Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I think it makes more sense if all types of a piece's compulsion must be simultaneously satisfied for that piece to count as satisfying your compulsion.

Fundamentally, the problem we're encountering is that Betza never gave an example of what happens when a piece is under multiple different types of compulsion. Your interpretation requires all types of compulsion to be satisfied simultaneously to count as a saving move for a piece, while my interpretation (and the one currently implemented in the Web game) requires just one type of compulsion to be satisfied.

Your example doesn't seem particularly inconsistent to me, by the way, but maybe because I'm just used to playing by my interpretation of the rules for all these years.

It strikes me as a bit inconsistent that an Ichor compulsion would not count as resolved when you push the piece onto other Ichor, while it would count as twice resolved when you push it onto a Ghast square, and then back onto the same Ichor. Of course there is a clear precedent in that you don't have to completely resolve Ghast compulsion in a single move, but there at least the severity must decrease. It would be more consistent to require all types of compulsions on the same piece to be lessened. (Which for Ichor and crowdedness would mean these have to entirely disappear.)

But perhaps this is completely moot, because players would try to avoid compelling their own pieces very strongly, even when it is not required by the rules. Still, requiring more thorough resolution of compulsion would make it easier to checkmate. I don't know if that is good or bad, though.

It's clear that the rules of compulsion as laid out here are not quite formal. I took my own stab at interpreting them on the itch.io page that I linked. To summarize my interpretation:

• Every compulsion defines conditions under which it is satisfied.
• Multiple occupancy compulsion is satisfied by moving off or destroying the piece entirely (plus some edge cases).
• Ichor compulsion is satisfied by moving off, being pushed to a non-ichorous square, or destroying the piece entirely (plus some edge cases).
• Ghast compulsion is satisfied by fleeing, being pushed further from the Ghast, destroying the Ghast, or destroying the piece (plus some edge cases).
• If it's your turn and one of your pieces is compelled, you must make a legal move that satisfies at least one of your pieces' compulsions.
• There is nothing wrong with adding new compulsions to your pieces, although this is only possible with either a Go Away's push or by a Wounded Fiend leaving a square containing another one of your pieces.

While typing this up I realized that there are a few omissions in my edge cases, which I will rectify when I get a chance. It really is tough to enumerate all the cases!

Indeed, the digestion is most conveniently indicated through changing the piece type to a visibly different one. It is no crime in chess variants to have invisible game state (e.g. castling rights in orthodox Chess), but I think this would just invite errors in the Leaf Pile case.

It is true that 'collapsing' game-theoretically identical piece types into one would affect the repetition rule. But this seems an advantage rather than a disadvantage. What would be the use of prolonging play by allowing another set of repetitions of game states that are considered artificially different (e.g. because two Mummies got swapped)? In the end repeating the sequence of moves will swap the pieces back, with the same result. In my experience pieces almost never get swapped in games without drops. (Jocly considers pieces of the same type distinguishable when testing for repetitions, in deviation of FIDE rules, and it only started to cause problems when I implemented Shogi variants.)

BTW, I am pondering about how to make a more compact description of the rules of this excellent game. A formulation that seems to go a long way would be:

Pieces can change location either by 'Moving', or by being pushed (by a Go Away). In general, Moving is only allowed to empty, unpolluted squares. But there is no restriction on squares pieces can be pushed to; the pushed pieces will coexist there with any previous occupants. Exceptions are the Zombie (which can Move to any square, and then destroys all pieces that were there before), and the Leaf Pile (which can Move to unpolluted squares containing only mobile pieces). Zombies cannot coexist with Ichor, and the two agents destroy each other. Leaf Piles digest all pieces that try to coexist with them; when two Leaf Piles meet the stationary one is digested. Removal of pieces due to failure to coexist happens automatically at the end of any turn.

About the UI issues with Go-Away pushing order: wouldn't it be a natural interface to highlight all adjacent pieces after ordering a push by clicking the Go Away twice (as already has to be done now), and then allow the user to 'click them away' one by one?

And some thoughts about compulsion:

Replacing a Ghast compulsion by a lesser one (at greater distance) was explicity declared to be legal. The other two types of compulsion do not exist in grades. (Although they could, depending on the age of the Ichor or the number of pieces in a crowded square.) It was not specified whether it was legal to replace one type of compulsion by another. E.g. when a piece is pushed from an ichorous square onto a Ghast square, is the compulsion addressed? And when the reverse happens? What if a piece gets pushed to an ichorous Ghast square? Can you resolve that by pushing it to an empty square closer to the Ghast? Or would you have to address all pre-existing compulsions on the same piece simultaneously?

I would be inclined to require that, with the exception of getting a lesser Ghast compulsion, the piece should be free of all compulsions after the move in order to count that move as legal.

The observations that certain pieces become effectively neutral in color on petrification, and that a petrified Go Away is identical to a Mummy, are almost true. However, if one were to actually make such reductions during play, information would be lost as far as counting repetitions of positions goes.

Unrelated but worth mentioning while I'm here: in my Nemoroth implementation, there are really two Leaf Pile piece types, normal and "digesting." A normal Leaf Pile becomes a digesting Leaf Pile upon engulfing a piece, and a digesting Leaf Pile reverts back to normal when it moves of its own accord (i.e. not as a result of a Go Away's scream). It's rather important to keep track of this state, or you won't remember whether the Leaf Pile is supposed to leave behind a Mummy. This is an unfortunate omission from the otherwise fine scheme in the "Nemoroth Notation" article by John Lawson -- I would suggest using a "d" prefix to indicate digestion, such as in "dL."

