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COMP3411 Artificial Intelligence
Assignment 3 – Nine-Board Tic-Tac-Toe
Marks: 16% of final assessment
Introduction
In this assignment you will be writing an agent to play the game of Nine-Board Tic-
Tac-Toe. This game is played on a 3 x 3 array of 3 x 3 Tic-Tac-Toe boards. The first
move is made by placing an X in a randomly chosen cell of a randomly chosen board.
After that, the two players take turns placing an O or X alternately into an empty cell
of the board corresponding to the cell of the previous move. (For example, if the
previous move was into the upper right corner of a board, the next move must be
made into the upper right board.)
The game is won by getting three-in-a row either horizontally, vertically or diagonally
in one of the nine boards. If a player is unable to make their move (because the
relevant board is already full) the game ends in a draw.
Getting Started
Copy the archive src.zip into your own filespace and unzip it. Then type
cd src
make all
./servt -x -o
You should then see something like this:
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . . | . . .
------+-------+------
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . x | . . .
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------+-------+------
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . . | . . .
. . . | . . . | . . .
next move for O ?
You can now play Nine-Board Tic-Tac-Toe against yourself, by typing a number for
each move. The cells in each board are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 as follows:
+-----+
|1 2 3|
|4 5 6|
|7 8 9|
+-----+
To play against a computer player, you need to open another terminal window (and
cd to the src directory).
Type this into the first window:
./servt -p 12345 -x
This tells the server to use port 12345 for communication, and that the moves for
X will be chosen by you, the human, typing at the keyboard. (If port 12345 is busy,
choose another 5-digit number.)
You should then type this into the second window (using the same port number):
./randt -p 12345
The program randt simply chooses each move randomly among the available legal
moves. The Python program agent.py behaves in exactly the same way. You can
play against it by typing this into the second window:
python3 agent.py -p 12345
You can play against a somewhat more sophisticated player by typing this into the
second window:
./lookt -p 12345
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(If you are using a Mac, type ./lookt.mac instead of ./lookt )
Writing a Player
Your task is to write a program to play the game of nine-board tic-tac-toe as well as
you can. Your program will receive commands from the server (init, start(),
second_move(), third_move(), last_move(), win(), loss(), draw(),
end()) and must send back a single digit specifying the chosen move.
(the parameters for these commands are explained in the comments of agent.py)
Communication between the server and the player(s) is illustrated in this brief
example:
Player X Server Player O
← init
init →
← start(x)
start(o) →
second_move(6,1) →
← 7
← third_move(6,1,7)
9 →
next_move(9) →
← 6
← next_move(6)
5 →
last_move(5) →
← win(triple)
loss(triple) →
← end
end →
Language Options
You are free to write your player in any language you wish.
. If you write in Python, you should submit your .py files (including agent.py);
your program will be invoked by:
python3 agent.py -p (port)
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. If you write in Java, you should submit your .java files (no .class files). The main
file must be called Agent.java; your program will be invoked by:
java Agent -p (port)
. If you write in C or C++, You should submit your source files (no object files) as
well as a Makefile which, when invoked with the command "make", will produce
an executable called agent; your program will be invoked by:
./agent -p (port)
If you wish to write in some other language, let us know.
Starter Code
Two types of starter code are provided. The src directory contains a minimally
functioning agent in each language which connects to the socket and plays random
moves (agent.py, Agent.java, agent.c). The directory code/ttt contains a
standalone program in each language which plays normal (single board) tic-tac-toe
and chooses its moves via alpha-beta search (ttt.py, ttt.java, ttt.c).
Note: You are free to use some method other than alpha-beta search if you wish. The
starter code is simply meant to provide you with one viable option.
Testing Your Code
To play two computer programs against each other, you may need to open three
windows. For example, to play agent against lookt using port 54321, type as
follows:
window 1: ./servt -p 54321
window 2: ./agent -p 54321
window 3: ./lookt -p 54321
(Whichever program connects first will play X; the other program will play O.)
You can alternatively use the shell script playt.sh, and provide the executables
and port number as command-line arguments. Here are some examples:
./playt.sh ./agent ./lookt 12345
./playt.sh "java Agent" ./lookt 12346
./playt.sh "python3 agent.py" ./lookt 12347
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The strength of lookt can be adjusted by specifying a maximum search depth
(default value is 9; reasonable range is 1 to 18), e.g.
./playt.sh "python3 agent.py" "./lookt -d 6" 31415
Question
At the top of your code, in a block of comments, you must provide a brief answer
(one or two paragraphs) to this Question:
Briefly describe how your program works, including any algorithms and data
structures employed, and explain any design decisions you made along the way.
Groups
This assignment may be done individually, or in groups of two students. Groups are
determined by an SMS field called pair3 . Every student has initially been assigned
a unique pair3 which is "h" followed by their student ID number, e.g.
h1234567 .
. If you plan to complete the assignment individually, you don't need to do
anything (but, if you do create a group with only you as a member, that's ok too).
. If you wish to form a pair, you should go to the WebCMS page and click on
"Groups" in the left hand column, then click "Create". Click on the menu for
"Group Type" and select "pair". After creating a group, click "Edit", search for
the other member, and click "Add". WebCMS assigns a unique group ID to each
group, in the form of "g" followed by six digits (e.g. g012345 ). We will
periodically run a script to load these values into SMS.
Submission
You should submit by typing:
give cs3411 hw3 ...
Remember to include all necessary files in your submission (including the one with
the answer to the Question).
You can submit as many times as you like – later submissions will overwrite earlier
ones. You can check that your submission has been received by using the following
command:
3411 classrun -check
The submission deadline is Friday 19 April, 10 pm.
5% penalty will be applied to the mark for every 24 hours late after the deadline, up
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to a maximum of 5 days (in accordance with UNSW policy).
Additional information may be found in the FAQ and will be considered as part of the
specification for the project.
Questions relating to the project can also be posted to the Forum on WebCMS.
If you have a question that has not already been answered on the FAQ or the Forum,
you can email it to [email protected]
Marking scheme
10 marks for performance against a number of pre-defined opponents.
6 marks for Algorithms, Style, Comments and answer to the Question
You should always adhere to good coding practices and style. In general, a program
that attempts a substantial part of the job but does that part correctly will receive
more marks than one attempting to do the entire job but with many errors.
Plagiarism Policy
Your program must be entirely your own work. In addition, soliciting another person
(or an AI bot) to write code for you – either in person or through the Internet – is
never permitted. Generally, the copying of code already available on the Internet is
also forbidden. If you find some piece of "standard" code in a textbook, or on the
Internet, which you would like to adapt and incorporate into your own assignment,
you must email the lecturer in charge to ask if it is permissible to do so in the
particular circumstances – in which case the source would have to be acknowledged
in your submission, and you would need to demonstrate that you had done a
substantial amount of work for the assignment yourself. Plagiarism detection
software will be used to compare all submissions pairwise and serious penalties will
be applied, particularly in the case of repeat offences.
DO NOT COPY FROM OTHERS; DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE TO SEE YOUR CODE
Please refer to the UNSW Policy on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism if you require
further clarification on this matter.