War of The Ring Shadow Bot 2.0

Queller Bot for War of the Ring
By Quitch
Version 2.0 - 2017-10-02
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/141333/shadow-bot-solo-play
About....................................................................................................................................................... 1
Document Usage ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................. 1
Glossary of Terms.................................................................................................................................... 2
Cheat Sheet ............................................................................................................................................. 3
General Rules .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Corruption Strategy ................................................................................................................................ 5
Military Strategy ................................................................................................................................... 12
FAQ........................................................................................................................................................ 19
Changelog ............................................................................................................................................. 19
About
A non-cheating bot for solo players. Plays as the Shadow in War of the Ring 2nd edition.
Document Usage
To make this document as easy to use as possible you should assemble it in three parts.
1. General terms and rules: pages 2 through 4

2. Corruption strategy: pages 5 through 11
3. Military strategy: pages 12 through 18
4. You dont need to print pages 19 onwards
Acknowledgements
Thanks to TheMoss who developed the solitaire variant that inspired this bot, originally nothing
more than minor tweaks to his rules.
Thanks also to everyone who has ever posted a War of the Ring strategy post because plundering
those made developing Quellers logic much easier.
Finally, thanks to those of you who are providing feedback and commentary on Quellers file page. It
means a lot to me and is a great help.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1
Queller Bot for War of the Ring v2.0 | Quitch
Glossary of Terms
Aggressive The army of an active nation whose value opposing army value and is not
prevented from moving into a defeated armys region by threat
Exposed Empty target that a Shadow army has a clear shortest path to, and the army is
at least as close as any Free Peoples army, ignoring those engaged in sieges, or
from a different nation than the target and not at war.
Mobile An army which is aggressive against its closest target, or one within the
same national border, and all armies on shortest route to it.
An army which would turn a passive siege aggressive at its closest
target.
Passive Army which does not meet the aggressive army criteria.
Primary The muster region closest to the defined target.
Safe A region/settlement/army is deemed safe if, after its defensive modifiers:
the resulting army value is the army value of any adjacent Free People
the Free Peoples army is in a target with an adjacent aggressive
Shadow army
Secondary The muster region closest to the primary. For Nazgl this is the nearest muster
region with an army.
Target Order of priority when tied for distance:
1. Shadow stronghold held by the Free People
2. A besieged stronghold occupied by the Shadow
3. Stronghold not currently under siege by a mobile Shadow army
o Nation at war
o Active nation
o Passive nation
4. City
o Nation at war
o Active nation
Threat Region which contains:
A Free People army with a higher value than the Shadow stronghold
garrison and all armies en route and the dice would allow it to attack
this turn (including moving to at war) and no Shadow army of equal or
higher value is closer to the region
an aggressive Free Peoples army is adjacent to a Shadow owned
stronghold
Saruman, when Orthancs army value is less than 3, not all Ent cards
have been played and Gandalf the White is on the board
Unplayable A face-down pile for cards whose top-half conditions can never be met.
Value Point rating of army, calculated as:
+1 for each hit point
+1 for each combat die including Captain of the West (capped at 5)
+1 for each point of leadership (capped at lower of 5 or total army
units)
o Do not add for Witch King or Nazgl if facing Gandalf the White
+1 for each Captain of the West (regardless of total combat dice)
+1 for being in a fortification or city region
x1.5 (rounded down) for being in a stronghold
o Only used for defenders in mobile, threat and siege calculations
x0.5 for sorties (rounded down)
Cheat Sheet
Closest Targets
Target Starting Defence Value Closest For Mobile Army
Mount Gundabad
Rivendell 10
North Dunland
Dol Guldur
Lorien 13 Moria Dol Guldur (13)
North Dunland
Dol Guldur
Woodland Realm 9 Mount Gundabad Dol Guldur (13)
North Rhn
Erebor 13 Easterlings
Orthanc
Helms Deep 3
South Dunland
Grey Havens 9
Mordor
Minas Tirith 15
Southrons
Dol Amroth 9
Initial Formation of Mobile Armies

