You should be aware that Go is one of the most complicated games to write an AI for. There have been endless discussions about writing "good" opponents. Representing the game state itself sould be almost trivial, but there are quite a lot of subtleties in playing the game.

The links here might be interesting to you.

EDIT: sorry, I read over the "no AI" part... If you want a program that just lets two players play Go, then a simple 2D array should be fine since you wouldn't have to worry too much about efficiency. However, if you intend to let the computer be the judge, you should put some thought into recognizing "caught" stones, hopeless positions and so on. Perhaps let the computer search for enclosed positions first and then let the humans decide what to make of the position.

[edited by - Shadowdancer on July 7, 2003 11:02:25 AM]

I have a half-done Go implimentation that I''ve been making on and off for a while. I have two arrays representing the board - one for this turn and one for last turn - and each array can have one of three states: black, white, empty.


Qui fut tout, et qui ne fut rien
Invader''s Realm

[offtopic]
IIRC, the currently best GO AI was beaten by a 4-year old. (of course (s)he was not a beginner, but young & amateur nevertheless)
[/offtopic]

a 2d array i think is the best solution

for each cell u could use 1 byte 0 - empty 1 - black 2 - white and set the msb( | 0x80) if its conquered

also use the array as a graph and after each move determine if each of the cells to see if they form a cycle. if they do use a flood fill alghoritm to mark all the cells inside as taken.

u could implement a simple AI using the risc of capture of each cell and determining the next move based on the riscs so that by doing it u will have the lowest risc. however this strategy is only for defense. the hard thing to do offensive AI for GO si that its hard to program the AI to create a strategy.







/*ilici*/