Some Nemoroth pieces are 'color blind': they capture or otherwise affect friendly and enemy pieces in exactly the same way. The only effect of their allegeance is then which player is allowed to move them. But when they are petrified neither player can move them, and in effect they become neutral. An alabaster and an obsidian Leaf Pile are really the same piece, from a game-theoretical point of view, and that also holds for petrified Wounded Fiends. Likewise petrified Go Aways are all the same. And since they lose their special power on petrification, they are also the same as a Mummy. And they only differ from petrified Humans when we adopt the rule that petrified Humans promote to Zombie when pushed to last rank. Which would also make it necessary to distinguish petrified Humans by color.

Petrified Basilisks remember their allegeance because of the Basilisk's asymmetric move, which is preserved in the way it sees. Ghasts have a more severe effect on foes as on friends.

Impressive! So far the complexity of this game even deterred me from reading through the rules.

The way it is described is a bit confusing. Basilisk squares and Ghast squares are not really different types of squares, and what happens there just follows from the proximity of the Basilisk or the Ghast. They do not define additional game state. For ichorous squares, the amount of ichor on a square is part of the game state, however. So there really are many different types of ichorous squares. Since having multiple pieces on the same square is normal procedure in this game, Ichor might as well be considered an additional unmovable and unpushable piece. For over-the-board play I would use stacks of Draughts chips for representing Ichor, and just unstack the topmost on every square at the end of each turn.

A suggestion: wouldn't it be 'cleaner' to consider the go-away move a simultaneous operation, if you abandon the idea of having the moving player specify an order? Just displace all adjacent pieces first, and only then calculate the side effects of each from the new position?

[Edit] While reading back through the comments, I see that Adrian King had already proposed the same, concerning the Go Away.

Just over twenty years after the initial publication of this page, the first ever computer implementation of Nemoroth is live, complete with a basic alpha-beta pruning AI. You can play in your browser at this link: https://azgoroth.itch.io/nemoroth

The only thing I haven't implemented is the Go Away push order, which I've been putting off due to how laborious the UI considerations are. As a placeholder, Go Away pushes are clockwise from top.

I originally wrote this implementation in TypeScript, but the AI was too slow and I ported it over to C++ using WebAssembly. I plan on open sourcing it eventually once I have more opportunities to clean up the code. This is one of the most difficult software projects I have ever worked on; I have known about Nemoroth since around 2013 but was not a strong enough of a programmer to pull it off until now.

I found a number of ambiguities in these rules, which I have tried my best to address reasonably on the linked page. Some have been covered in this comments section, some not (for example, if a Wounded Fiend leaves an already ichorated square, does the ichor stack to 11+ plies or max out at 10?).

The AI is surprisingly dangerous. It mobilizes the Ghast immediately and WILL advance it to d4/d5 if you let it, usually costing you the game. I have managed to beat it a few times, but it's tough as nails for how crude the programming is. Beware!

Ralph, if you're out there, thanks for this amazing variant. I tried to email you to get permission to make this but alas, I never heard back.

Traditional for Halloween October.

What a game!

I didn't know that it is possible to create a game using pieces that are credibly EVIL. That's not just a game, it's a piece of art.

I'm not convinced though, that it is playable "by mere mortals" without minor changes. The most problematic piece is the Ghast. It's presence restricts the possible opening play for the second player to a few playable variations.

If you happen to hear strange voices when trying this game, don't bother! Thats normal...

I may already be sufficiently insane to read this. I prefer using flat pieces that won't scream and whatever, but I don't mind if it has to do the other way, since that is OK, too. It is complicated, but it seems well enough to work. Some things are not entirely clear; the document should really be improved to clarify the rules more.

Now make the variant which is mostly this game but can also use a hand of cards (drawn from a shuffled deck and hidden from opponent, and used for a few additional special actions by playing combinations properly, including to affect opponent's cards), betting, scoring, and other things. (And if you are in a manga written by Fukumoto, even betting your fingers and your blood and billions of yen, and cheating in extreme ways, and the use of double and triple bluffs and so on.)

Perhaps a rule change for the Go-Away scream is in order. I would suggest something like this:

1. All pushes are executed.
2. Any Human to Zombie promotions are executed.
3. Any effects resulting in piece destruction are executed (engulfment, zombies on ichor or multiple occupancy squares, etc.).
4. Any petrifications are executed. 

All partial moves under a single number would be deemed simultaneous.

Under this proposed rule, the owner of the Go-Away is unable to specify the order of effects. This will reduce the tactical complexity of these moves and hopefully render the programming problem tractable.

Whether it would overly damage the peculiar and interesting flavor of Nemoroth is a question I'm not qualified to answer.

In response to the comments made on 2011-4-16: Thanks! I now have a pretty good idea of how the algorithm would work. Since the insanely complicated nature of this game forces me to use large hierarchies of objects, manipulating them is a slow process. Hence, the second method would probably work better; it's a good bit faster.

It appears to me that Obsidian's only answers to 1. Gb3 that avoid immediate loss are 1...Gb6 or 1...Gf6 (petrified), preventing the Alabaster Ghast from entering d5. Does anyone see another option?

My point about the Ghast was not about pushing a piece closer to a Ghast, but pushing the Ghast itself.  There is no compulsion for a Go-Away to flee a friendly Ghast if it approaches, but if the Go-Away screams, the Ghast will move and potentially create compulsions in other pieces not affected by the Go-Away's scream.  It says in the rules 'The Go Away cannot approach a Ghast, and may be compelled to flee an enemy Ghast (but pushing the Ghast further away counts as flight).'
The mind boggles.

For example, Obsidian Ghast on d8, Alabaster Human on f7, Human f7-e8=Zombie.

Although promotion removes the compulsion, there is ALSO a rule that a piece cannot approach either Ghast (even when it is not under compulsion at all). Thus, it seems that this move should be illegal; not because it fails to satisfy the compulsion, but because it violates the restriction against approaching a Ghast.

However, a Go Away on g6 could scream, pushing the Human to e8. This does not violate the restriction, because the Human is not approaching the Ghast voluntarily, and it removes the compulsion, because the Human is promoted to a Zombie.

