Maurizio De Leo
Italy
Milano
MI
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Quote: This is very, very, very untrue. Especially for BGG abstract fans
Connect Four is fairly simplistic on a ply level. When my kids (7 and 10) play against the computer, they don't play a game. They play until they lose to it.
We no longer play each other, as it is absurd to wait for a win. Just like Tic Tac Toe. My daughter has gone 18 games with no losses. My son, 22. After I hit 40 in a row, I stopped.
The game is way too simplistic to provide strategy.
What you say is very very untrue. I am an hardcore BGG abstract fan, and yet the perfect play at connect 4 is way way beyond me.
What I can think is that you, your daughter and your son (and the program you use maybe) do not press enough for the win, and transform it into a game of "the first to make a huge mistake loses"
Actually Connect 4 is proven to be a win for the first player, so if it really was so "simplistic" to you, you should win all the game you start and lose all the one you don't. If it isn't so, maybe the game holds something more. Try to play against a better opponent.
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Maurizio De Leo
Italy
Milano
MI
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Skadar wrote: I agree completely with Geosphere. He nailed it.
Coincidentally, my kids have been playing a lot of Connect Four these past few days, and I've been playing with them. There's just not a lot to be desired.
You said it yourself, the game has been solved. I imagine it wouldn't take much to memorize the potential library of board configurations in order to always bring the game to a win or draw depending upon which player starts. That equals "no fun" to me.
You just said it: "I imagine it wouldn't take much". And you can just imagine that, because it is false. Even if it has less permutation that chess or checkers it is pratically impossible to memorize all the position in connect four (they are 10^13, i.e 10 thousand billions).
So if that means "no fun", at least we are ok.
Quote:
I like a game to be sufficiently complex such that you are (seemingly) always experiencing new situations no matter how long you play it.
"Winning" a game of Connect Four is not so much about your strategy, as it is hoping that the other player isn't paying attention.
Sorry if i seemed harsh in the previous paragraph, but it is really something that scratches an itch in me.
I understand if people don't like a game.....after all to each his cup of tea.
You can say that it is too dry, to abstract, or simply that it is not fun to you, no need of explanation.
But i really don't understand when people dismiss a game (it is usually checkers or connect 4) because it is "too simple" when it is clear that they didn't even start to scratch the depth of its strategy.
Maybe it is just a cultural phenomenon of following the mass: these games are mostly played by kids in our culture, so they must be simple, isn't it ?
However many would be astounded to discover that NO, these games are not simple, and that the average player would be constantly trounced by an expert one.
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Tim Koppang
United States
Westmont
Illinois
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It seems to me that many people have a misunderstanding of what it means when a game is "solved." Saying that a game is of no interest once it has been solved by a computer is, to me, the same as saying that, for example, a Rubik's Cube is of no interest because there are known algorithms to solve the puzzle. Any combinatorial game is in one sense a multi-player puzzle. But unless you can actually execute the "solution" to the puzzle, the existence of a solution, somewhere out there in the aether, is a point of fascination only.
In my opinion, Connect 4 is a game still very much worth playing. As Maurizio suggested, if you find yourself winning too often, perhaps you need a more challenging opponent.
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