Comments by FergusDuniho
I have recently received some emails on the possibility of implementing Bughouse for Zillions of Games. Let me say here that this is impossible. The asynchronous nature of Bughouse makes it impossible to implement Bughouse for Zillions of Games. In order to accomodate Bughouse, Zillions of Games would have to be updated to allow asynchronous communication between two separately running games. At present, it does not allow any communication between separately running games, whether synchronous or asynchronous. However, the synchronous version of Bughouse, the one that can be played by email, has been implemented by Karl Scherer as Transfer Chess. It can be found at this URL: http://www.zillions-of-games.com/games/transferchess.html
I agree with David Short's suggestions. It would be best to split games by the same person into two different groups. This will better allow each game to be judged on its own merits. Besides the scenarios he mentions, another is that a judge, in an attempt to be fair to all contestants, will let himself favor only one game by the same person, even though both may be deserving of ranking among the highest. Suppose that one author has two games that are really better than the others. If all the judges like these two games more than the others, but out of a sense of fairness let themselves favor only one or the other, they could be split on which one they favor. This could then result in neither game by that person placing among the highest ranked games. I'm willing to judge. I may find time to playtest the games in a group during the winter break. I probably don't have time for email games that could carry into the next semester, but I should be able to find time to play against Zillions.
By veteran, I meant anyone who has entered a previous Chess variant contest at this site. By newcomer, I meant anyone for whom this is their first time entering a Chess variant contest at this site. Using Glen Overby's figures, I estimate that there are 13 veterans and 11 newcomers. I do not at all understand John Lawson's objections to segrating games by veterans and newcomers. I do not understand how he thinks results would be skewed. My main concern is that judges avoid, as far as they can, judging games by people whose games they're already familiar with. Of course, this is feasible only if a good number of the judges are new enough to be unfamiliar with previous games by those who have already entered contests. Assuming we have that, I propose that 11 newcomer games be put into one group, and the rest be split into the other groups. Those judges who already have favorite or least favorite games by veteran contestants can then judge the group of games entirely by newcomers.
Here's a way to do it with a bit less overhead. Have two Bishop pieces and call one an unmoved_Bishop. When the unmoved Bishop moves, change it to an ordinary Bishop, and create another piece on its old space.
The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary agrees with you, but Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) offers Marshall as a variant spelling. Based on sources available on the web, both Christian Freeling and Jose Raul Capablanca have used the double-l spelling of Marshall. This spelling is used on Freeling's own mindsports.net website, and it is used in a quotation from Capablanca provided on the page http://www.chessvariants.com/programs.dir/capaprogdesc.html I believe there is no general consensus on the name of this piece. My own preference is for Marshall over Chancellor, and I disfavor calling it the Chancellor. First of all, Capablanca's original name for the piece was Marshall. Second, Capablanca created confusion around the name Chancellor by using it for each of the two extra pieces in his Chess variant. In 1929, he used this name for the piece he later called the Archbishop. Third, the word Marshall has its etymological roots in a word for horse. The word is marah, which is etymologically related to our word mare. In its original uses, a Marshall was someone who worked with horses. This is suitable for a piece that gains the leaping powers of the Knight, a piece that was originally known as a horse. But the word Chancellor comes from a Latin word for doorkeeper, which has nothing to do with horses. Also, the name Chancellor has been more widely used for different pieces, whereas the name Marshall has more consistently been used for this piece. Besides the Bishop-Knight piece, which was once called a Chancellor by Capablanca, the game King's Court uses the name Chancellor for a very different piece.
While I might still try a four-color board, I have two reasons against using one. First, I already tried a four-color board when I created Cavalier Chess, and it was confusing to look at. Second, I wanted to use the colors of the British flag for the board, and it has three colors. I may still try a four-color board, because I've come up with the idea that the Dragons are elemental creatures who each move through one element. I could justify green as a fourth color, representing Northern Ireland and the element earth. Red would be fire, white air, and blue water. I think two Dragons per side are enough. I have deduced that a Queen with any two minor pieces can checkmate a lone Queen, and this includes two Dragons.
The important thing about this hobbled Queen is that it is a major piece. That makes it more valuable than minor pieces like the Bishop and Knight. I do not believe that Zillions checks whether a piece is major or minor in its piece value calculations. I believe it focuses on how many spaces a piece can move to. Here's an experiement. Create a piece that can teleport to any empty space, but which has no other power of moving. I bet Zillions will think it is very valuable -- even though it can never check the King.
A hyped up commercial variant that doesn't even offer a single fairy piece. If it's true that 'THIS IS THE ONLY CHESS GAME PATENTED IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA THAT WAS DEVELOPED TO IMPROVE YOUR EXISTING CHESS SKILLS!', it's probably because Gothic Chess was patented only in the United States, and most variants have not been patented at all. After all, just about any Chess variant can help you improve your Chess skills.
