Unite 2010GDC ChinaAsia Game Show 2010GDC 2011
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DevelopmentAn age-old maxim of chess playing is that minor pieces (bishops and knights) should be brought into the battle as quickly as possible, that the King should castle early and that rooks and queens should stay quiet until it is time for a decisive attack. There are many reasons for this: knights and bishops (and pawns) can take control of the center, support the queen's attacks, and moving them out of the way frees the back rank for the more potent rooks. Later on in the game, a rook running amok on the seventh rank (i.e., the base of operations for the opponent's pawns) can cause a tremendous amount of damage. My program uses several factors to measure development. First, it penalizes any position in which the King's and Queen's pawns have not moved at all. It also penalizes knights and bishops located on the back rank where they hinder rook movement, tries to prevent the queen from moving until all other pieces have, and gives a big bonus to positions where the king has safely castled (and smaller bonuses to cases where it hasn't castled yet but hasn't lost the right to do so) when the opponent has a queen on the board. As you can see, the development factor is important in the opening but quickly loses much of its relevance; after 10 moves or so, just about everything that can be measured here has already happened. Note that favoring development can be dangerous in a game like Checkers. In fact, the first player to vacate one of the squares on his back rank is usually in trouble; avoiding development of these important defensive pieces is a very good idea.
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