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 The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3) 
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Posted on: Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:59 pm




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Post The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
Hi, Patrick:

Can your solver determine if this special puzzle (7x7 in the range -3 to 3) has a unique solution?. And, if affirmative, would you pse tell me how much time has the program elapsed in finding the solution?.

Thank you very much.

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Posted on: Sun Nov 06, 2011 12:18 am




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
clm wrote:
Can your solver determine if this special puzzle (7x7 in the range -3 to 3) has a unique solution?. And, if affirmative, would you pse tell me how much time has the program elapsed in finding the solution?.

Sure, will let you know...
Patrick


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Posted on: Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:52 pm




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
clm wrote:
Can your solver determine if this special puzzle (7x7 in the range -3 to 3) has a unique solution?. And, if affirmative, would you pse tell me how much time has the program elapsed in finding the solution?

So far, the solver can't find a solution (even though it is fine with other 7x7 puzzles with the [-3, 3] range).
Can you send me the solution so I can make sure it is a valid puzzle?

thanks,

Patrick


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Posted on: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:08 pm




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Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
pnm wrote:
clm wrote:
Can your solver determine if this special puzzle (7x7 in the range -3 to 3) has a unique solution?. And, if affirmative, would you pse tell me how much time has the program elapsed in finding the solution?

So far, the solver can't find a solution (even though it is fine with other 7x7 puzzles with the [-3, 3] range).
Can you send me the solution so I can make sure it is a valid puzzle?

thanks,

Patrick


Thank you.
Two comments:
I find this type of puzzles the most difficult to the moment (addition of numbers in a line equals 0, multiplication 0, etc., however the parity works, ...), a 9x9 (from -4 to 4) could be really crazy.

Though we are using negative numbers and all possibilities could be initially accepted (as the rules of the game) as you can see in this example (hand made) for the cages of the type "-", the lower values are subtracted from the higher value (in a mathematical sense and as in the normal calcudokus), for instance, in the cage "4-" in e4-e5-f4, being -1 the higher, I have considered: -1 - (-2) - (-3) = - 1 + 2 + 3 = 4, but -2 - (-1) - (-3) would have produced a "2-", or even, -3 - (-1) - (-2) would have produced a "0-"; in the cage "4-" in a4-a5-b5: 3 - 0 - (-1) = 4; in the cage "1-" in c2-d2: -2 - (-3) = 1. I think the cages "-" may be the principal problem for the solver.

Here is the solution (if I am right):

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Posted on: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:54 pm




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
d6+e6+d7+e7 = 4+ is not right?


edit: my mistake :oops:


Last edited by honkhonk on Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:57 am, edited 1 time in total.



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Posted on: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:45 am




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
No, it's correct.
d6+e6+d7+e7 = 4+
1+3+(-1)+1 = 4


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Posted on: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:47 am




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
clm wrote:
Though we are using negative numbers and all possibilities could be initially accepted (as the rules of the game) as you can see in this example (hand made) for the cages of the type "-", the lower values are subtracted from the higher value (in a mathematical sense and as in the normal calcudokus), for instance, in the cage "4-" in e4-e5-f4, being -1 the higher, I have considered: -1 - (-2) - (-3) = - 1 + 2 + 3 = 4, but -2 - (-1) - (-3) would have produced a "2-", or even, -3 - (-1) - (-2) would have produced a "0-"; in the cage "4-" in a4-a5-b5: 3 - 0 - (-1) = 4; in the cage "1-" in c2-d2: -2 - (-3) = 1. I think the cages "-" may be the principal problem for the solver.

That shouldn't make a difference, because all orderings are tried (because the
ordering doesn't matter (!)).

In any case, this helped me find a bug in my solver: for certain operators it was using
the value -1 as a marker for "no solution possible with this set of numbers", and that
caused an obvious problem with the -1: cage.

It was easily fixed, here are the results:
- your solution is correct and it is a single solution
- the difficulty factor that would show on the page for this puzzle would have been 214 (!)
(so quite a bit more difficult than the hardest 9x9 and 12x12 puzzles)
- my solver took 27 seconds to determine there was a single solution

Patrick


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Posted on: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:52 am




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Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
pnm wrote:
- my solver took 27 seconds to determine there was a single solution

Ok, this was using the "debug" executable. The optimized executable took 9.7 seconds.


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Posted on: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:57 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
pnm wrote:
It was easily fixed, here are the results:
- your solution is correct and it is a single solution
- the difficulty factor that would show on the page for this puzzle would have been 214 (!)
(so quite a bit more difficult than the hardest 9x9 and 12x12 puzzles)
- my solver took 27 seconds to determine there was a single solution

Patrick


Wow, difficulty factor of 214! But I wonder about how the difficulty is calculated because I find that the occasional patterned 9x9 more difficult than 12x12. 12x12 is not that bad but it takes some time.

Maybe this special 7x7 puzzle could be one of those offered for the "premium users".


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Posted on: Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:04 am




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Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: The solution for a 7x7 special puzzle (-3 to 3)
sneaklyfox wrote:
Wow, difficulty factor of 214! But I wonder about how the difficulty is calculated because I find that the occasional patterned 9x9 more difficult than 12x12. 12x12 is not that bad but it takes some time.

Yes, there is a dimension related factor in there that isn't quite right.
sneaklyfox wrote:
Maybe this special 7x7 puzzle could be one of those offered for the "premium users".

But maybe not at that difficulty level... :-)


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