The push-order of Ghasts doesn't seem to matter, because pushing a piece closer to a Ghast is not illegal (the move is not voluntary), and whether you satisfied a compulsion to flee presumably depends only on distances at the very end of the turn.

To respond to a couple of earlier questions:

I don't see why pushing a piece from an ichorous square to another ichorous square would be illegal; the piece is not *voluntarily* entering ichor.

A Go Away that is adjacent to a friendly Ghast may certainly scream, because that pushes the Ghast away and thus counts as fleeing (since distance is increased). A Go Away that is within range of a friendly Ghast but not adjacent to it seems to me like it should not be able to scream, but that is just my guess at the answer.

If only the Basilisks complicate matters (and not the relative order of
other pieces), then at worst you need to consider every ordering of
Basilisks and decide whether each other piece is moved before, between, or
after them, which is 2 * 3^6 = 1458 combinations.  With one adjacent
Basilisk, the worst case is 2^7 = 128.  I suspect that's plenty small to
brute force.

But if you want to be clever, I believe the only times order matters are
when a Basilisk sees a pushed piece's destination before the Basilisk
moves (so it petrifies that piece only if moved second), or when it sees a
pushed piece's origin after the Basilisk moves (so it petrifies that piece
only if moved first).  So you can list all the potential interactions where
order matters:

Basilisk N relative to NW and NE
Basilisk S relative to E and W
Basilisk E or W relative to N
Basilisk SE or SW relative to S
(A Basilisk NW or SW would petrify the Go Away and prevent it from
screaming.)

Where N (north) is the average direction of the Basilisk's Knight moves;
so with a Go Away on e4, an Alabaster Basilisk on e5 is 'north' and so
order-dependent with d5 and f5, but an Obsidian Basilisk on e5 is 'south'
and so order-dependent with d4 and f4.

So the order of the Basilisk only matters relative to at most 2 other
pieces, giving at most 8 permutations in the worst case (there's only one
case where both Basilisks affect the same pieces, and in that particular
case you might as well move the Basilisks simultaneously).

I'll try to explain as best as I can. This is what I want the computer to do:

Given a Go Away surrounded by one or more pieces, get all the distinct positions the Go Away can produce by screaming.

This is a trivial problem if there are no Basilisks involved, but otherwise it's quite difficult. There are many pushing orders and only a few different resulting positions.

In a worst-case scenario, we may have the Go Away surrounded by both Basilisks and six other pieces. In such a case, there are 8! = 40320 different ways the eight pieces can be pushed, but only a few of those have distinct resulting positions. If we choose to loop through all of the ways, we'll be iterating over tens of thousands of redundant orders! That's not good for efficiency.

One of the major problems that I find in coding this game is calculating all possible moves for a Go Away when it is adjacent to one or both Basilisks. Obviously, a computer program can't loop through all 40320 possibilities and check each one! Does anyone have any suggestions for optimizations?

'Mobile pieces within the range of an allied Ghast are not compelled to
move, but when they do move they must flee.'

Wait...does the Go Away's scream count as a movement? If a Go Away is on a
square in the range of a friendly Ghast, is it permitted to scream?

I assume that the answer is 'yes,' since the example game includes a
portion in which an Alabaster Go Away screams while adjacent to an
Alabaster Ghast.

(I'm interested in clarifying all these rules, since I'm trying to code
this game in time for Halloween.)

Instead of 'Multiple Occupancy', why not use 'Crowdness' to indicate
the status of multiple pieces on the same square? That sounds better and
easier.

Also I think, if one wants to rewrite the rule for readability, what he
needs is to modify the order to introduce the pieces and statuses.


For example:

1. Humans, starting at the normal pawn squares, moves 1 square without
capture in 5 directions, namely 1 forward one, 2 diagonally forward ones,
and 2 sideways ones. Upon arriving at the 8th rank promotes to Zombies,
which are very strong. Just remember the name for now.

2. Go Aways, starting at the normal bishop squares, jumps 2 rookwise or
moves 1 diagonally. Instead of moving, may scream, which push adjacent
things away. Pushing things onto non-empty squares results in crowded ones.
Living things that find themselves in a crowd are compelled to move out.

Compulsions: the status in which ...


Just like that. I don't have time to write a full version, just want
anyone else to do it.

While re-visiting the comments for this game, I realized that I had not given it a rating. So now I correct that oversight.

I've finally accepted that this game will be extremely difficult to code. So for the sake of my own sanity I have given up such an attempt. But it has been fun trying. Like hitting myself with a hammer. :)

This is not to say that it will not eventually be coded. I just realize that it will probably need its own dedicated program to accomplish this. And such a project will be merely a labor of love(or obsession) because there will probably never be sufficient monetary reward to cover this effort.

If anyone decides to make such an attempt, they have my sympathy. ;-)

Raplh Betza posted this game after I stopped haunting the Chess Variant
Pages around 2000, and so I didn't become aware of it until recently. And
having become aware of it, I am (like some of the previous posters)
intrigued by the extreme challenge (apparently yet unmet) of writing a ZRF
for it.

In response to Robert Price's post of 2004-01-17, it seems to me that the
nonsimultaneous shout of the Go Away is actually a more interesting problem
than multiple occupancy. As far as I know, Mr. Price's proposal to treat
this as a 3-dimensional game with visually overlapping cells is, although
a pain to code, the appropriate solution for Zillions. However, I believe
it is infeasible to code a Go Away shout as a single Zillions move. As Mr.
Price implies, using add-partial to code a shout as a series of all legal
submoves is likely to result in a very weak computer opponent, because
Zillions will be able to look ahead only a very short distance when a
complicated shout is available. Nonetheless, I think you have to do just
that.

The reason why the shout is so troublesome is that in the worst case, a Go
Away can be surrounded by a large number of pieces, including both
Basilisks. As I understand it, the order in which a Go Away pushes pieces
does not matter unless it pushes Basilisks; but if does push Basilisks,
then it matters which pieces are pushed before and which after each
Basilisk.

