (but I was having the same thought)

Please don’t tell us whether you’re in the kibitz thread or not!

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