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Maka Dai Dai Shogi. Pieces promote on capture, some to multi-capturing monsters. (19x19, Cells: 361) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Nov 18, 2023 01:00 PM UTC in reply to Vighnesh Jadhav from 12:23 PM:

It works for me. I reduced the maximum guestimate for a piece value to 12000, which should solve the Emperor bug.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Sat, Nov 18, 2023 12:23 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Fri Nov 17 12:01 PM:

The AI doesn't work now. Are you still working on fixing the Emperor bug?


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Nov 17, 2023 12:01 PM UTC in reply to Vighnesh Jadhav from 09:03 AM:

I am already working on it. It appears that the custom script embedded in the page to handle the promotion rules requests chess-like promotion choice rather than shogi-like, when deferral is possible. And the AI then of course always chooses the most-valuable piece, which is the Emperor.

I also stumbled across another problem, which is that the value assigned to the Emperor is so high that when you make the promotion in combination with a capture, the gain exceeds a mate score, so that it thinks the move is instantly winning.

[Edit] I adapted the script embedded in the page, and it should now work correctly. The problem of the inacceptably large Emperor value will have to be fixed in the general Diagram script. But as long as there is no Emperor, this should not be a problem.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Fri, Nov 17, 2023 09:03 AM UTC:

Every time the AI captures a piece with a promotable piece, it promotes the piece to an Emperor. Can you fix it?


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Nov 11, 2023 05:51 PM UTC in reply to Vighnesh Jadhav from 04:21 PM:

Apparently only the Emperor was considered royal, and because initially it is not present the AI thought it had alread lost. I now also made King and Crown Prince royal.

Beware that this is a quite old Diagram, from the time it did not have an AI. When the AI was introduced it will also be possible to use it here, but it has not really been tested on a game of this size, and might think very long. You might have to switch the search depth to a lower value to make it move in acceptable time.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Sat, Nov 11, 2023 04:21 PM UTC:

The AI doesn't work. Can you fix the bug?


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Fri, Jun 30, 2023 03:05 PM UTC in reply to Vighnesh Jadhav from Wed Jun 28 12:17 PM:

Fix the asymmetric mnemonic images for the flipped view.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Wed, Jun 28, 2023 12:17 PM UTC:

@HGMuller Please change the Furious Fiend's move in the interactive diagram for both Dai Dai and Maka Dai Dai shogi to Lion + Lion Dog (KNADcaKmcabK+KADGHcavKmpafcavKcafcmpafK)


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Wed, Jun 28, 2023 12:13 PM UTC in reply to Vighnesh Jadhav from 12:07 PM:

When I customized the promotion rules of Maka Dai Dai shogi for the first time, the Lion Dog promoted to a great elephant as in Dai Dai shogi but I changed it to a Lion Frog which is like a lion dog but can capture up to five pieces in a turn.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Wed, Jun 28, 2023 12:07 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Fri Jun 23 01:52 PM:

The default promotion scheme uses hook moving pieces promoting to Gold Generals and I had changed it along with ways to get new hook moving pieces from promotion. I also had changed the promotion of the Left and Right chariots to Standard Bearers. I also changed the name of the 8-Way Knight to a Jumping Frog. "Jumping Frog" makes sense because the promoted knight according to my customized rules jumps like a FIDE Chess Knight.


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jun 23, 2023 01:52 PM UTC:

It will stop a lot of strong pieces from promoting to Gold General.

That will completely spoil the game, right? If every piece would gain strength on promotion it would almost never be good to make 1-for-1 trades, as it would leave the opponent with a promoted piece. With every strong piece a suitable protector it would be trivial to keep all pieces sufficiently protected, and any attempt to attack would be suicidal.


Vighnesh Jadhav wrote on Thu, Jun 22, 2023 03:35 PM UTC:

An alternative Maka Dai Dai shogi promotion scheme looks like this:

King ==> Emperor | Deva ==> Teaching King | Dark Spirit ==> Buddhist Spirit | Gold General ==> Old Rabbit | Silver General ==> Rook | Copper General ==> Vertical Mover | Iron General ==> Side Mover | Tile General ==> Vertical Flyer | Stone General ==> Side Flyer | Earth General ==> Drunk Elephant | Lance ==> White Horse | Reverse Chariot ==> Whale | Cat Sword ==> Wrestler | Chinese Cock ==> Wizard Stork | Old Monkey ==> Mountain Witch | Coiled Serpent ==> Free Dream-Eater | Reclining Dragon ==> Free Demon | Ferocious Leopard ==> Bishop | Blind Tiger ==> Flying Stag | Drunk Elephant ==> Crown Prince | Old Rat ==> Bat | Angry Boar ==> Guardian of the Gods | Blind Bear ==> Lion | Evil Wolf ==> Lion Dog| Kirin ==> Great Dragon | Phoenix ==> Golden Bird | Lion ==> Furious Fiend | Donkey ==> Queen | Knight ==> 8-Way Knight | Violent Ox ==> Dove | Flying Dragon ==> She-Devil | Buddhist Devil ==> Peacock | She-Devil ==> Long-Nosed Goblin | Wrestler ==> Capricorn | Guardian of the Gods ==> Hook Mover | Lion Dog ==> Lion Frog | Rook ==> Dragon King | Left Chariot ==> Flying Falcon | Right Chariot ==> Flying Falcon | Side Mover ==> Free Boar | Side Flyer ==> Water Buffalo | Vertical Mover ==> Flying Ox | Bishop ==> Dragon Horse | Dragon Horse ==> Horned Falcon | Dragon King ==> Soaring Eagle | Queen ==> Free Eagle | Capricorn does not promote | Hook Mover does not promote | Pawn ==> Gold General | Go-Between ==> Drunk Elephant