This section assumes no army movement via character dice occurs.
Corruption
Army Die Source Destination Mobile Army Target
Barad-dr
1 Gorgoroth Yes Minas Tirith
Nrn
Minas Morgul
2 Gorgoroth Yes Minas Tirith
Morannon
Far Harad
3 Near Harad Yes Minas Tirith
Umbar (1 left behind)
Military
Army
Source Destination Mobile Army Target
Die
Yes Minas Tirith but heads for Woodland Realm because of
Barad-dr Gorgoroth
a specific military strategy
1
Yes Minas Tirith (not Pelargir because Gondor is not active)
Far Harad Near Harad
but heads for Umbar because of a specific military strategy
Yes Minas Tirith but heads for Woodland Realm because of
Gorgoroth Morannon
a specific military strategy
2
Yes Minas Tirith (not Pelargir because Gondor is not active)
Far Harad Umbar
but heads for Umbar because of a specific military strategy
Threat
No Shadow stronghold starts under threat, but keep an eye on the situation between Lorien and
Moria. If the elves have moved one point down on the political track, then a roll of two musters and
two characters/armies would introduce threat as that would allow them to attack that turn.
General Rules
Actions
1. Game rules override Quellers actions.
2. Never carry out an action that would cause Queller to lose, or miss an immediate win.
3. Where Queller has multiple equally valid options use a die to select one at random.
Armies
4. Never move in a way that would create threat. Split an army to avoid this if the split force still
contains enough army value to meet the move/attack criteria.
5. Sieging armies are considered adjacent to garrisons and strongholds as well as surrounding regions.
6. When leaving a region containing the Fellowship, leave a Nazgl and regular behind if eyes are in the
hunt pool, the Fellowships progress places them outside Mordor, and it doesnt stop the move
criteria being met. Ignore this rule when attacking.
7. When distance to closest target must not increase this does not preclude the target from changing.
Battles
8. Remove Shadow units to support card play until the army would become passive.
9. The player must select and play their card before Queller.
Cards
10. When some or all a cards top half will never be playable put the card into the unplayable pile.
11. Use the relevant decision page for card play e.g. hunt allocation for eyes
12. If instructed by a card to remove enemy armies from a region go through the Army page as though an
aggressive army to select the region.
13. If a card is blocking Queller from carrying out an action it will carry out the requirements to remove it
from play if possible. It will do this only if it tries to carry out the action.
14. Cards in play are always used at the first opportunity.
15. If any paragraph of a card cannot be used, would have no effect, achieves the same thing the die used
would, or requires a passive army to attack, then the card is not played.
16. Only aggressive armies are eligible for attacks.
Characters
17. The term Nazgl in this document excludes the Witch King.
18. If a characters ability would have no effect, then it is not used.
Dice
19. Discard event dice first, then the most common, and muster/army after all muster and army. Include
used dice when counting commonness.
20. Use a muster/army die when unable to play an army or muster die (or both if listed one after the
other). If none then use Messenger of the Dark Tower.
Muster
21. When unable to muster the specified unit rotate as follows:
o elite > regular
o regular > Nazgl
o Nazgl > elite
22. Where Isengard is the source of the primary and Saruman is in play, use Voice of Saruman. If Orthanc
is under threat use upgrade, otherwise if 3 regulars available use muster. If there arent enough
figures for either ability use then muster as normal.
Queller Bot for War of the Ring v2.0 Corruption Strategy | Quitch
Queller Bot for War of the Ring v2.0 Military Strategy | Quitch
FAQ
Q. Will you include support for the expansions?
A. I now own a copy of Warriors of Middle-Earth and its my intention to at least look at developing
Queller for it. No guarantees.
Q. Will you create a Free Peoples bot?

