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Comments by CharlesGilman
Honeycomb Chess. This variant uses a board of hex-prism cells and two sets of FIDE pieces. (Cells: 120) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Could someone confirm whether my update sent on 10th Feb 2009 has been received? This page as written at the time of this comment is seriously out of keeping with other pages of mine.
Isle of Lewis Chess Men. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I carefully avoid rating this page in my earlier comments while the error was in place - there was no 'Average' at that time - but with it corrected the page deserves a higher rating. I hope that thos ewho previously rated it 'poor' will also reappraise the page.
Mathewson's Hexagonal Chess
. Glinski Hexagonal chess, but with different layout.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'Pawn promotion can only happen on back hexagons previously occupied by opposing forces.' So, if they get to the end of file a or l (in the 2 player game) they have to wait until there's an enemy to capture to get them somewhere where they can be promoted? This is a major departure from square-cell and even other hex variants. For myself I consider McCooey's game a greater improvement on Glinsky's, and suspect that others will agree.
Magic River. Xiang Qi pieces crossing the Magic River turn into their Western counterparts, and vice versa! (17x9, Cells: 77) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A possible solution has occurred to me to the complications of certain Xiang Qi pieces being restricted or having no FIDE Chess counterpart: The Elephant is barred from entering enemy territory, but its positional counterpart the Bishop is not, leaving it turning into an Elephant that shouldn't be there. On the other hand the Cannon can enter enemy territory but, in your variant, has no counterpart to become when it gets there. How about making the Bishop transform to a Cannon and vice versa? That way both pieces can continue in a relatively normal way. This also echoes the Bishop's position in Shogi, which could be considered equivalent to one of the Cannons. The King and Queen can enter enemy territory, but the reason why the General and Ferz cannot is that the Fortress bars them getting anywhere near it. This could be seen as the Fortress being the real barrier for them, in which case the King and Queen should transform to a General and Ferz unable to enter the Fortress. As they therefore cannot give check they are sufficiently weak pieces to not upset the balance. I hope that these ideas go some way to propelling this variant toward excellence.
Buffalo. Triple compound leaper.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As the page's author I authorise editors to remove references to Power Chaturanga, a variant which has been dropped from its page.
Man and Beast 01: Constitutional Characters. Systematic naming of symmetric and forward-only coprime radial pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks for keeping me on my toes, I can see how ambiguous 'the same' can be now that you put it that way. I have modified that sentence and hopefully removed any ambiguity.
Fluid Chess. A modest variation allowing movement through friendly pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'The Feeble Knight, on b1, g1, b8, and g8, is initially able to leap in the forwardmost Knightly direction towards the center line (from b1 to c3), and turns 45 degrees.' Approximately 37 or 53 degrees, actually. The directions of the Knight are at 45 degrees to those of the Camel, not to each other. Likewise its compounds.
Man and Beast 01: Constitutional Characters. Systematic naming of symmetric and forward-only coprime radial pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Further to my last adjustment I have also clarified what I understand to be the reason behind the term 'orthogonal'. I have also moved the definitions of the basic types of radial direction to the introduction, to mark them out from the definitions of individual pieces.
While pieces may be bound to one of any number of mutually exclusive sets of cells, switching is always between two such sets - in the case of ranks, odd and even. The Bishop can move from odd to odd or even to even rank, as well as between the two, and so is not switching. Pieces that can move within a rank certainly do not switch ranks - although some like the Wazir switch other things. The pieces that always switch rank and file in 2d are the Ferz here, the Camel (and everything else -mel) in MAB 03, and the Bear in MAB 06 - pieces which always move an odd number of both. On a cubic board this is no longer the case as they can move within a rank. The matter of this page's compound pieces being unbound on a cubic board I hsve covered. The Primate, Pope, Besieger, and Usurper all have a Wazir move and so are clearly unbound. The Moderator and Heretic are unbound because they can move to an adjacent cell in two moves - by making a 1:1:1 move but retracting it in only two dimensions. All geometries' nonstandard diagonals have steps of length root-3 - the description asserting their common identity amounts to a root-2 and root-1 step at right angles.
Later articles cover other compounds. MAB 04 covers compounds of a symmetric and a forward-only MAB 01 piece in different kinds of directions - all are unbound on a cubic board. MAB 08 covers compounds of a radial and oblique piece - Bishop+Camel=Caliph and Unicorn+Elf=Leprechaun retain their components' bindings but Bishop+Elf=Levite and Unicorn+Camel=Cafila are unbound.
Knight Shogi 
. Black player lacks two Lances, one Bishop, as well as one Rook; however, his Kinghts and Promoted-Kinghts could also move like K.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Is there a special name for the Knight in this game? It is not in any of the other historic Shogi variants, but is in several of my own and I'd like to mention the Japanese name (both phonetic and translated) in brackets as I do with the King, Rook, Bishop, et cetera. In return I have some guidance on the English name - the misspelling 'Kinght' is very distracting because it begins with the name of a very different piece!
Wuji Chinese Chess
. Invented by Zheng Lei(鄭磊,河南光山縣人) in 1993.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Any chance of a description in English of how all the pieces move and are restricted?
Mimics. Several pieces that can imitate the movement of other pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As this article covers all three types of mimic concerned in a question of mine that I posted under Joker (and got no answer) I'll post it again here. A Joker imitates the last piece moved - but using its own player's sense of 'forward' where applicable. If the last piece moved was another imitating piece, the Joker imitates the piece that that piece was imitating - in the case of another Joker, the piece that moved before that. Now, what if the last move was a noncapturing move one step forward by an Orphan threatened by - or a Friend protected by - a Queen, Rook, and Pawn? Who decides which 'normal' piece is being imitated?