That means that when a Go Away is surrounding by n non-Basilisk pieces
subject to petrification (that is, n pieces that are not Basilisks, and
not statues or otherwise immune to the Basilisk's glare), the number of
distinct moves a Go Away can make is equal to the number of ways to
partition a set into b + 1 parts, where b is the number of Basilisks among
the n pieces.

For a large n (say, 8 or so, but multiple occupancy can result in an even
larger n than 8), this is a big enough number for one Basilisk (256 for n
= 8), and an even bigger one for two (6561 for n = 8). Certainly the
number could be big enough that the menu of move choices Zillions would
display for a single-move Go Away shout would be substantially larger than
the average computer screen. I know such menus are broken into multiple
columns when longer than the height of  the screen, but a big shout could
easily fill the entire width of the screen with such columns, and still
not be done. What happens then? I've never seen a program display such a
long list of choices, but my experience with Microsoft products leads to
me fear that Windows does not handle the situation gracefully.

However, I think there is a solution involving add-partial that is near
optimal. Code it as follows: first move all the non-Basilisk
petrification-immune pieces simultaneously, and then move each of the
remaining pieces in a partial move. I think the result in terms of
lookahead difficulty is the same for Zillions as for a single-move shout,
but the menus should be manageable for a human player.

If someone who understands the implications of the rules of Nemoroth
better than I do figures out that there is actually a tight enough
constraint on the number of nonpetrifiable pieces that can be adjacent to
a Go Away that the unitary Go Away move actually is feasible, I'd welcome
the news.

In any case, Nemoroth is an extremely deep game, much more so than any
other pure strategy game I know of, and computers are likely to play it
very badly for the foreseeable future.

An alternative to implementing the full rules might be to nerf the Go
Away, and code its shout as simultaneous (move all the pieces first, and
only then calculate the Basilisks' effects). This would not really be
Nemoroth, of course; it would be a less deep variant (you might call it
Nemoroth Lite), but computers might play it better.

As an aside, I'm grateful for John Lawson's comment of 2008-10-30, where
he says it's difficult to play Nemoroth legally. When I first read the
rules, I thought, there's no way I'd be able to figure out what was a
legal move in this game without a computer to help me. I'm glad it's not
just my own thickheadedness.

Nemoroth is very difficult to play legally.  I think every game Ben and I played, there were illegal moves that had to be taken back, usually involving the effects of the Ghast.
You may also note that no one ever posted a Nemoroth variant.  I toyed with one based on bodily functions, but it was untested, and I am as far from Ralph Betza as can be.  I never posted it, as a 'humor' piece, because it would have violated the CVP's G rating. (For those not familiar with the US movie ratings, a G rated film has no sex, no violence, and is considered suitable for very young children.)

A question?

Can a go away push pieces off the board? If not what would happen if a go
away on g8 used it's special move on a piece on h8?

:(((((((((

Oh...how terrible, really....

Well, I guess I'll just read the rules more carefully or 'fill in the
holes' myself in order to play it.

Terrible, terrible news....


Thanks for your time.

Bye...
...Ingrid

Hi, me again...

I've got just one more question (for the moment at least), it regards
Ghasts and the compulsion to flee them.

Let me see if I got it right.

Consider this 'diagram':

+---+---+---+---+---+
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
+---+---+---+---+---+
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
+---+---+---+---+---+
| 3 | 1 | G | 1 | 3 |
+---+---+---+---+---+
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
+---+---+---+---+---+
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
+---+---+---+---+---+

Whilst fleeing the Ghast, a piece in any of the numbered squares can only
move to a higher-numbered one, right? Now, suppose this particular piece
is a rider (a Wounded Fiend actually, since Zombies fear not the hideous
Ghast), can it approach the Ghast (by riding through a lower-numbered
square) if it ends its move past the Ghast's influence? or should it
ride
in the direction indicated by higher-numbered squares only?

(for example: can a Wounded Fiend in a '2' square ride horizontally
through the '1' square ending its move past the '4' square, or must
he
flee in the opposite direction?)


Thanks in advance for your time.

Cheers...
...Ingrid.


PS: I hope this 'thread'/game/whatever (I dunno how to call a series of
follow-ups on comments) is not dead but just a bit dated, I'd really
love
to play this game!!

Anyway, just a couple of questions that came to my mind while reading the rules for the 10th time (I probably know them by hard now, I just love reading them =P):

1) Suppose we've got a mummy and a statue in the same square (possible, thanks to the marbelous deeds of a Go Away/Banshee/Dread), now if pushed once more, they'll travel toghether, right? (i guess the same would happen with any combinations of contents being pushed as a matter of fact).

2) Well, that was pretty silly, but how about this one: suppose there's a Leaf Pile engulfing them (or whatever else you care for it to engulf) and a Go Away/Banshee/Dread pushes, will the engulfed piece be pushed as well? or is it just the Leaf Pile that gets pushed leaving behind the engulfed pieces unharmed?

3) Now that I'm at it, about engulfing, by it you mean that the 'engulfed' pieces cannot move, right? It's kind of logical since they are 'removed' from the board and only the Leaf Pile remains.

4) Any ideas as to how many different statues could there be? I mean, a petrified Go Away/Banshee/Dread is pretty much like a petrified Human for that matter (I think I read a comment addressing the same issue).

5) Any ideas as for how many pieces (maximun amount) can there be in a single position? Something like an Upper bound...?

OK, that's pretty much it, great game!

cheers!

Robert,

Roberto and I have been in e-mail discussion about the implementation of
this game.  He has volunteered for the graphics.

I have worked up a number of ideas on the handling of the code.  There
being several ways to approach each of the various conditions in this
game.  

We should establish a discussion group specific for individuals interested
in participating in this project.  It would need to be a location which
allows the posting of data files, so participants can easily exchange the
lengthy examples of coding which will become part of this implementation.

