Let me explain. In a face-to-face environment one player would take the role of Order and the other Chaos for the duration of the game. The players would then switch roles and play again. The person with the higher score would win. The problem with this (despite how long it would take) is the fact that the random stream of pieces would be different for each game. After speaking with the game designer I decided to do the following:
The board you don't need to worry about should now be blacked out. When in doubt:
Some notes on Entropy tactics
Demis Hassabis, well known in video game circles, and Entropy world champion for most of the past ten years, has written a set of notes on tactics which I hope to put on my web site shortly. For the present, these notes will have to suffice.
The most important aim for ORDER, during the first 3/4 of a game is to retain mobility in the central area. Ideally, he should have one 'eye' (in Go terms), and this should be as nearly convex as possible. In other words, he should try to minimise 'piece prisons' where chaos can hide new pieces. CHAOS, on the other hand, should try to create multiple eyes, perhaps by 'aiding' attractive scoring patterns cutting across the board.
The basis of most patterns is a 'three' (A, space, A). ORDER should aim to have lots of these as early as possible. Obviously, CHAOS should try to make these difficult to create.
Above all Entropy is a game of perception, but the tournaments use Chess clocks to limit each player to 15 minutes for his 49 turns. This militates against a high standard of play. But the SDG site is not subject to this restriction so standards of play should be high.
Players like to know what is a 'good' score. Few players lose with a score of 100+.
Eric Solomon (www.ericsolomon.co.uk)