Is red *supposed* to have a one move advantage?

With White team starting at (0,1) and Red team starting at (29,27), Red is one move closer vertically to the opposite flag than White is.

Granted, with sticky traps and teleporters and such, this could be moot, but a "beeline" Red team program would theoretically make it to the flag in 50 steps rather than the 51 a White team program would have to do.

To reblanace this, Red should be moved to (29, 28) or White to (0, 2).

if u draw this scenario on a peace of paper (including grid, flag positions and team positions) u will see that the starting position of red is one step closer to the opponent's flag, and with white having "first step adventage", i think that it is even situation...

I originally thought I had a good counterargument, complete with visuals. It came down to proving a case where Red would win every single time if both teams used a simple "no traps, run for the flag" strategy. It's still true, but moving the Red team start doesn't solve the problem either. If you do that, the White team wins every time.

Even though I'm assuming it's too late for this contest, what I'd like to suggest, especially since the flag hunting code should theoretically be position independent, is that the starting color be random each time, as well as both teams be placed in symmetrically reflective locations. This way no color has an inherent positional advantage.

Of course knowing the advantage Red has could lead to some interesting strategies if you code enough counter-attack code if you find yourself in the White position.

egrrrrrrrrhhhhhh!#@$@#$!!

u are apsolutly right... i didn't understand ur post the first time... and now i read it again, i understand what u ment...

i don't think that one move would make much diference, because of the random efect of the teleport...

This is fairer than chess. Any game is going to have some advantage given due to turns or initial placement, this actually mitigates it to some degree. Also it is random which side you start as so on average half your games will be from each position.

B

I agree to an extent that some balance is maintained by the random positioning of each script starting point. One game you're Red, 2 games you're White, etc.

But I still think it would be more fair if the starting color was random along with the positions placed symmetrically. Since each script has to interpret a STARTWHITE or STARTRED message anyway, the script wouldn't know if it had an advantage or not.

Using chess as an example, White goes first, and as such has an advantage. That's fine. Somebody has to go first. But usually, the determination as to who plays White is random. Now if the starting points were placed symmetrically, and it was randomly determined which color went first, then the only advantage is granted due to starting, not position.

While I agree that there is going to be an advantage because someone has to go first, I feel that it's somewhat mitigated by the fact that each side has different advantage.

If you want to drop your teleport turn one and then move twice to launch White has the advantage. If you want to move on your first turn red has an advantage. This could be exploited by writing two sets of code based upon your color, but I think most people will probably come up with a strategy and go with it regardless of starting color/position.

B