War - Puzzle Discussion

p_r · January 22, 2024, 3:10pm

Thank you, I ended up figuring out the solution.

Thuredrith078 · February 11, 2024, 12:57pm

Hello,

At the moment I am at a loss here.
I’ve read basically the whole forum thread and I am still confused as why my long game terminates after 1162 rounds with PAT:

An excerpt from my log

P1 startdeck AH,4H,5D,6D,QC,JS,8S,2D,7D,JD,JC,6C,KS,QS,9D,2C,5S,9S,6S,8H,AD,4D,2H,2S,7S,8C
P2 startdeck 10H,4C,6H,3C,KC,JH,10C,AS,5H,KH,10S,9H,9C,8D,5C,AC,3H,4S,KD,7C,3S,QH,10D,3D,7H,QD
Current battle cards P1:AH P2: 10H
Turn:0=>AH 10H P1 WINS
P1 deck after winning battle 4H,5D,6D,QC,JS,8S,2D,7D,JD,JC,6C,KS,QS,9D,2C,5S,9S,6S,8H,AD,4D,2H,2S,7S,8C,AH,10H
Current battle cards P1:4H P2: 4C
Turn:1=>4H 4C !!!WAR!!!
P1 Wardeck  4H,5D,6D,QC
P2 Wardeck  4C,6H,3C,KC
Deck counts: 23 21
Current battle cards P1:JS P2: JH
Turn:1=>JS JH !!!WAR!!!
P1 Wardeck  4H,5D,6D,QC,JS,8S,2D,7D
P2 Wardeck  4C,6H,3C,KC,JH,10C,AS,5H
Deck counts: 19 17
Current battle cards P1:JD P2: KH
Turn:1=>JD KH P2 WINS
P2 deck after winning war 10S,9H,9C,8D,5C,AC,3H,4S,KD,7C,3S,QH,10D,3D,7H,QD,4H,5D,6D,QC,JS,8S,2D,7D,KH,4H,5D,6D,QC,JS,8S,2D,7D,JD

If I understood correctly, at the moment P2 wins above battle, the cards are added to his deck (queue-wise) like this:

[battlecardP1+3warcardsP1][battlecardP1+3warcardsP1][winningBattleCard**][battlecardP2+3warcardsP2][battlecardP2+3warcardsP2][losingBattleCard**]

** regardless the player.

As some of the posts contradicts other posts I am not sure what the correct order should be.
Anyone out there that’s able to help me out?

Besides that: cases 7-8-9 fails me.
Whereas when I make some changes sometimes 9 will succeed and 8 keeps failing with the dreaded timeout (e.g. it crashes vscode on my local machine if I try to run it there)

Thanks in advance for any reply.

5DN1L · February 11, 2024, 4:50pm

Regarding your log, which test case is it?

Thuredrith078 · February 11, 2024, 9:06pm

The long game

Zener · February 11, 2024, 9:14pm

Bonjour ,
Si les administrateurs l’accepte, ci-joint les commentaires de ma gestion des piles de cartes (ps: mon programme fonctionne )

Bon courage.

RomanSmoll · March 29, 2024, 2:38pm

Hello. I’m getting desperate.
I manage to go past a battle and 2 chain battles but 1 game 1 battle for me is 2 - 212 instead of 1 - 52

Langugage : JavaScript
Concepts:

I use same notation replacing J with 11, Q with 12 etc… A is 14. I store them as objects of {v:, n:} for tracking
Get 1st card of each array and shift() the array. In case of a war i will always use the 4-th of the array to compare so it is handy
The war is handled through recursion:

function war(pp1, pp2, recursionCounter = 1) { //pp1 = Pile Player 1 et
  let rCounter = recursionCounter;
  //check if the war is possible
  if (pp1.length < 4 || pp2.length < 4) {
    return "PAT";
  }
  //war is possible
  //take the 4th card, compare
  let comp1 = pp1[rCounter * 4 - 1];
  let comp2 = pp2[rCounter * 4 - 1];
  //if same
  if (comp1.v === comp2.v) {
    console.error(`consecutive war ${rCounter}`);
    rCounter++;
    return war(pp1, pp2, rCounter);
  } else {
    console.error(
      `war winner :${
        pp1.v > pp2.v ? 1 : 2
      } with counter of consequity ${rCounter}`
    );
    return { winner: pp1.v > pp2.v ? 1 : 2, times: rCounter };
  }
}

Then at the end of the war I assemble the winning pot. The order for it is according to the rules: first the cp1 (1st card player 1 ), followed by n cards from player 1 he used in the war, then cp2 then n cards from war from player 2:

      let temp1 = p1.slice(0, warRes.times * 4);
      let temp2 = p2.slice(0, warRes.times * 4);
      let winPot = [cp1].concat(temp1).concat([cp2]).concat(temp2);
      parseInt(warRes.winner) === 1
        ? (p1 = p1.concat(winPot))
        : (p2 = p2.concat(winPot));

Then the amount of cards used in the battle are deleted from the beginning of the each player’s pile:

function erase(a, n) {
  for (let i = 0; i < n; i++) {
    a.shift();
  }
}
...
    //p1 and p2 represent initial pile. As i mentioned, the 1st card for comparison before the battle is already shifted.
    erase(p1, warRes.times * 4);
    erase(p2, warRes.times * 4);

In the case of 1 game 1 battle, I actually somehow have 6 individual battles.

