Pathfinding AI problems- help?

[alex.ashton.58]

As a project after learning about classes, I'm trying to create a type of board game where the program tells you where all of it's pieces are, and then you tell it where you've moved your pieces, and then the AI moves its pieces accordingly.

However I'm having a bit of trouble with a few aspects of the program, namely, how do I dynamically update a specific variable stored in a class (in this case, sold1.targx and sold1.targy)? I'm kind of at a loss since this is my first program to use a class.

# The enemy foot soldier class.

class foot:
    def __init__(self,mov,posx,posy,targx,targy):
        # self.mov is soldier's movement speed, currently not implemented
        self.mov = mov
        # self.x and self.y are soldier's position
        self.x = posx
        self.y = posy
        # self.targx and self.targy are soldier's x and y target destinations
        self.targx = targx
        self.targy = targy
    def advancex(self):
        # advancex(self) adjusts soldier's x position to match the target x position 
        if self.x > self.targx:
            self.x = self.x - 1
        elif self.x < self.targx:
            self.x = self.x + 1
        else:
            self.x = self.x
        return self.x
    def advancey(self):
        # as advancex(self) except for the y-axis
        if self.y > self.targy:
            self.y = self.y - 1
        elif self.y < self.targy:
            self.y = self.y + 1
        else:
            self.y = self.y
        return self.y
    def getpos(self):
        # checks the soldier's x and y coordinates and returns as list
        pos = [self.x, self.y]
        return pos

# Gets the player's move.

def getMove(item):
    # Print's the soldier's position str(item)
    print("The enemy is at " + str(item) + ".")
    print("What is your troop's x coordinate?")
    playposx = int(input())
    print("What is your troop's y coordinate?")
    playposy = int(input())
    playpos = [playposx, playposy]
    # Returns player's position as list
    return playpos

#Creates instance of foot sold1

sold1 = foot(0, 4, 6, 4, 6)
sold1pos = sold1.getpos()

# Gets the player's move
move = getMove(sold1pos)
# Recreates the soldier now that the player's position has been given
sold1 = foot(0, 4, 6, move[0], move[1])
sold1pos = sold1.getpos()
# Prints the soldier's original position, advances him one space
# towards the target, and prints the new position
print(sold1pos)
sold1.advancex()
sold1.advancey()
print(sold1.getpos())

Thanks in advance!

[TrustyTony]

Usually you would have more that one piece in list. Also you do not recreate object when you change it's position. Position would be more natural to be a (named)tuple or list also.

For movement you usually need to check if Board position is unoccupied, so normally you should have also object or regular datastructure like dictionary for board also. Also you would need to find a path arround the other pieces, for example by breadth first (recursive) search.

Naming convention for Python is to use words_with_underscores for variables/function/method names and CapitalizedWords for class names.

[woooee]

Generally you pass the value to the function as you want the code "encapslated", i.e. the class does everything.

class Foot:
    def __init__(self,mov,posx,posy,targx,targy):
        # self.mov is soldier's movement speed, currently not implemented
        self.mov = mov
        # self.x and self.y are soldier's position
        self.x = posx
        self.y = posy
        # self.targx and self.targy are soldier's x and y target destinations
        self.targx = targx
        self.targy = targy

    def advancex(self, targx):
        # advancex(self) adjusts soldier's x position to match the target x position 
        if self.x > targx:
            self.x = self.x - 1
        elif self.x < targx:
            self.x = self.x + 1

        """ the rest does nothing
        else:
            self.x = self.x
        return self.x
        """

sold1 = Foot(0, 4, 6, 0, 1)
sold1.advancex(1)
print "x is now", sold1.x
sold1.advancex(-2)
print "x is now", sold1.x

You can change the variables outside of the class, but that is not the preferred way.

class Foot:
    def __init__(self,mov,posx,posy,targx,targy):
        # self.mov is soldier's movement speed, currently not implemented
        self.mov = mov
        # self.x and self.y are soldier's position
        self.x = posx
        self.y = posy
        # self.targx and self.targy are soldier's x and y target destinations
        self.targx = targx
        self.targy = targy

    def advancex(self):
        # advancex(self) adjusts soldier's x position to match the target x position 
        if self.x > self.targx:
            self.x = self.x - 1
        elif self.x < self.targx:
            self.x = self.x + 1

sold1 = Foot(0, 4, 6, 0, 1)
sold1.targx = 1
sold1.advancex()
print "x is now", sold1.x
sold1.targx = -2
sold1.advancex()
print "x is now", sold1.x

[alex.ashton.58]

Ah, thanks woooee and pyTony! This is one of the bigger projects I've undertaken since I've begun learning Python, and that really helped. Thank you!