From: D. J. Hooker
Subject: NIM game - Help.......
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <757gnh$a9d$1@bignews.shef.ac.uk>

Hi,

This is a bit unusual but here goes ....


I've written a NIM player.... A set of matches in rows which have a number 
taken from each by the computer and a player in turn. The player who has to 
take the last match loses.

I've written the game using a computer player which uses a knowledge base to 
decide the appropriate set of circumstances. Does anybody have any ideas / 
code (in CML) of how to improve the quality of the computer player?

Preferably something fairly short as I have 'til friday to do it and have only 
just started programming in LISP (although I do have about 10 years 
programming experience).

Thanks,
        Dan.

From: Gareth McCaughan
Subject: Re: NIM game - Help.......
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Message-ID: <86pv9jt148.fsf@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>

D J Hooker wrote:

> I've written a NIM player.... A set of matches in rows which have a number 
> taken from each by the computer and a player in turn. The player who has to 
> take the last match loses.
> 
> I've written the game using a computer player which uses a knowledge base to 
> decide the appropriate set of circumstances. Does anybody have any ideas / 
> code (in CML) of how to improve the quality of the computer player?

There is a simple algorithm that plays perfect Nim. You can
find the details in many, many books.

-- 
Gareth McCaughan       Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
·····@dpmms.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.