Can past be predicted - Part II

This was the problem I had asked in the last post...

"Given a particular chess game position and the number of moves played, can we precisely determine what moves were played by the players to arrive at the current configuration on the set?"

Now, there can be 'x' number of ways in which a particular chess position can be obtained by 'n' moves. Let us construct a tree for chess game positions. Let us denote each possible chess board position by a node. (I don't know the exact number, but it may well be in billions, trillions or much more ;)). The problem of constructing a game tree based on moves is that a node may have multiple parents. For example, lets assume white plays knight, black plays pawn and white plays a pawn. The same board position can be obtained by white playing pawn, black playing pawn and white playing knight.


So, it seems impossible to determine exact moves played to arrive at a chess game position. But, maybe given some snapshots of the game at different intervals of time (say 3 game positions after every n/3 moves), it "may" very well be possible to predict exactly the moves.

What is the practical use of this problem? Well, I believe, if we can do this for game of chess, we can do it for other things too. For example, stock markets, marketing a new product, etc. I know there will be many people not agreeing with me on this. (Rules of chess are fixed, stock market is based on market sentiments, etc etc.) But even the stock market is governed by some rules, like the recession comes every 10 years, depression comes every 60 years etc. (The years mentioned are not verified numbers) So, we may be very close to predicting stock market if we are able to predict chess moves :D.

Can Past be Predicted?

This is in continuation with the previous post. Please have a look at it before continuing with this one :). Here, I will be assuming some things. One is that future cannot be predicted exactly, as no one has looked at it before, and according to Heisenberg's theory, it cannot be evaluated until someone has watched it. So, if we cannot predict the future precisely, can we predict the past?

Past events have occurred and have definite values with them. For example, on 1st October at a specific location, a particular event occurred, it cannot be changed. Now, can be find out what happened at past? Here is a nice experiment that I have been giving some thought.

"Given a particular chess game position and the number of moves played, can we precisely determine what moves were played by the players to arrive at the current configuration on the set?"

Give it some thought? What say? Will elaborate on my solution in next post.

Can future be predicted?

I don't know :P. Well, but recently heard Heisenberg's uncertainty principle being applied to programming world (can't remember what was it exactly, but its about some variable whose state is not known till its value is read). Can this principle be applied to future prediction. Here is is the theory, the more ahead in future you try to predict, the less the probability of the event occurring. So, the difference of time predicted times probability of event occurring must be constant (and probably may be equal to h - Planck's constant, no proof yet :(.)

(delta) T * (delta) p = h

This leads to the corollary that at a given moment, you can predict exactly what is going to happen the next moment.

Now, here is an interesting argument. Given that we can determine what is going to occur immediately next moment, we can use that data to predict exactly what is going to occur the next moment precisely. Continuing in the same fashion, we can determine the future at any instant of time.

Confused? Well, I am too :P. Any comments to prove my theory wrong?

Morgan Experience

My first job finally started on 18th August, 2008. It was delayed by fortnight due to some reasons, but finally, I was in. And right from day 1, we started with training.

First week was introductions, games, compliance courses and basic finance course. Well, enjoyed that week, as it was not very much technical, but the finance course did give a headache in the end, as the things became more complex. (For curious readers, we were doing the derivatives markets and stuff related to it.)

The next week began the real action. Technical training. We started off with Unix Operating system. Learnt a few basic commands, etc. It was followed by PERL, C and Unix API. Currently doing some cool stuff like writing shell and implementing commands. Probably will start writing a web server in next week.

Will add more interesting experiences later...

Tribal Wars Tips

There are many guides available for playing this game. I tried following a few guides, but finally found out that it was not at all helping. Here are a few tips that may aid you in progressing better.

1. Continuously upgrade Timber, Clay, Iron, Farm and Warehouse continuously in proportion.
2. Always keep recruiting units from barracks and stables. 10 of each unit is sufficient at a time. Try avoiding queuing up units in barracks or stable as they lock your resources.
3. Keep farming near by barbarian villages and bonus villages. The resources they bring in are very useful.
3. Always try to be in a strong tribe. Never hesitate to hop to a strong tribe.
4. Keep in mind your neighbors while deciding on your strategy. If you have a strong player in your 16 x 16 map, keep building defensive troops. Keep your points at a moderate level. If your points are too low, you will be farmed. If your points are too high, you will be nobled.
5. Avoid nobling a barbarian or bonus village. They are the best farms. Also, avoid nobling a village near a strong player, they are his farms.

Well, these are some tips, hope you find them useful. Enjoy playing.

Map of World 19

Here is the map of top 7 tribes from world 19. Notice a gap in K55.


I am stuck in the middle of the pink. Anyways, cruising towards 100k points :D

Tribal Wars World 22

Well, this is the map for world 22 that shows the positions of villages of top 10 tribes a week ago.

