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According to Greek mythology, the Amazons were a race of warrior women within ancient Greek civilization. They originated from the area around the Caucasus Range and settled in Asia Minor on the shores of the Black Sea. Women entirely ruled their society, and two queens, one for defense and one for domestic affairs, shared the sovereign rule. Amazons is a two-player board game invented in 1988 by Walter Zamkauskas of Argentina. El Juego de las Amazonas (The Game of the Amazons) is a trademark of Ediciones de Mente. It can be played on boards of arbitrary n x n size, however, it is usually played on a 10 x 10 board. The Amazons game can be played on boards of arbitrary n x n size, however, it is usually played on a 10 x 10 board. Each player, white or black, has four amazons. The rules of the game are as follows: A) On a 10 x 10 board, the white player starts with amazons on locations a4, d1, g1, and f4, while the black player begins with amazons on a7, d10, g10, and j7. B) The white player starts the game. Each move contains two mandatory parts:
C) Both the amazon and the arrow it throws must move along a line that is not occupied by another amazon or blocked by an arrow. D) The last player able to complete a move wins the game. This version of Invader was posted on February 1, 2003. It is an updated version of the program that finished third at the 7th Computer Olympiad held at Maastricht, The Netherlands, July 5 - 11, 2002. It is still based on the original version Henry Avetisyan wrote for his M.S. project, however, Akop Karapetyan has added many GUI improvements, especially in the area of the move history window. Try clicking on moves displayed in that window! The engine also has a number of improvements, the main ones being the squashing of a bug in the evaluation function, more attention to mobility in the evaluation function (making the program stronger overall, but noticeably weaker in the opening), and the addition of the killer heuristic allowing us to look at many more moves at each level. Please try the program, and send comments, suggestions, observations, bug reports, spectacular wins, etc. to lorentz@csun.edu. Zipped download: Invader v. 2.1 System Requirements: Microsoft Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, or XP. I am currently seeking students interested in doing masters projects in this area. Invader is currently one of the top Amazons programs in the world so this is an opportunity to be involved in an exciting and current project. Perhaps with your help we can make Invader number one?!
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