ref: 1ffc73713062736a1a5f255f5f8dec3de027269c
parent: 9f0dfba5fa9431469060ae89bef486267dbb23d4
author: Simon Tatham <anakin@pobox.com>
date: Sat Apr 13 11:57:28 EDT 2019
Dominosa: move set analysis with doubles into Extreme. This change doesn't alter the overall power of the Dominosa solver; it just moves the boundary between Hard and Extreme so that fewer puzzles count as Hard, and more as Extreme. Specifically, either of the two cases of set analysis potentially involving a double domino with both squares in the set is now classed as Extreme. The effects on difficulty are that Hard is now easier, and Extreme is at least easier _on average_. But the main purpose is the effect on generation time: before this change, Dominosa Extreme was the slowest puzzle present to generate in the whole collection, by a factor of more than three. I think the forcing-chain deductions just didn't make very many additional grids soluble, so that the generator had to try a lot of candidates before finding one that could be solved using forcing chains but not with all the other techniques put together.
--- a/dominosa.c
+++ b/dominosa.c
@@ -1013,7 +1013,7 @@
* is small enough to let us rule out placements of those dominoes
* elsewhere.
*/
-static bool deduce_set_simple(struct solver_scratch *sc)
+static bool deduce_set(struct solver_scratch *sc, bool doubles)
{
struct solver_square **sqs, **sqp, **sqe;
int num, nsq, i, j;
@@ -1195,6 +1195,9 @@
rule_out_text = "all of them elsewhere";
#endif
} else {
+ if (!doubles)
+ continue; /* not at this difficulty level */
+
/*
* But in Dominosa, there's a special case if _two_
* squares in this set can possibly both be covered by
@@ -1761,7 +1764,7 @@
if (max_diff_allowed <= DIFF_BASIC)
continue;
- if (deduce_set_simple(sc))
+ if (deduce_set(sc, false))
done_something = true;
if (done_something) {
sc->max_diff_used = max(sc->max_diff_used, DIFF_HARD);
@@ -1770,6 +1773,13 @@
if (max_diff_allowed <= DIFF_HARD)
continue;
+
+ if (deduce_set(sc, true))
+ done_something = true;
+ if (done_something) {
+ sc->max_diff_used = max(sc->max_diff_used, DIFF_EXTREME);
+ continue;
+ }
if (deduce_forcing_chain(sc))
done_something = true;