Can somebody help me with

Advice
Log for card amounts after each turn for this particular case
antidepressants (?)
Alternative test case where there are less data?

Thanks

5DN1L · March 29, 2024, 4:08pm

Can you share here the cards used in the first 30 battle(s)/war(s)? I’ll compare my results with yours.

RomanSmoll · March 29, 2024, 4:13pm

Hello ! Thank you so much !
here are the logs:

How to read:
In a line starting with :“comparing” you have the cards that are compared
counter represents turns, p1, p2 represent the amount of cards that player has at the end of the turn

comparing 10 / 2
counter : 1, p1: 27, p2: 25

comparing 13 / 9
counter : 2, p1: 28, p2: 24

comparing 6 / 8
counter : 3, p1: 27, p2: 25

comparing 10 / 4
counter : 4, p1: 28, p2: 24

comparing 8 / 5
counter : 5, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 14 / 14
let the war begin. cards posessed : 29 / 23
war winner :2 with counter of consequuity 1
war result : {"winner":2,"times":1}
[{"v":12,"n":"Q"},{"v":3,"n":"3"},{"v":7,"n":"7"},{"v":13,"n":"K"}]
p1 b4 assembly & b4 drop : 28
p2 b4 assembly & b4 drop : 22
p1 after assembly & b4 drop : 28
p2 after assembly & b4 drop : 32
p1 after assembly & after drop : 24
p2 after assembly & after drop :28
counter : 6, p1: 24, p2: 28

comparing 9 / 4
counter : 7, p1: 25, p2: 27

comparing 2 / 6
counter : 8, p1: 24, p2: 28

comparing 11 / 6
counter : 9, p1: 25, p2: 27

comparing 13 / 12
counter : 10, p1: 26, p2: 26

comparing 3 / 9
counter : 11, p1: 25, p2: 27

comparing 2 / 10
counter : 12, p1: 24, p2: 28

comparing 12 / 4
counter : 13, p1: 25, p2: 27

comparing 14 / 11
counter : 14, p1: 26, p2: 26

comparing 11 / 6
counter : 15, p1: 27, p2: 25

comparing 7 / 3
counter : 16, p1: 28, p2: 24

comparing 13 / 8
counter : 17, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 10 / 3
counter : 18, p1: 30, p2: 22

comparing 4 / 7
counter : 19, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 14 / 9
counter : 20, p1: 30, p2: 22

comparing 5 / 8
counter : 21, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 5 / 2
counter : 22, p1: 30, p2: 22

comparing 10 / 6
counter : 23, p1: 31, p2: 21

comparing 2 / 8
counter : 24, p1: 30, p2: 22

comparing 13 / 14
counter : 25, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 9 / 12
counter : 26, p1: 28, p2: 24

comparing 10 / 3
counter : 27, p1: 29, p2: 23

comparing 4 / 7
counter : 28, p1: 28, p2: 24

comparing 8 / 13
counter : 29, p1: 27, p2: 25

comparing 5 / 14
counter : 30, p1: 26, p2: 26

5DN1L · March 29, 2024, 4:50pm

Hello!

This is where things start to become wrong. Mine is comparing 13 (KD) / 2 (2D) instead of 13 / 14. KD and 2D were involved in an ordinary battle instead of a war, before they are compared in “counter 25”. So, you may check what’s gone wrong much earlier in the simulation (“counter 3” and “counter 8”).

PrimedEgod · March 30, 2024, 5:51pm

You realy save me.

Tuelho · April 2, 2024, 6:31pm

@StepBack13 Thank you soooo much!! =D I was with the same problem… tried three/four ways to optimize my code (changing between Lists, Queues, Arrays and Strings) without success. After seeing your comment, I realized that I also was using 10 to Jack!! I fixed the values and all the tests passed!! Thank you!!!

RomanSmoll · April 4, 2024, 9:08am

Thank you so much for providing me a comparison!

It took me till today to figure things out…and i mean reeeeeeally trying hard.
You know what it was? a battle! in the piece of code I provided earlier

  if (comp1.v === comp2.v) {
    console.error(`consecutive war ${rCounter}`);
    rCounter++;
    return war(pp1, pp2, rCounter);
  } else {
    console.error(
      `war winner :${
        pp1.v > pp2.v ? 1 : 2
      } with counter of consequity ${rCounter}`
    );
    return { winner: pp1.v > pp2.v ? 1 : 2, times: rCounter };
  }
}

pp1 and pp2 are arrays and my mind thought it were selected values in question.
Damn…took me simply to export the 1 game 1 battle + my solution into VS code, establish an fs- stream to log to file and parallel print both arrays… Xd

Thank you for advice again))!

Dudemaster · November 25, 2024, 1:21am

rules are missing important details

getting major discrepancies in results depending on how the cards are “shuffled” into the winner’s deck, eg:

battle winner always takes their card first
vs
battle winner always takes p1’s card first
vs
battle winner always takes lowest card first

in conjunction with

war winner takes p1 played card, then three p1 face down cards, then p2 played card, then three p2 face down cards
vs
war winner takes all p1 face up and face down cards, then all p2 face up then face down cards
vs
war winner alternates between p1 and p2 played or face down cards
vs
war winner alternates between p1 played card, p2 played card, three p1 face down cards, three p2 face down cards

etc