A. Probably not.
Q. Why did you make Queller so complex?

A. This is my first board game bot so there are likely more elegant solutions to some problems I
didnt think of. But I wanted to make an opponent that played the game, rather than some variation
of it, and that requires some level of sophistication in the decision-making process. I also didnt want
you to have to make anything, like cards. The important thing is not to stress if youre not sure what
to do, just make the move you think is right and fire me over a question on Quellers file page on
BGG.
Q. Why not have Queller choose cards by name?

A. Because I think that would make for a massive endeavour and effectively require a change in how
Queller thinks, where it defines a long-term goal and then makes decisions around it. Great for a
computer AI, but very clunky for a board game bot which is already pretty heavy. The approach here
is the reverse, where it plays cards blindly but its method of deciding its moves means the changes
they make to the board can shape its play and thus provide a more varied experience.
Q. Why not randomise the Shadows hand to randomise which playable card is used?
A. I dislike rules which require constant card shuffling I got into solo board games due to RSI. The
initiative order seemed a sensible and easy way to create an order of play.
Q. Where can I leave feedback or report problems?

A. First let me say thanks for wanting to do this. People who havent developed a mod for a
computer game, or a variation for a board game, rarely appreciate how important hearing from
people who use the things is. It makes it all worthwhile. Just drop a comment on Quellers file page
on BGG and I will respond there.
Changelog
2.0 2017
Renamed bot to Queller to match my RTS AI work
Converted all decision trees to flowcharts
Corrected error on cheat sheet
Tweaked the definition of threat. Again. I will never be happy with this. If the bot ever cheats
it will be here.
Clarified in the glossary when a stronghold bonus should be applied to an army value
Cleaned up general rules
Added a bit on threat to the cheat sheet
Change to decision tree to prevent Queller activating Gondor with poor Corsairs of Umbar
usage
Prevent Queller attacking via a card with passive armies
Ignore irrelevant armies when considering exposure

Give a bit more weight to Isengard when considering mustering
No longer assume maximum leadership when calculating mobility
Minor decision tree tweaks based on playtesting
1.1.2 2017-02-15
Corrected military army 9 rule causing attacks on the wrong enemy
Corrected Threat wording causing Moria to be under threat at game start
1.1.1 2017-01-25
Corrected army values for Rivendell and Helms Deep on the cheat sheet
1.1 2017-01-23
Removed backdooring from exposed just for simplicitys sake and to avoid Queller
overreaching
Changed definition of exposed to make Queller more likely to go for empty targets
Clarified that safe is only applying defensive modifiers to the Shadow army
Target priorities rejigged to only specifically go for cities in active nations
Threat has been overhauled, from the definition through to how Queller reacts to it
Prefers to discard unplayable character cards and has the Witch King cycle them when
playing a corruption strategy
Changed how the character die is processed to build certain die selection logic into the die
page.
Leadership is no longer referenced when selecting the character die to allow Servants of the
White Hand to be used
Armies no longer aggressive if threat prevents them from acting
Removed all references to leadership values as this is now built into army value
Change to Mouth of Sauron movement so it will be more likely to redeploy as needed
Dropped references to Ring Wraiths Abroad as it should be properly handled by the die
pages in conjunction with general rules
Corrections to leadership distribution to avoid an excess
Removed line from Character page which had Queller commit an illegal action
Increase requirement for a garrison to sortie in the value definition
Replaced OR with | again as it makes it easier to pick apart conditions at a glance
Actively seek to reinforce passive sieges without completely relying on mobile armies
Use musters to go after empty victory point locations
Dont deploy Nazgl against a Fellowship which has enough progress to declare in Mordor
Added an order to elite downgrades
Choosing a die page now highlights the conditions which merit the use of a ring
Active nations are now considered by aggressive
Fixed further errors in Nazgl distribution
Removed concept of blocking
Created a dice simulator to measure battle outcomes and have overhauled the army value
based on this
Mobile is no longer a fixed value but rather based on being stronger than the closest target
Adding mechanism to reinforce mobile armies
When using military strategy Queller now engages in less corruption activity
Corruption strategy has tighter focus on cycling character cards