A while back I started working on a ZRF for this game.  But quickly got
bogged down in all the conditionals.  So I shelved it until my brain
stopped hurting.

I am now considering picking up where I left off.  And I would welcome
any
assistance that the enthusiasts of this game can offer.  Contributions
can
be not only in coding but also graphics and sounds.  This one will
definitely need play-testers, so there's work for all.

Paul wrote that he wanted a name for the 'Go Away' which fitted this
theme.  May I suggest 'Dread'.  This refers to a creature which causes
intense fear in its victim.

If you've ever felt fear without cause, there might have been a
'Dread'
nearby.  As it approachs, it will cause the victim to flee.  Its scream
would do the same.

There have been many descriptions of this creature, but no-one is
actually
supposed to have seen it.  Since all that do have perished.

From the rules:
'The Go Away can be petrified, and a petrified Go Away is mute.'
So a petrified Go Away is just another piece of impedimenta on the board,
and its scream is a resource that is no longer avalable.

As for petrified Humans promoting to Zombies anyway, that might be
interesting to try out.  In my limited (four games) experience, even
petrified Humans got nowhere near the far rank.  One's tempi were better
used elsewhere, specifically in maneuvering the Basilisk, Ghast, and Go
Away.

We *must* have a petrified Human transmogrified into a Zombie on being
pushed to the far side. Otherwise there is no use for a petrified Human,
he may as well be a Mummy.
(What power/function/influence does a petrified Go-Away have?)

Compared to THE GAME OF NEMOROTH, my game EXISTENTIALIST CHESS
is very easy to understand!!

Roberto,

I have the scores of two medium-decent games played by Ben Good and me. 
If you'd like to see them, drop me a private email.

The major notational problem is ichor.

My interpretation is for rules simplicity. The rules state:

a) A piece on an ichorous square IS compelled to move.

b) Ichor evaporation counts as a saving move.

So I'd say that, even if you have more compelled pieces, any legal move
can be done.

One question about ichorous squares.  In the discussion of ichorous
squares, it states:

'If pushed onto an ichorous square, a mobile piece other than Zombie is
compelled to move off. Exception: if the ichor will evaporate after you
make your move but before your opponent moves, you can ignore it.'

Does this mean:
a) a piece on a ichorous square, where the last bit of ichor will
evaporate immediately following the player's move, is not compelled to
move?  OR
b) a piece on a ichorous square, where the last bit of ichor will
evaporate immediately following the player's move, is compelled to move,
but the evaporation of the last bit of ichor constitutes a saving move?

It makes a difference if the player has another piece is compelled for
some other reason.  If (a) is the case, he must move the other piece, or
make a saving move for the compulsion on that other piece, since that is
his only compulsion.  If (b), he can make any legal move, since the
evaporation of the ichor is a saving move for an existing compulsion.

Well, I wanted to relive this game! let's see if I can manage to do it.

Has anyone tested it and can give the results? I'd also like to repeat
some early analysis I made but I made a typo on it, rendering it invalid.

*Case 1. Alabaster Human d3; Obsidian Ghast e4.
d3 is compelled to move. Out of his usually available five moves, only two
of them actually flee the Ghast. They are Hc3 or Hc4. This human is still
compelled to flee to the b file on the next move.

*Case 2. Alabaster Human d3, Ghast b3, Go Away e2; Obsidian Ghast e4.
now the human moves to the c files are illegal, since he would be
approaching his own Ghast. But there's a saving move: Ae2 [reminder: on my
notation, a Go Away scream is recorded as moving to his own square]. The
scream pushes the Human to c4. The Human is still compelled, but now Hb5
(fleeing both Ghasts) is legal.

*Case 3. Alabaster Go Away a2, Human a3; Obsidian Ghast d4; Ichor on a3
and a4.
Now it gets tricky. Is screaming legal? [My thought: It was compelled to
move off of an ichorous square, and he did so. He is now compelled to move
off of a *different* Ichorous square.] Well, Is it valid?

*Case 4. Alabaster Go Away a2, Human a3; Obsidian Ghast d4; Mummy a3.
Well, This is even trickier. Now the Human can go to a4 on his own, but is
screaming valid? [Rationale: I think it should be to be consistent with
case 3, ie this is another multiple occupancy square.]

And now for something completely different. My thoughts on the pieces.

Basilisk: This is powerful, but using his ability also reduces his
mobility.  So it needs to be careful to not to petrify many pieces at once
or it can get in trouble. Grade: B

Ghast: The compelling thing is great, This piece can be deadly if placed
correctly. There is a nice balancing act, though. This piece is
thrice-colorbound. But it seems hard to stop nonetheless. Grade: B+

Go Away: This is a killer. Albeit colorbound, this piece can create lots
of trouble. If you push your opponent's Go Away orthogonally, he has now
both Go Aways on the same color. Severe Balancing Act: It's the only piece
that stops working when petrified. A petrified Go Away could as well be a
petrified Human. Still... Grade: A

Leaf Pile: Simple and Deadly. But it's slow. Still, be careful of where
your opponent places his Leaf Piles. Grade: A-

Wounded Fiend: Being a rider is such a disadvantage in this game. No, he
can't run through a Ghast range to the other side, he can't cross a
basilisk gaze... But he can block squares for a limited time... (If we put
the poor Alabaster Human of the cases before on d3, and the Obsidian Ghast
at e4, but now we add an Obsidian Wounded Fiend at b5, after 1. Hc3(4)
1... Wb2++ wins by stalemating the Human, trapped in between ichor and a
Ghast.) Grade: C+

Human: No wonder there are so many, otherwise you blink and you miss them:
This poor guys have no power and suffer all sort of troubles. You can make
Zombies out of them, but that's so hard... Grade: D

Zombie: Now this guy has power! If he can keep away from Ichor, they are
quite a force to reckon with. Grade: A+

Statues: Several kind of statues, and (almost) all of them still useful in
a way or another. Still they are immobile... Grade: no way I can give a
single grade, they're so different.

