Solving Problems with Recursion - Trying it Out

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Whew, and that's it. Now we have a nice Connect 4 AI engine that can actually look several moves ahead, thanks to recursion. For example, if we try the engine on this position:

Fig 4. The AI (red player), will know how to win in this situation

If the program is called to play for the red player with a depth of only 3, it will correctly find that the best move is to put a piece in column 2 to force the human to block at column 5 and then the computer wins by putting a piece at column 5.

In another situation: 

Fig 5. If the computer (yellow player) could only see one step ahead, he would be unable to see the threat of playing at column 3 or 6 and winning. Now, it can detect and prevent it.

The computer correctly decides to play at column 3 to block the human from winning by putting at column 3 or 6.

Pretty impressive, huh? And it is all less than 30 lines of code.

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Comments On: Solving Problems with Recursion

· Great article, looking forward to seeing more from you.    · Must have been a loot of work.:))    · I think the article is great and recursion is a very powerful technique to use when...    · Excellent Article, looking for articles like these in the future.    · have had a problem with my new ipod it keep running but does not play song that i...   >>> Post your comment now!