About

Skeleton code for an Ataxx engine written in C++. All the basic requirements for an engine are included. A basic minimax search and material only evaluation are also provided as examples. This project is intended to provide a solid foundation for others to build their own engines from.

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About the game

Ataxx is a two player, turn-based, perfect information board game created in 1988.
Wikipedia article

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Build instructions

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/kz04px/ataxx-skeleton
follow libataxx build instructions
mkdir ./ataxx-skeleton/build
cd ./ataxx-skeleton/build
cmake ..
make

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UAI protocol

UAI stands for "Universal Ataxx Interface" and is a slightly modified version of the Universal Chess Interface protocol. The only differences are that instances of 'c' for 'chess' have been replaced by 'a' for 'ataxx', and that the FEN format has been altered to suit the game.

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FEN strings

Based on FEN strings from chess.
Player one is black and represented by 'x'
Player two is white and represented by 'o'
Gaps/Blockers are represented by '-'
Examples:

x5o/7/7/7/7/7/o5x x 0 1
x-----o
-------
-------
-------
-------
-------
o-----x

xx4o/5o1/2-1-2/7/2-1-2/7/o5x x 0 2
xx----o
-----o-
-- - --
-------
-- - --
-------
o-----x

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Example UAI usage

uai
id name AtaxxEngine
id author kz04px
option name debug type check default false
uaiok
isready
readyok
uainewgame
position startpos
go depth 5
info score cp 100 depth 1 seldepth 1 time 0 nodes 14 nps 335530 pv f1
info score cp 0 depth 2 seldepth 2 time 0 nodes 224 nps 1674065 pv f1 b1
info score cp 100 depth 3 seldepth 3 time 1 nodes 4618 nps 4187051 pv f1 b1 e1
info score cp 0 depth 4 seldepth 4 time 22 nodes 95540 nps 4232042 pv f1 b1 f2 c1
info score cp 100 depth 5 seldepth 5 time 532 nodes 2452814 nps 4607308 pv f1 a2 e1 a3 d1
bestmove f1
quit

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Thanks

• doctest - The fastest feature-rich C++11/14/17/20 single-header testing framework