English draughts - an environment for evaluating heuristics

the user manual

The interface elements

The main program window

The individual pieces are as follows:

The menu contains the following options:

• Settings
  • Players
    • Upper player
      • Human - transfers the control of the top player to the user
      • AI - transfers the control of the top player to the computer
    • Lower player
      • Human - transfers the control of the bottom player to the user
      • AI - transfers the control of the bottom player to the computer
  • Board
    • Board size - resizes the game board to the designated size (requires a reset of the game)
    • Filled rows - changes the number of rows initially filled with pieces for each player (requires a reset of the game)
    • Edit - switch to edit mode for placing arbitrary pieces on the board, more on this below (requires a reset of the game)
  • Animation delay - sets the animation delay time in milliseconds
  • Draw limit - determines the condition for a tie (number of subsequent moves by the kings with no capture)
  • Random seed - sets the seed for the random number generator, used in generating the moves for the computer player (select from among the best rated moves)
  • AI level - sets the depth for the game tree search
  • Exit program - exits the program
• View
  • Log windows - opens/closes the log window
  • Game control window - opens/closes the game control window
  • Heuristics window - opens/closes the heuristics window
• Language
  • Polski - change the program language to Polish
  • English - change the program language to English
  • Español - change the program language to Spanish (Castillan)
  • Русский - change the program language to Russian
• Help
  • Version - displays the information about the version of the program and the minimum required version of Java
  • About author - displays the information about the author of the program

Moving pieces

Move a piece from one place to another by dragging it with the mouse to the desired field. Note that this can be done only when it is the turn of the human player who owns the piece to be moved and when the move is in compliance with the rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_draughts. When it is the turn of the computer player, the game pieces are moved automatically.

Board editing

• left mouse button - if the field is empty, it places there a white man; if the field is already occupied, it changes the color of the piece,
• right mouse button - if the field is empty, it places there a white king; if the field is already occupied, it changes the status of a man to the king, or vice versa,
• middle mouse button - clears the indicated field

Game control window

The window contains the following buttons:

• Reset game - interrupts the current game and deploys pieces in the start position
• Play/Pause - resumes/stops the course of the game
• Number of games - sets the number of games that are to be played in sequence
• Reset results - resets player statistics

Player statistics

• Red - the number of games won by the lower player
• Yellow - the number of games won by the upper player
• Draw - the number of games ended with a tie

Heuristics window

The menu contains the following options:

• Options - change the program language
  • Upper player - Save - compile and save the function and assign it to the upper player
  • Lower player - Save - compile and save the function and assign it to the lower player
  • Load example heuristic - write in the window an example heuristic function
  • Load internal heuristic - write in the window the internal heuristic function

Heuristic function input format

The internal function

Sending a message to the log window

The log window

Useful links