The DeepMind team was able to show that AlphaZero learned many human-discovered opening moves. They showed several examples of how different openings gained and lost popularity as it continued to learn.

Chaos Magicians, Swarmlings, Darklings, and Dwarves fight it out on the digital version of Terra Mystica. Complexities abound and an AI needs to know how to read the board. Darklings will want to upgrade one of their dwellings to get the town bonus. They should upgrade next to the Dwarves to keep power away from the stronger CM player. The choice of towns could affect the flow of the rest of the game:

· Should they take 7VP & 2 workers so they have enough workers to build a temple and grab a critical favor tile?

· Or 9VP & 1 priest that they can use to terraform a hex or send to the cults?

· Or 8VP & free cult advancements which will gain them power and cult positioning?

· 5VP & 6 coins is sometimes good, but probably not in this situation since the Darklings have other income sources.

The other town choices seem inferior at this point, which the AI needs to recognize. Notice what is needed to plan a good turn – the recognition that a town needs to be created this turn, the optimal location of the upgraded building, the knowledge that a critical favor tile exists and how to get it, the relative value of terraforming compared to other actions, the value of cult positioning (not shown) & power, as well as the value of coins which depend on how many coin-producing bonus scrolls are in the game.[i]

[i]A tiny peek into the complexity of Alpha Go (from David Foster’s AlphaGo Zero Cheat Sheet).