Mummy: OK, an immobile piece with no power whatsoever, and if you want to
use them to block it will need lots of strategy. This is a no-brainer.
Grade: F

Disclaimer: I haven't played Nemoroth, so all this is out of thinking, not
actual experience.

Finally, I'd like to ask who of you asked for the wrong furniture...

-- 

Moussambani, who never has been in Mine's End and never completed Sokoban.
The Quest? Maybe some year in the 2030s...

Alabaster cities gleam in the light of the sun; but in the ancient age when
the world was still under construction, there were alabaster cities,
construction towns, that existed before there was a Sun; and later, when
the Sun was periodically turned off for maintenance, no gleam. Without the
sun, Alabaster cities merely glimmer with a lambent ambient light.

Obsidian cities tend to glisten. In fact, obsidian is nothing but glass,
artificially produced, and though one often thinks of it as being colored
black, it can be light green or transparent, or many other colors. If
obsidian is merely glass, are not all modern cities obsidian? And does this
not tell you which side is winning?

OK, the pages have been combined and uploaded.  Please send all complaints
to [email protected].

OK, I've gotten ahold of the original page, and will attempt to merge them
this weekend.  John Lawson has also promised me the e-mail notation when he
has time from making his house unnaturally clean.

1. Please transfer the official rules page to chessvariants.com.

2. If a Go Away screams in the middle of a desert and nobody hears it, has
it screamed at all? The answer, in the Game of Nemoroth, is 'No!'. 

3. I lost the email with the clever Nemoroth notation, and the clever
diagrams that can give all the info. Why isn't it a page yet?

4. I have uploaded a file with a sample game that I saw in a dream of
Nemoroth. I have editied it less than I should for the same reason that I
have been out of touch for awhile -- I foolishly reinstalled Alpha Centauri
on my computer.

5. An extensive discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of
moving the Ghast to f3 or f6 needs to be written. For a few hours I feared
that the manouevre provided an instawin.... but now I once again think it's
not a good idea.

There's a well-known old philosophical problem that states: 'If a Go Away
screams on the middle of a board, and there's no one near to hear it, does
it count as a valid move?'

Well, The question here is if one could 'pass' by making an isolated Go
Away scream. On first thought, I said that this was not legal because it
would be a repetition, but it's not true because now the other player is on
move. Additionally, if some ichor is on the board it evaporates if only
partially, so even the board changes, not only the player on move.

This of course doesn't save anybody, so it's legal only if you have no
compelled pieces (unless you use evaporation as a saving move). But should
it be allowed? Why would someone do that is beyond my range, but maybe some
day a situation will arise in that this is desirable. So, is it legal?

OK, who of you asked for the wrong furniture?

PS: If you don't know what I'm talking about, then it's not you.

This is the other Saint-Saens piece I was thinking of.  It is Carnival of
the Animals, Fossils.  The link takes you directly to the midi file.
http://www.geocities.com/lavendermist_lmg/midis/Classical/fossili.mid

Actually, it's here.
http://fathom.org/opalcat/midi.html

> Do you mean 'Danse Macabre' ...

Perhaps. It's the one that goes da DAAA da Daaaa da daaa da daaa da
dadadadadadadun dun dun, right?

Speaking of disneyfied images moving on a screen, 'Pennies from Heaven',
Columbia Pictures 1936, ''A romantic comedy starring Bing Crosby which
features Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra in a nightclub sequence
performing 'Skeleton in the Closet'...
(www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/jazz/o-r.html)

You never heard such unearthly laughter, such hilarious moans, when the
skeleton in the closet rattled his bones (from memory)

When the skeleton in the closet started to dance makes a far less
appropriate song for Nemoroth than the gosts' high noon.

There is always that violin valse macabre that the classical radio stations
play on Halloween...

Nemoroth in its prime was not truly a place of Lovecraftian horror,
although life there could be cruel. It was an innocent unthinking cruelty,
as of children, not the deeply evil cruelty of the unspeakably ancient
Powers that the few survivors of Nemoroth eventually became.

'We spectres are a jollier crew than you perhaps suppose' is, however, a
much too disneyfied interpretation of what the place was like.

At least, that's how I see it; of course, pronouncing the place name
correctly just might draw the attention of one of its survivors, and
therefore is not advisable.

In the Lovecraftian ethos, evil and ancientness are often paired, and so my
picture of the young city of Nemoroth, innocently cruel, wielding great
powers beyond our understanding, but not yet grown to full and mature evil,
seems to me to be consistent with Lovecraft.

In our days, faceless and intangible incorporeal Corporations use invisible
forces to manipulate 'electrons' that form images and symbols on television
screens, images and symbols which cast a spell compelling their viewers to
buy! buy! buy!; and therefore we have modern referents that make the Powers
of ancient times seem to us to be not so strange after all.

In defense of Ruddigore, I will say that any excuse to have its excellent
words and music repeating in one's mind is quite good enough. And, after
all, if a man can't listen to Ruddigore in his own head, whose head can
he...

Moussambani makes some details and then points out a dreadful 
error in Azgoroth's Simple Puzzle. 
Does this change the result of the puzzle? I begin to wonder about 
the Curse of Nemoroth. I carefully count on my barely adequate 
digits. No, is is still stalemate. 
I thank Moussambani for the other detailed corrections and also 
for the small (what a relief!) correction to the minor typo in the 
simple puzzle. 
There are no records of Azgoroth's games. He had them published on 
scrolls made of the cheapest grade of something-skin so that they 
would soon deteriorate and replacement copies be purchased.

Dear Moussambani,

1. Human d3 Ghast d4, moving d3-c4 does not increase the distance and is
not satisfy the obligation to flee. Moving to c3 is okay and is still
compelled to flee further next move, as you say.

