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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6355285" data-attributes="member: 4937">While it is true that simpler rules don't necessarily equate to a dumb game, it's not necessarily true that they equate to good game either.&nbsp; Tic-Tac-Toe has much simpler rules than Go.&nbsp;&nbsp; Yet is not an elegant game of exquisite strategy and tactics.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's a superficial trivial game.&nbsp;&nbsp; Simple rules don't lead to interesting game play, regardless.&nbsp; They have to be simple in a particular thoughtful way that gives large amounts of freedom but excludes trivial strategies.&nbsp; Most simple rules sets don't lead to interesting play. Tic-Tac-Toe can be refined into a much less trivial game by making it slightly more complex in a variety of ways, granting each player more freedom while still allowing trivial strategies to be thwarted.&nbsp; 'Go' is one example of the general, 'Take a square' family of games that Tic-Tac-Toe is a member of that turns out to be elegant and deep (at least, it has defied easy analysis so far).&nbsp; However, it actually does have some daunting complexity hiding in the simple verbiage of the rules.&nbsp; For example, consider the 'super ko' situation.&nbsp; 'Repeat no prior game state except by passing' is actually a very complex rule!But Go aside, we could easily look at examples like 'Connect Four' or 'Pente' to see that increased complexity does lead to increased depth.&nbsp; Granted, 'Connect Four' turns out to be not enough increased depth to defy easy analysis, and complete solutions exist for it, but its still complex enough that it makes for interesting leisure activity far longer than Tic-Tac-Toe does.&nbsp; Maybe a higher sophont class would consider it as bad as Tic-Tac-Toe though.My suspicion is that Go will turn out to be a simple game once it is analyzed, with a set of rules for winning scarcely larger than the rules of the game (though, Go's distributed nature will probably mean that actually applying those rules algorithmically will probably be challenging to impossible for a person to do consciously).&nbsp; It's just defying analysis because it will actually have to be understood what the strategy is rather than simply searching the full space of all moves.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6355285, member: 4937"] While it is true that simpler rules don't necessarily equate to a dumb game, it's not necessarily true that they equate to good game either. Tic-Tac-Toe has much simpler rules than Go. Yet is not an elegant game of exquisite strategy and tactics. It's a superficial trivial game. Simple rules don't lead to interesting game play, regardless. They have to be simple in a particular thoughtful way that gives large amounts of freedom but excludes trivial strategies. Most simple rules sets don't lead to interesting play. Tic-Tac-Toe can be refined into a much less trivial game by making it slightly more complex in a variety of ways, granting each player more freedom while still allowing trivial strategies to be thwarted. 'Go' is one example of the general, 'Take a square' family of games that Tic-Tac-Toe is a member of that turns out to be elegant and deep (at least, it has defied easy analysis so far). However, it actually does have some daunting complexity hiding in the simple verbiage of the rules. For example, consider the 'super ko' situation. 'Repeat no prior game state except by passing' is actually a very complex rule! But Go aside, we could easily look at examples like 'Connect Four' or 'Pente' to see that increased complexity does lead to increased depth. Granted, 'Connect Four' turns out to be not enough increased depth to defy easy analysis, and complete solutions exist for it, but its still complex enough that it makes for interesting leisure activity far longer than Tic-Tac-Toe does. Maybe a higher sophont class would consider it as bad as Tic-Tac-Toe though. My suspicion is that Go will turn out to be a simple game once it is analyzed, with a set of rules for winning scarcely larger than the rules of the game (though, Go's distributed nature will probably mean that actually applying those rules algorithmically will probably be challenging to impossible for a person to do consciously). It's just defying analysis because it will actually have to be understood what the strategy is rather than simply searching the full space of all moves. [/QUOTE]

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