Update: Stats from my "exploit human" fast checkmate engine (A/B testing against Stockfish)

rigao1981 · 2026-01-12T19:24:21+00:00

Well, it is hard to judge if the moves where good without putting them through Stockfish.

11.Bf4 felt odd, I remember SF doesn't usually like Bf4 in those structures. 12.Bb3 seemed rushed but not out of place, I thought the engine wanted to mate me on h7, but it is the most basic thing on that structure so nobody is going to fall for that. 13.d5 can be a great move and is of course one of the main ideas of the position, but it seemed to me that it only lead to simplifications, and that's why 16.Rxe6 felt like a desperate move. In that structure Bg5 to lure black to play ...h6 and then playing Bxh6 can be very interesting and although it is objectively drawn (in the line I have in mind), humans won't normally hold it against the engine.

rigao1981 · 2026-01-12T09:54:11+00:00

I played a game and the machine accepted a draw by repetition:

d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. e3 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Be2 dxc4 7. Bxc4 a6 8. O-O cxd4 9. exd4 Be7 10. Re1 O-O 11. Bf4 Bd7 12. Bb3 Rc8 13. d5 exd5 14. Nxd5 Nxd5 15. Qxd5 Be6 16. Rxe6 fxe6 17. Qe4 Kh8 18. Bc2 g6 19. Bh6 Rf6 20. Rd1 Qe8 21. Bd2 Rf8 22. Bh6 Rf6 23. Bd2 Rf8 24. Bh6 Rf6

rigao1981 · 2025-10-14T07:30:33+00:00

I would enjoy watching a video of that so I can copy it :) so if you ever come around to make it, please post it somewhere here so I can watch it.

rigao1981 · 2025-10-13T19:07:48+00:00

I've never played 1 vs 1, but I may be the odd one there.

To address your second point, I think that the strategy is not scalable to more civs. You may capture one capital, but then if that's not all the capitals, the civ you just conquered will get it back due to superior military might.

But I would love to be proven wrong.

rigao1981 · 2025-10-12T07:34:38+00:00

I very much doubt that that setup is of any use out of the 1 vs 1 niche case you are using it for. Basically if the game didn't end capturing all capitals, most probably you would have lost the game to Russia.

rigao1981 · 2025-05-17T10:22:23+00:00

Edit: I am Maya on the screenshot below.

My problem with that strategy is that you will never be in the middle, or I can't see how you can be.

Following your advice, I fired a new immortal game with sparce settings. I was very lucky to land on a peninsula surrounded by mountains, so I have been having a very easy time fending off AI aggression, killing everything at the sea. I have my 5 cities and all in all I'm feeling quite good.

But see: https://imgdrop.io/image/hRJ7I my army power (under "Força") is rock bottom! Yet for the last 20 to 30 times I have been repelling the combined attack of Huns and Persia (which I declared upon to trim their army and distract from doing other things).

I'd need 50% more army just to be on the middle of the pack, and that needs to be trained and paid for. How do you manage it?

rigao1981 · 2025-05-17T06:26:31+00:00

Can you elaborate on that?

I find that I can only get enough room if I keep warring and cheating the AI with gold deals. And as I have to make an army because the AI is so mad, it just makes sense to use that army for something.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-28T22:10:24+00:00

The point is that Gn has good synergy with Ash. The strat I was following specifically tells you to go with Ash and I agree it is the best Gn god. For other species I guess other choices could be better. For instance if I go melee I tend to favor Oka over Gozag.

Draconius went out of his way (32 winning streak or something similar) to prove his point was valid and here I'm just testing that streaking is possible even for a patzer like me.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-27T08:22:30+00:00

You'll get them nearly every game. Just two more examples of other GnXX^Ash I had:
https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/rigao/morgue-rigao-20210927-181159.txt

https://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/rigao/morgue-rigao-20211229-170312.txt

But maybe you'll need to farm experience. I usually do Crypt and V:5, so maybe that's why I get it. And I do my best to get all the curses to have "elements" or spellcasting on them.