Phase 5 split into separate corruption and military strategy components to allow for better
tailoring and streamlining of checks
Queller more sensible in tackling Gondor to avoid leaving itself massively exposed
Secondary muster location no longer needs to be within the border of the primary but is
slightly different for Nazgl
Dropped the concept of assigned to keep things simple and owing to the split of strategies
allowing for greater tailoring without such complications
Numerous changes to general rules, with several moved out into the decision trees
Added cheat sheet to help identify starting army values and where the first mobile armies
should appear
Properly recognise that an unrevealed Fellowship which has moved past a Shadow
stronghold can still be forced to draw an extra tile by the stronghold
Corruption focuses on Gondor while military goes for DEW
Dont reposition leaders if theyre well positioned for a siege
Push the attack if the Fellowship is in Mordor
Use more hunt dice when the Fellowship is in Mordor
Muster for threat ahead of other muster actions
Smarter about redeploying leaders as needed to make sieges aggressive
1.0 2017-01-03
Added some further clarification to when not to use a card
Added information on cards to cover eyes
Fixed out-of-date check in action resolution 6
Higher priority given to taking final target regardless of nations status
Changed how Nazgl redistribute themselves
Changed taking of towns to stop armies making themselves unsafe
Resolved a problem with Quellers behaviour if Queller got no army dice but a lot of
character dice early on
Improved bots handling of non-mobile armies
Mustering improved to work better with cards
Queller will play cards in round 2 onwards under certain conditions
Clarified description of safe to show it can apply to many things
Clarified that border refers to nation border and updated secondary term
Allowed mustering in adjacent nations for secondary
Changed hunt die allocation to work correctly with different Fellowship starts
Added a bit more detail to example usage
Added at war status as a tie breaker for target
Clarified that hunt die assigned number is total not additional
Clarified that mobile should not use defensive modifiers in assessing army value
Attempted to better clarify the criteria for forming a mobile army
Always select cards which exploit a revealed Fellowship where possible
Leave a Nazgl behind when moving an army out of the Fellowship region
Dont prematurely move Nazgl to aggressive armies
Aligned format of Nazgl mobile army checks to use the standard format
Made closest a term to mobile armies to go after different targets
Added some criteria for moving to exposed

Changed some references to closest to closest
Queller may change strategy when Fellowship declares in Mordor
Clearer language used in picking a retreat region
Rear-guard formed in battle where necessary
Always use cards when attacking for the victory points needed to win
Better align Witch King positioning with where next attack will happen
Merged rings into actions
0.6 2017-01-01
Queller now chooses between a corruption or military strategy during the first turn
Added left-hand and right-hand to Glossary of Terms
Numerous elements changed to support the two-strategy approach
Added general rule to cover card discarding
Clarified how threat applies to Saruman
Threat considers adjacency differently to other distances
Consolidated steps in Character
Event always prefers playing a card over drawing one
Introduced criteria for when an army card selected by an army card can be used
Prioritise attacking a revealed Fellowship when pursuing a corruption strategy
Eliminated any remaining references to regions which didnt use the word region
Capped threat at three regions
Threat only applies to Strongholds now
Corrected minor wording errors in the safe definition and clarified that it examines defensive
value with all the bonuses that entails
Additional general rules for battle and cards to support card play and timing of human cards
Reposition the Nazgl as required before attacking
No longer prematurely triggers Army behaviour
Better minion positioning to ensure they attack
Better Nazgl positioning to help get armies to the front
Mouth of Sauron now has separate movement rules from Witch King
Standardised all movement steps to use move as the opening word
Play army cards earlier
Much higher priority given to attacking armies blocking the route to a target
Using bold to highlight steps and make the document easier to scan
Updated mobile army movement to state where they should be moving to
Higher requirements to form new armies
Queller always draws for its favoured hand
No longer considers distance from Free People armies when acting
Almost all the aggressive definition has been merged into value
Tweaked aggressive definition to make a field battle more likely
Lowered priority of taking towns
Use cards in battle if turn draw would take Queller over hand limit
Cards only played when all elements of the card can be utilised
Updated exposed to allow Queller to rush into undefended strongholds
Threat now uses leadership as an additional tiebreaker
Form armies from at war nations first to maximise card efficiency