2. Obsidian Ghast d4, Alabaster Ghast b3 and human d3 and Go Away e2; Go
Away cannot scream, no distances are increased by pushing d3 to c4. Best
move maybe Ae2-g2, and then the Gd4 should be compelled to run away from
the one at b3.

The concept is that moving human from d3 to c3 increases distance and
therefore satisfies the compulsion even though additional flight will be
required, via b3 or b4 to a3 or a4 or a5.

3. Human moves to Basilisk square on last rank. Oh, that's a good one! I
didn't think of that, you have tricked me with my own rules!

A petrified Human, if pushed to the 8th rank, does not promote to a
petrified Zombie; this is an exception to the general case of pushing
petrified pieces. There is no such thing as a petrified Zombie in the rules
as they are now. What if pushing a petrified Human to 8th rank promoted it
to unpetrifiable (and therefore unpetrified and undead) Zombie? This would
keep the rules more consistent and render your question moot (whether
promote firet or petrify first, you get an unpetrified Zombie) and I think
it would almost never happen so it would not unbalance the play of the
game.

I'll have to think about this before doing anything as radical as that.

4. Human pushed to ichorous 8th rank square; promoted, destroyed. Life is
often cruel in Nemoroth.

In response to Moussambani's earlier post, I agree that the situations you
desribe in the first paragraph regarding the Go Away are legal, but your
examples are flawed in that you don't have the pieces compelled to go away
move one square directly away from the Go Away.  The rule definately says
this:
Instead of moving, [the Go Away] can scream GO AWAY! and all adjacent
pieces, whether friend or foe, whether mobile or immobile, are pushed one
square directly away from it. 

Regarding the interpretation of Human promotion in the second paragraph,
gnohmon will have to say for sure, but it seems to me that a Human that
arrives on the last rank is promoted to Zombie immediately, and then what
ever the resulting interactions are take place, be they immunity to
petrification or destruction by ichor.  This is similar in concept to a
Leaf Pile engulfing an adjacent Ghast as a saving move.

Regarding notation, I had developed a scheme to use when playing via email.
 I have pasted the essence of it below.  I like the way Moussambani records
moves, but check out my scheme for tracking ichor on an ASCII diagram.

Nemoroth notation and ASCII diagrams                     ver.1.0


 Mobile piece symbols-
 
 Alabaster
 B - Basilisk
 G - Ghast
 L - Leaf Pile
 A - Go Away
 W - Wounded Fiend
 H - Human
 Z - Zombie
 
 Obsidian
 b - Basilisk
 g - Ghast
 l - Leaf Pile
 a - Go Away
 w - Wounded Fiend
 h - Human
 z - Zombie


 Immobile piece symbols-

 M - Mummy

 Alabaster
 pB - Petrified Basilisk
 pG - Petrified Ghast
 pL - Petrified Leaf Pile
 pA - Petrified Go Away
 pW - Petrified Wounded Fiend
 pH - Petrified Human
 
 Obsidian
 pb - Petrified Basilisk
 pg - Petrified Ghast
 pl - Petrified Leaf Pile
 pa - Petrified Go Away
 pw - Petrified Wounded Fiend
 ph - Petrified Human


 Square types-

 Empty squares - empty squares, no special notation needed 
 Ghastly squares - determined relative to Ghast, no special notation
needed
 Basilisk squares - determined relative to Basilisk, no special notation
needed
 Multiple occupancy squares - occupants are listed on the first two lines
of square.  There is room for six in each square of the diagram.
 Ichorous squares -  are denoted by an 'I' in the lower left corner,
followed by the number of plies remaining until ichor evaporates. In play,
when a Wounded Fiend moves, the player moving puts 'I 10' in the
appropriate squares.  Each turn, the player on move decrements the numBer
by 1 until it reaches 0 and the ichor has evaporated.
 
 Example -

   +------+
   | M wpb|
   |pH    |
   | I  6 |
   +------+
 This square contains:
  Mummy
  Obsidian Wounded Fiend
  Petrified Obsidian Basilisk
  Petrified Alabaster Human
  Ichor that will evaporate in six plies (three turns)


 Notating moves -

 This is done the normal way, except indicate petrification by Basilisk,
engulfment by Leaf Pile, or destruction by Zombie like captures.  When a Go
Away pushes pieces, just list the moves as if the pieces had moved
voluntarily.  Also indicate any petrification, engulfment, or destruction
as a result of the push.

I also thought of a notation. I put it on a new comment because it's a
totally different subject and the previous comment was getting long.

This system will be easy to learn because it's algebraic notation. (Go
Away's initial is A, since G is taken by the Ghast). a prefixed p means
'petrified'. pB is a petrified Basilisk and so on. A move that causes
compulsion is marked +, and a stalemating move is ++; some explanation can
come after that A move that causes some changes to a piece is explained
after an =, and x means 'engulfs' (note that only Lx is legal). For a
Zombie destroying something I'd use *, for example Z*d7. (This is the only
new symbol). A Go Away that screams is recorded as moving to its own square
(and possibly an = preceding the effects). The fool's mate you show in the
document would be scored this way.

1. Bd3=pHc2,pHe2 ; Gb6 2. Be5=pHd7,pHf7? ; Gd4=pGd4++d2! 0-1

Note I used a semi-colon to separate Alabaster and Obsidian moves, because
I think commas will be common in this game and it adds clarity. Any
thoughts?