The World started off at the south-east corner of K44. What really baffled me was why there were so few players in K44 and K45, where the world actually began, where there were older players. Well, the reason for absence is the war that broke out in a couple of weeks between 2 tribes.

Initially, when the world began, the 4 continents were dominated by a family of tribes viz. Eagles of War (K44), Wolves of War (K45), Phoenix of War (K54) and Wolves of War (K55). I was in Wolves of War. They were number 1 tribe in their own continents and their world ranking was:
1. Wolves of War
2. Eagles of War
4. Ravens of War
7. Phoenix of War

But in some days, suddenly, Ravens of War disbanded. We were dumbfounded because we were going strong, and if that tribe any problems, they didn't inform us. The players had joined other tribe. In 3-4 days, Phoenix of War suffered the same fate. After a weeks time, out tribe and Eagles of War was also disbanded.

Soon the picture became clear. The duke of our tribe was traitor and had betrayed us. The founder of our tribe took some quick measures and found a new tribe Ares of God, and selected top 50 players from Eagles of War and Wolves of War. And we went to war.

When the world was started and we were going strong, another tribe 6 A. M. had emerged. It was a tribe of few members (6, ours was of 95) with average points of 500. (Our average points were 100) They were not even in top 50. But as it turned out, the tribe had more than 60 members, with all its members spread among various tribes. The members of this tribe stayed in the tribe, assumed important positions, and then without notice, disband the tribe. By the time we went to war with 6 A. M., it had about 80 members with strong army and whole world as its enemy.

6 A. M. found it hard to defend itself from our Ares, but we too had to pay the price. As a result, there are not many members in K44 and K45 from top 10 tribes. (Well, I am to the south-east of K45) 6 A. M. eventually disbanded and formed a new tribe CDIS. I also left Ares and joined Ticket for better prospects. Currently the ranking of Ares, CDIS and Ticket is

5. Ticket
15. Ares
333. CDIS (Another surprise, such a great fall!!)

Well, right now, everything is going fine. I am ranked 770 (mind you, there are 50,000+ players) and our tribe is about to eliminate 2 tribes. War is going on. I am safe as the nearest enemy to is me 17 hours away :D

My Tribal Wars Experience

Well, if there is one thing that has taken more than 50% of my time, it certainly has to be the MMORPG Tribal Wars. Well, the best thing about this game is that you get to work as a team, get to know people and at the same time, get to know people all over the world.

I started my journey in World 19 as by joining the STORM tribe. I was soon Number One in the tribe. But soon, the tribe disbanded as it was not growing fast. I had no difficulty in getting an invite to new tribe, WHITE KNIGHTS. I was again in topmost position in this tribe. I had few villages, and our tribe got rid of a couple of tribe that were causing us some trouble.

Everything was going fine, until there turned out a traitor in our tribe. He got into some strong tribe VETE, and asked the top players to attack us. I managed to hold on a few attacks, but that player, pityc, had some 20+ villages and captured my 3 out of 4 villages.

The game was almost over for me. But I decided to make one final blow to pityc. I did not increase the points of the village (in case it may attract someone's attention) and started creating a huge army of 24,000 men. This was very tiring and took me a couple of weeks to reach the figure. And as luck would have it, a war had started between pityc and cesaza (another top guy in the world), and cesaza was clearly in control, having captured at least 10 villages of pityc. I immediately wrote to cesaza offering my help. I attacked one of the pityc's villages with all my army. But alas, I underestimated this guy, all my army perished in one attack =(. He had built up enough defense to survive my attack.

It was then I realized that this war was for the top guys to be finished, and I started to develop increasing my territory. I had no fear from pityc or its tribe as they were involved in war with a single player, cesaza, who himself is stronger than their whole tribe. I am eagerly waiting to see the end result of this legendary battle. I hope cesaza wins =D. As I write this post, I have 7 villages (which is less by all standards, pityc has 43 villages, cesaza has 64, and the top player in this world has 100+ villages) and am nobling my 8th village. I hope to make the final fatal blow.

P.S. If you want to know more about this game, please visit here.

About Me

Hi Friends,

Something about myself. Recently read about moving averages, so much will be from my recent life and little from my past life :D.

Just managed to add Passed after my BTech (Computer) degree. Didn't really have to take much efforts to get that done. Last six months consisted of a project and a subject, which required no studying at all. So, it has made my grey cells stop working, until recently when I tried to solve a puzzle and couldn't solve it. Despite this, I managed to get a good job, only because I was recruited an year earlier, when I was yet into education business.

As my joining was about 3 months later when I graduated, I picked up new interests to utilize my time effectively, latest one being playing the MMORPG Tribal Wars. (Well, its not RPG though.) Even as I write this blog, I have sent an attack to neighbouring village to plunder his resources. My other interests are Japanese, anime and most important of all money (in decent terms, finance.)

Something about my profile. Well "About me" section and the profile picture are inspired from the anime "Avatar: The Last Airbender." The profile pic is of the legendary firebender Iroh.