Focus on making aggressive armies big over closing target distance
0.5.2 2016-12-29
Phase 5 step 6 reworded for clarity
Removed duplicate army steps from the end of Phase 5
Removed obsolete step from Phase 5 step 6
Restored the missing TOC, Decision Format, FAQ, Acknowledgements and Changelog
0.5.1 2016-12-26
Fixes and clarifications in Glossary of Terms
Clarified use of Voice of Saruman
Removed unnecessary conditions
Corrected which section to refer to for Mouth of Sauron placement
Removed muster card conditions
Updated URL to point at file page
0.5 2016-12-23
Removed separate aggressive criteria for nations not yet at war
Refined the meaning of several terms to support cards and break ties
Character die uses the army page for army decision making
Further tweaks to army decision making priorities
Minor muster selection tweaks to avoid edge cases
Tidied up battle page
0.4 2016-12-23
Re-ordered document to allow for printing in two parts
Add a value definition to better assess army strength
Clearer formatting of the catch-all general rules
Exposed definition properly covers adjacent targets
Drop Cruel Weather rule for simplicity and consistency
Clarify wording in some Character actions
Consolidated some rules into the General Rules and Glossary of Terms
Changed Army prioritisation to improve movement of troops to the front
Added concept of blocking to avoid Mordor stalling
Simplified muster checks by adding to General Rules
Event behaviour takes Palantir of Orthanc into account
Battle behaviour now accounts for whether to pursue a retreating army
0.3 2016-12-21
Added To Do list
Unification of language between Queller rules and rulebook
Improvement of some rules based on playtest
Changes to handling of draw phase discards when hand is full to better mimic a human
Added use of elven rings
Much more granularity to hunt allocation
Rearrange Nazgl before attacking
Higher priority to putting a Nazgl in the Fellowship area
Larger army required before attacking a nation not at war

Further granularity to die choices
Remove dedicated Muster/Army page and add a note to the dice page
Added movement rules for Mouth of Sauron
Move leadership to fight bigger armies not smaller ones
Use amount of enemy leadership as a deciding factor in leadership movement
Examine how much leadership can be used by an army when moving leaders
Added concept of unplayable cards
Added instructions on how to use the decision trees
Reorder the army move priorities to stop attacks getting too far ahead of reinforcements
Put army units in the Fellowship region
Added concept of exposed settlements
Reinforce aggressive armies
Used ability names where applicable
Added use of Messenger of the Dark Tower in die selection
Totally overhauled mustering
Updated battles to handle casualty removal preferences
Aggressive status smarter about considering elites
Added CC license
0.2 2016-12-19
Expanded rules to cover all dice
Now chooses which die to play based on the situation on the board rather than a fixed order
0.1 2016-12-18
Some vague partial rules based on the TheMosss solitaire variant which werent enough for
a complete game

War of The Ring Shadow Bot 2.0

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

War of The Ring Shadow Bot 2.0

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Queller Bot for War of the Ring

Version 2.0 - 2017-10-02

1. General terms and rules: pages 2 through 4

Initial Formation of Mobile Armies

Q. Will you create a Free Peoples bot?

Q. Why did you make Queller so complex?

Q. Why not have Queller choose cards by name?

Q. Where can I leave feedback or report problems?

Ignore irrelevant armies when considering exposure

Corruption strategy has tighter focus on cycling character cards

Added some criteria for moving to exposed

Form armies from at war nations first to maximise card efficiency

Larger army required before attacking a nation not at war

Você também pode gostar