OK, I haven't yet played the game but I have some more questions about
compulsion (Hey, I like to bend the rules to see if they broke, a good
thing to do before final publication). The question revolves around pieces
that are compelled to move, and after moving they are still compelled, this
is legal (vg Alabaster Human on d3, Obsidian Ghast on d4. d3 is compelled,
but can flee to c3 or c4 and it's still compelled. Then to the b-file to
save itself. This is legal and I have no question about that). So the rule
I derive here is that a compelled move does not need to remove compulsion.
OK, Now add an Alabaster Ghast on b3 to the previous board (which
stalemates the Human) and an Alabaster Go Away on e2 (compelled by the
Obsidian Ghast). Alabaster can make his human go to c3 by screaming GO
AWAY! this is recorded as a saving move because it goes further away of the
Obsidian Ghast. It's not moving of it's own accord so it's legal that it
approaches his own Ghast. the Human can now move to b5 fleeing both Ghasts
and compulsion would be removed, and the Go Away has several flight squares
(this term is hugely adequate here). I see this new scenario is also legal
and reinforces the rule that a compelled move (or a saving move) does not
need to remove compulsion.
OK, with this in mind I present this new situation. Alabaster Go Away on b2
(this is a new board, the Ghasts are gone). Alabaster has a compelled piece
on b3 which is Ichorous. b4 is also Ichorous. Screaming is a saving move?
My logic says yes. Now remove the Ichor on the board, and make b3 a
multiple-ocupation square. Screaming now sends both pieces on b3 to b4
which becomes multiple-ocupation. Is this a saving move? I know it sounds
weird, but looking at the previous examples it should be!

And now some lighter comments: I first found a little weird that the Go
Away was the only piece who lost its Ability when petrified, but now I find
it a nice balancing act, as the Go Away is the richest piece, you don't
want it petrified. I don't know wether this was thought to happen or just
turned out that way. Granted, Human loses his Ability to promote, but I
consider this is not an innate Ability, just one that the Powers that Be
grant brave humans who reach the end zone. Now it makes me wonder what
happens if a Human moves to a Basilisk square in the last rank. Do the
Powers that Be reward his journey and make him a Zombie or would They be
very disapointed by this fumble entering the end zone and leave him a
statue? (to keep this football analogy I've now noticed I started, it's
only necessary that the ball [ie the Human] breaks the goal line plane [ie
the line separating 7th and 8th rank] when in possession [ie alive, not
petrified] for a touchdown [ie a Zombie] to be scored.) So football rules,
say that it's a Zombie, but this is not football. Zombie or Statue? and if
a Human is pushed onto an ichorous square in the last rank, is it an Alive
Zombie (Book of Oxymorons, #427) or a Self-Destruction?

I have attempted to incorporate everybody's comments into
http://www.panix.com/~gnohmon/nemofull.html
and I believe that it is now correct and can be regarded as the final
version.

Pay attention! there is a 'Credits' section at the end. If your name should
be there but is not, please correct me so that I can apologize in private
before final publication.

Excellent feedback. 

'No problem with ichor rules' -- then I won't change.

'1) A Leaf Pile cannot voluntarily move onto any square that contains
   at least one mummy or statue, period.'

This was the original rule and I think it may be better to revert to it.

'2) A Leaf Pile can voluntarily move onto to a square that contains any
   number of mummies and statues, if and only if there is at least one
   other mobile piece to engulf.'

This is what I really wanted to change it to, but I hurried and messed it
up. However, I think it makes for a faster and more exciting game if
the mummy/statue confers temporary immunity (but very double-edged
because
the mobile piece is compelled to move off).

Leaf piles have no heads, so you can't get into its head. However, you
have comprehended its primordial nature.

I had thought that evaporation of ichor could be treated as a saving move,
but

if it takes that much explanantion and clarification, it's not worth
allowing it.

Change not made yet pending your opinions.

Does that mean that a Leaf Pile can move of its own accord onto a square
containing TWO mummies? That's my interpretation. (NOTE: Two mummies can
be
on the same square by pushing one onto another)

Yes, it means that. I'm not sure if it was right. As I think of it, it
seems to me that this rule was generated in a momentary panic when I
myself
misread the rules and pearef that a leaf pile could not recapture (it can

recapture because when a Leaf Pile engulfs things, there is nothing
on the square but the Leaf Pile itself; the Mummy is not generated until
the Leaf Pile moves on.

Now that I think of it, it seems to me that this adds too many rules and 
clarifications for too little benefit. If the presence of a Mummy or a
statue makes a crowded square safe from voluntary engulfment, doesn't
this actually add to the interest of the game?

Pending your responses, I believe I will change this back to the
original,
where, as you may recall, it was stated that the only way to mummify a 
petrified Basilisk was tu push a Leaf Pile onto it.

To flee means that the piece must end its move geometrically
further away from
the Ghast than it was when it started its move; for example,
if your Ghast is on b3, you can move your Human from b2 to c2 because
the geometrical distance between the two pieces has increased.

Clarification has been made.

Quoth the Betza: 'The Leaf Pile cannot move of its own accord onto an
ichorous square, nor onto a square containing a statue, nor onto a square
containing a single mummy but no other pieces. It can move onto a
non-ichorous non-Ghast square which contains a mummy and at least one other
piece.'

Does that mean that a Leaf Pile can move of its own accord onto a square
containing TWO mummies? That's my interpretation. (NOTE: Two mummies can be
on the same square by pushing one onto another)

OK, now I'm going to try to clarify ichor:

          Alabaster             Obsidian

          Wounded Fiend moves
Move 1    Ichor deposited       Ichor ply 2
          Ichor ply 1

Move 2    Ichor ply 3           Ichor ply 4

Move 3    Ichor ply 5           Ichor ply 6

Move 4    Ichor ply 7           Ichor ply 8

Move 5    Ichor ply 9           Ichor ply 10
                                Obsidian pieces need not 
                                move off ichorated square

OR

          Alabaster             Obsidian

                                Wounded Fiend moves
Move 1                          Ichor deposited
                                Ichor ply 1

Move 2    Ichor ply 2           Ichor ply 3

Move 3    Ichor ply 4           Ichor ply 5

Move 4    Ichor ply 6           Ichor ply 7

Move 5    Ichor ply 8           Ichor ply 9           

Move 6    Ichor ply 10
          Alabaster pieces need not 
          move off ichorated square


Does this look right?