tabris05 / mancalaminimax

A command line mancala game for 0, 1, or 2 players.

Mancala Minimax

A command line mancala game for 0, 1, or 2 players written in C++23. When less than two human players are present, the game employs an AI opponent that makes moves according to a minimax search of the decision tree with alpha-beta pruning. Currently, the search depth is hardcoded at 10 levels and the game state evaluation heuristic is simply the difference in score between the two players at that state.

How to play

This program implements the Empty Capture variant of the Kalah rule set. Player 1 controls the southern pits and scores in the east store and player 2 controls the northern pits and scores in the west store. For each player, pits are numbered 1-6 where 1 is the furthest pit from that player's store and 6 is the closest pit to that player's store.