Man and Beast 02: Shield Bearers. Systematic naming of divergent coprime radial pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This article isn't especially advocating one piece over another, although I have now added some comments of the advantages of different pieces in different orientations. I have clarified some points.
Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. Systematic naming of the simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'We figure the zero(0) squares of Rook either way within one quadrant (the Rook is the border) as coprime for convenience.' Far from it, as MAB 06 confirms. Just as 1 being the only self-coprime number renders the Elephant, Tripper, Commuter &c non-coprime pieces, 1 being the only number coprime with 0 renders the Dabbaba, Trebuchet, Cobbler &c non-coprime pieces. 'So, within 13x13 we are only omitting, with the order mattering,' and regarding 0:0 as already occupied: 0:2, 0:3, 0:4, 0:5, 0:6, 2:0, 2:2, 2:4, 2:6, 3:0, 3:3, 3:6, 4:0, 4:2, 4:4, 4:6, 5:0, 5:5, 6:0, 6:2, 6:3, 6:4, 6:6. The comment '(he is not likely to proceed beyond 15- or 17-block)' at least is true, as I only went as far as I did in response to interest in such pieces in this article's previous incarnation.
Chess Variants of Sándor Nagy. Link to Hungarian web page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Clever use of Bishops on centre file - reminiscent of hex variants. This variant influenced my Unhexed Chess and I have now acknowledged that.
Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. Systematic naming of the simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]At first sight 'Scorpion 3, Dragon 4 squares (not pathways), Phoenix 6, and Roc 7' seemed to omit 5, but perhaps you meant (after Moo 2 and Falcon 3) 'Scorpion 4, Dragon 5, Phoenix 6, and Roc 7'. Is this correct. I do not recall seeing your Phoenix and Roc mentioned before, but once you clarify I will endeavour to add them to the list at the end of MAB 13.
Man and Beast Overview and Glossary. Table summarising what piece characteristics Man and Beast articles cover, with glossary of terms used to describe pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]As the term Planar appears in the glossary, this certainly is a valid place for discussing its definition. The definition given is the one that under which the distinct piece names were coined, although if the consensus is that this is insufficiently general I will gladly consider amending it.
Armies of Faith 1: The Dawn of Civilisation. The first in of a series of 3d variants themed on various religions of history. (3x(9x9), Cells: 243) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Clarification of George Duke's comment: the Guru appears on the next page in the series, on a hex-level board where (like the similarly triangulating Nintu in this game) it can move only between levels.
Man and Beast 03: From Ungulates Outward. Systematic naming of the simplest Oblique Pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]While my names cover everything out to max coordinate 9, my coverage beyond that to 13 is fairly patchy. I can identify 10:2 Zrene, 10:4 Sharolais, 10:6 Grine, 10:8 Rherolais, 11:1 Pamel, 11:3 Bemel, 11:5 Humel, 11:7 Lamel, 12:2 Pharolais. 12:3 Ghimois, 12:5 Zoetrope, 12:8 Zeltrap, 12:9 Nhamois, 12:10 Rherolais, 13:1 Cumel, 13:3 Gamel, 13:5 Tomel. Colourswitching pieces to fill just that in would require 12 distinct starting letter pairs - for 10:1/11:9, 10:3/13:7, 10:7, 10:9, 11:2/13:9, 11:4, 11:6, 11:8, 11:10, 12:1/13:11, 12:7, and 12:11. Going out to 15 would require further ones. There are a few pairs left - bo by ce cy fy gy hi ho hy ja je ji jo ju jy ly ma mu my qu ri ru sy ti tu ty vi vu vy wa wu wy xa xo xu xy za zi zu zy - but few are promising and I welcome suggestions. Best to avoid tu on account of its rude Bishop compound. Nor can I see how to continue the sequences ending in Albatross and Deacon. Then names with a C and A would need devising for 10:5, 12:4, 12:6, 14:7, and 15:5 leapers. Is it all worth it for pieces that would be very weak even on a 16x16 board? Personally I doubt it, but again suggestions are welcome.
I have now extended what I now realise was an unnecessarily small range of 2d MAB 14 leapers to larger coordinate 7, using up Ho- and Mu- among the prefixes available. I have decided to rethink 10:n leapers' names as it has dawned on me that they share their SOLLs with 8:6:n ones and that would add a whole tranche of extra new names if I allowed reversibility without duplication. Names ending in -er are of course unsuitable for this because of the Rector, likewise -ry hecause of the existing Rytas. Some of these might be reused elsewhere.
Man and Beast Overview and Glossary. Table summarising what piece characteristics Man and Beast articles cover, with glossary of terms used to describe pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]You've got some interesting ideas there. What would a Planar Hopping move be like - requiring exactly one intervening piece on every route? You could end up with a Planar version of Optima or Toccata, with lots of pieces making the same basic Planar move but different details.
3d Minishogi. A variant originally devised for a contest that never materialised. (3x(3x5), Cells: 45) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well, an extra rank might help but it would violate the conditions of the competition! You could be right about a second-move advantage, but remember that all possible Princelings are never the whole lot. Remember that they cannot use the triaxial diagonals. So Princelings can be threatened non-mutually by pieces with a forward moves in those directions. Things may turn on which one White chooses to move first and how that affects how well non-mutual threats can be delivered.
Hexagonal chess. Chess on a board, made out of hexes. Variant of Dave McCooey. (Cells: 91) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I mentioned that this variant's camps are compact enough to extend to 3 players, but has anyone ever done that and if so with what Checkmate rules?
Chameleon Chess Redux. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Presumably 'red, blue, green and red' should read 'red, blue, green, and gold' - but in what order? Do they correspond to Dabbaba bindings, with one corner cell of each colour? If so, the piece with Chameleons on the green squares would seem to be at an advantage. More detail, please.
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