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Bots for a Board Game

Supervisor

Suitable for

MSc in Advanced Computer Science
Computer Science, Part B
Mathematics and Computer Science, Part C
Computer Science and Philosophy, Part C
Computer Science, Part C

Abstract

The goal of this project is to develop bots for the board game Hex. In a previous project, an interface was created to allow future students to pit their game-playing engines against each other. In this project the goal is to program a strong Hex engine. The student may choose the algorithms that underly the engine, such as alpha-beta search, Monte-Carlo tree search, or neural networks. The available interface allows a comparison between different engines. It is hoped that these comparisons will show that the students' engines become stronger over the years. The project involves reading about game-playing algorithms, selecting promising algorithms and datastructures, and design and development of software (in Java or Scala).