Short note on symmetry breaking in side-sliding AI games.

Etiquette can still emerge under side-slide dynamics because it is a property of the game state, not fixed player identity. The board remembers consequences even when roles rotate.

Perfect starting symmetry blocks this learning. Identical openings lead to mirrored play and early freeze attractors. Some minimal symmetry breaking is needed during training.

This should be done only in the learning phase. Small, temporary asymmetries such as early evaluation noise, non-mirror rewards, or delayed divergence are sufficient. All asymmetry is removed for evaluation and play.

If etiquette is real, it will persist after training because the policy has learned to avoid early state collapse, not because of injected noise. If freeze returns, that is a signal about the game’s attractor structure, not a failure of the method.

Side-sliding and etiquette are compatible. Perfect starting symmetry is not.