It will stop a lot of strong pieces from promoting to Gold General.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Jan 31, 2022 04:13 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Mon Jan 24 10:41 PM:

I also have a question of my own: just to clarify, a Dark Spirit or Buddhist Spirit capturing a Deva or Teaching King, or vice versa, causes it, like other pieces, to convert to its victim? The notes clarify that, as expected, one of them would disappear, but don't make clear which one, and one could make a case imo for contageous pieces being immune to contageon themselves.

Yes, contagious pieces turn into the promoted form of their last contagious victim. So DV/TKxDS/BS results in promotion of the DV/TK to BS, and vice versa.

What happens if such pieces capture multiple contagious pieces is left unclear though, thanks to the situation where multiple contagious pieces are captured at once, which is not elaborated on in the historical texts. I assume the result would be the last contagious piece captured (This is what a Japanese Chu Shogi Association official said about the issue.


Bn Em wrote on Mon, Jan 24, 2022 10:41 PM UTC in reply to A. M. DeWitt from 06:45 PM:

I think you've asked a similar question before, and the answer (including re this case) is further down this comment thread ;)

I also have a question of my own: just to clarify, a Dark Spirit or Buddhist Spirit capturing a Deva or Teaching King, or vice versa, causes it, like other pieces, to convert to its victim? The notes clarify that, as expected, one of them would disappear, but don't make clear which one, and one could make a case imo for contageous pieces being immune to contageon themselves.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Mon, Jan 24, 2022 06:45 PM UTC:

@H. G. Muller Question: What would the moving piece promote to in the scenario below?

A piece with Lion Dog powers captures a deva on the first square in a given direction, captures a dark spirit on the second square in that direction, then retreats to the first square.


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Aug 1, 2020 08:39 AM UTC:

When I wrote the article here I followed the western sources, but acording to the footnote on the Wikipedia page it seems these are plainly in error; all known historic Japanese sources seem to agree that the Donkey also has a vertical one-step move. So I guess I should correct the article accordingly; unfortunately this requires me to make a new mnemonic image.


Daphne Snowmoon wrote on Fri, Jul 31, 2020 07:14 PM UTC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maka_dai_dai_shogi#Strategy

in this page, donkey's movement is different. can i know which movement is right please?


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, May 31, 2020 09:40 PM UTC:

I used XBoard, which I hacked to save all the PGN renderings of its pieces to separate files. XBoard works with external SVG piece images, and has a fall-back scheme where it first replaces a piece which it cannot find the image file for in the user-specified pieceImageDirectory by a file White/BlackTile.svg, before trying other options. So if you let it use a direcory that only contains a file with a blank Shogi tile, it will use it for all the pieces. XBoard works by internally rendering the SVG to raster images of the current square size, and uses those to draw on any board it wants to display. I just intercepted the produced raster images, and let it save those to PNG files.

And then it has an option -inscriptions, which can contain an arbitrary unicode string, where the individual or pairs of characters are printed over the pieces. So I just copy-pasted all the kanji from the Wikipedia pages to make such a string, set XBoard to the desired square size, et voila! Then I had to rename all the saved PNG files, so I could do the next batch. Still took me more than a day to get them all; I had to tweek the kanji-inscription procedure for some of the pieces to prevent the kanji from overlapping; especially the 'general' kanji was written higher than the others.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Sun, May 31, 2020 08:14 PM UTC:

I wonder how you made Tiles-1 and Tiles-2 Shogi Pieces?


📝H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Feb 13, 2020 04:13 PM UTC:

I discussed this once with an official of the Japanese Chu Shogi Association, who wanted to revive the interest in Maka Dai Dai Shogi, and had written a manuscript defining the 'modern' rules. He insisted that it would be the last piece captured. And for a Lion Dog he insisted that jumping two squares out to capture something, and then retract one square to capture what you jumped over, was not a legal Lion-Dog move, but that you would always have to capture what is on the adjacent square in the outgoing leg if you wanted to finish there.

It didn't make much sense to me. I would also be happy if you were allowed to choose. Of course this is all highly theoretical; no one would allow both his most-valuable pieces to be in Lion or Lion-Dog range.


A. M. DeWitt wrote on Thu, Feb 13, 2020 03:14 PM UTC:

If you were to capture both a Deva/Teaching King and a Dark Spirit/Buddhist Spirit with a multi-capturing piece such as a Lion or Lion Dog, which piece would you promote it to? The rules state that the promotions of these pieces are contagious, but do not elaborate on which promotion has priority when a multi-capturing piece captures a Deva/Teaching King and a Dark Spirit/Buddhist Spirit in a single move. See the promotion rules in Taishin Shogi for some possibilities.


Thomas R. Becker wrote on Sat, Apr 18, 2015 05:30 PM UTC:
Very smart to put those larger shogi variants up. All that is missing now
is Dai Shogi (15x15), Tenjiku Shogi (16x16), and Tai Shogi (25x25).
Oh yeah, and possibly Wa Shogi (11x11).

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