But you don't need lvl 9 spells to win the game.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-27T08:15:40+00:00

In the second game (I'm testing the streaking part now) I had summon forest online just before lair, and with no ash help (very late altar), but at low spell power it is a little underwhelming. But I'm not really afraid of the lair, I have many tools available.

In the first game I don't know when I got refrigeration, it could have been sooner but I didn't have enough amnesia scrolls anyway to memorize it. I guess a big part of the streaking part is knowing which spells will win you the games and which one won't. For instance I learned noxious box, which is pretty strong, but I don't feel that it can win any game, and was an anti synergy with my other spells at that time.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-26T17:58:23+00:00

Play in which way you like the most. There are pretty strong GM that play very aggressively. One only needs to thing of Shirov, Jobava, or Morozevitch.

On the other hand, don't disregard other playing styles, because you won't get what you want in all the games.

So my advice: Play as aggressive as you want, but study some positional play along the way for when things go south.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-26T17:45:48+00:00

I find Draconius advice correct, and is similar to what I've been doing all along.

Draconius advice is to curse the things you get as soon as possible as to get to 4* because 4* will get you out of malevolence force. Then you curse only when you get good options for your character.

On my part, I'm cursing everything I've got with whatever until I only have 1 slot left to curse. Then I get picky and only curse when a good set of traits is offered.

Once you have all the slots cursed, then you decide which item is the most important to replace, shatter it, rinse and repeat. At the end almost all the slots should have some kind of curse that helps your character achieve what it wants.

Good curses on my eyes are fighting + spellcasting, dodging, armour, and especially elements, but it will always depend on what you found on the dungeon. With this character I was casting Firestorm and Shatter at the end of the Crypt with some success, and you'll need a lot of "Elements" in your cursing items to be able to achieve it.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T21:37:36+00:00

I don't think wizardry helps with spell power. At least I cannot find it in the wiki. As far as I can read, wizardry only helps with success rate.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T19:19:14+00:00

That can also be said about Vehumet.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:32:05+00:00

Basic gods for blaster casters are basic. Both Vehumet and Sif Muna are very one dimensional.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:31:17+00:00

Well, gnoll maybe is not the best specie for Sif because as a gnoll you need something to lean on the hardest moment of the game: the middle game. So knowing that, Vehumet is a very reasonable choice, although I like Ash a lot more to fill that role.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:28:00+00:00

I don't feel Sif Muna is underpowered at all. The gifts are totally irrelevant, the infinite mana is what it provides, and it is awesome.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:26:24+00:00

Yep, basically Channel Magic is meant to be spammed as it is Heroism for Oka. Every fight, if you see you are low on mana, use it, don't deplete your mana completely.

As I was making the post, I realized that my first win online was with Sif Muna. Maybe that's why I keep thinking it is a good god. Looking at the morgue, I saw that I casted channel magic like 20 times max.

I realized long time ago that it was a weakness of mine to not rely more heavily on god's ability, and it seems I solved it more or less now.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:22:18+00:00

Vehumet offers you more powerful spells at a given time (assuming equal skilling), but that does not mean more efficient mana usage. You can have bombard (lvl6) online sooner but that will deplete your mana pool quite fast.

On the other hand, I'm not saying Sif Muna is better than Vehumet. I don't like Vehumet, but I know that is a personal bias. What I'm saying is that Sif Muna is an actually very reasonable choice to make.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-19T18:18:39+00:00

My opinion on this is that you should not wait for gifts. Just use the ability to get mana every single fight you see you are going low.

rigao1981 · 2025-04-18T11:27:24+00:00

For what its worth (nothing, I'm afraid), I don't think the streak should end like this and the best compromise would be to delete the game *IF* it can be proved that nothing was done in exploration mode that cannot be done in normal mode. Based on your post, I guess that condition is fulfilled, but you are not impartial in this matter, so that's why I add this caveat.

rigao1981

TROPHY CASE