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Last night I updated the server. This release is really about getting out some bug fixes and minor updates in advance of a more major release.
Amazons Territory Calculation
In Amazons, the score is an approximation of how much territory each player has access to. The score doesn't really effect the outcome of the game in anyway, since the game doesn't end until one player can no longer move. But, it's handy for deciding when to throw in the towel.
The old territory calculation only considered arrows as impediments. Queens were ignored since they could move. This essentially meant the score was worthless until ever queen was separated out into territories by arrows. Since players often place queens as sentinels blocking off a territory, this calculation was not particularly helpful.
The new code computes territory as contiguous blocks of empty squares. Queens and arrows divide territories. For a territory to be counted in your score, you must have one of your queens adjacent to one of the territory's empty squares. The score updates both after you move and after you fire an arrow.
Hopefully, this more dynamic scoring will lead to better play and less time wasted counting squares by hand.
Pah-Tum Draws
I've been surprised by the number of draws in Pah-Tum. Many of the games are not in contention for many of the final moves. This can make some of the games tedious to play out, so I added the "offer draw" link.
Bug Fixes
The Three Musketeers selecting bug is fixed. As with all the other games, selecting a piece highlights it. Clicking a selected piece again would unselect it but it would (incorrectly) remain highlighted.
I also fixed several minor typos in this release. For example, the "this tourney will start when -1 more players sign-up" bug.
There was also a bug where checking the last move of a game would not update the score. I was unable to reproduce it in development, so apparently I fixed it. : ))
More Tourney Automation
I've been manually creating and starting tourneys. Creating the tourneys is not hard, but I sometimes don't notice that a tourney is due to start. I've added a script to start tourneys that'll be run hourly.
There's a bug in the score calculation for tourneys where rarely a win or draw will be counted twice. I haven't tracked this down, yet, but I've added a script to recompute a tourney's score. I'll be running it against our existing tourney's periodically until I can figure out the bug.
Next Release
The next release will have some more major changes and at least one new game.
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BatmanAoD says,