I don't think it is desirable or feasible to enforce standardized names. I believe it's best to respect the autonomy of individual game creators, allowing them to choose whatever names they prefer. But I also believe that game creators are best served by knowing the history of the pieces, so that they can make informed decisions about what to name a piece. I also believe it is good to provide reasons for and against certain names, allowing the game creator the freedom to judge whether or not the reasons are good ones. This allows game creators to freely make informed decisions, which is what's best. As it happens, this piece and the Bishop-Knight piece are probably the two pieces with the longest list of different piece names. This is because they are the most popular fairy pieces, but they have never been standard pieces. The standard pieces and the little-used pieces are generally known by fewer names, and it is easier to settle on common names for them. But these two pieces have been used in several unrelated games, possibly reinvented several times, and they have acquired a longer list of names.
I was looking over the funny notation page a while ago, and it seems to lack punctuation and operators. I imagine a better system could be made if it made use of punctuation and operators. Here are some initial suggestions. I'm sure it could be developed better than this. ? move continues if piece is not over occupied space & move continues regardless of what's on current space + piece completes left move and continues with right move | means makes one move or other * means indefinite repetition of last move -- unless otherwise specified, * means ?* ! means move end with capture . means move must end on empty space [] means move cannot be made unless whole move is made () used as punctuation marks [W&F] = Knight W|F = Man [W?F] = Mao W* = Rook F* = Bishop W*|F* = Queen (W!|F!)|(D|A) = Murray Lion ((D|A)|(W|F))|((W|F)+(W|F)) = Chu Shogi Lion
As someone who has taught symbolic logic, I find it far less opaque than Betza's funny notation. Operators and puncuation make things clearer. I spent this afternoon devising a new notation. I'll post the examples of the notatation here, and I'll post a tutorial on it later. See if you can figure things out without the legend at the end. Wazir: O Ferz: D Alfil: DF Dabbaba: OF Knight: OFT Camel: OFFT or OTFF Zebra: OFTFF or OFFTF Giraffe: OFFFT or OTFFF Chinese Knight: OeFT Rook: O* Bishop: D* Queen: O*|D* Nightrider: (OFT)* Alfilrider: (DD)* Dabbabarider: (OO)* Marshall: O*|OFT Paladin: D*|OFT Grasshopper: (O|D)*pF Korean Cannon: O*pF* Chinese Cannon: O*e|O*pF*o Vao: D*e|D*pF*o Leo: ((O|D)*e)|((O|D)*pF*o) Chinese Elephant: DeF Nightriderhopper: (OFT)*p? Long Leaper: ((O|D)!)*e Withdrawer: ((O|D)!)BF*e In case it helps, here is a brief legend of symbols used in these examples. | = disjunction operator, separating options O = disjunction of all orthogonal directions D = disjunction of all diagonal directions F = relative forward direction T = (L|R) L = relative left direction R = relative right direction B = relative backward direction ? = optional, conditional repetition of last move * = infinite ?s e = continue move only if space is empty o = continue move only if opponent on space p = continue move only if piece on space ! = capture piece here () = punctuation
Let's see what I can do about the Rhino. Single-step Rhino: O?T Sliding Rhino: (O?T)* Mirror Rhino: D?T Sliding Mirror Rhino: (D?T)* Double Rhino: ((O|D)?T)* Monster: ((O|D)?T)*|(O|D)* The ? works differently than F. While F unconditionally and non-optionally moves in the last direction moved, ? adds an optional continuation of the whole move that repeats the last move made, and, by default, it adds it only when the current space is empty. For example, O??? describes the movement of a Short Rook, one which can move no further than four spaces. It is the equivalent of (O|OeF|OeFeF|OeFeFeF). In contrast, OFFF describes a piece that leaps four spaces in any orthogonal direction. Let me add some comments on the system I have designed. I call it Piece Code, and its purpose is twofold. One is to provide a clear and concise way to express how a piece moves to a human reader. The other is to serve as a macro programming language for describing piece moves in short strings, which may eventually be incorporated into the PBM to check the legality of moves. Unlike Betza's funny notation, it does not share the purpose of serving as notation for identifying pieces.
When I first described Piece Code here, I gave a brief legend only for the symbols actually used in the examples, but several of these symbols were macros for code you didn't see. Absolute directions have been defined as hexadecimal digits between 1 and C, as per the clockface model. But this does not work so well for a square board. So I think I will use a numeric keypad model for square boards. There is a relative direction for every absolute direction. It is presently identified by prepending an absolute direction with the / operator. F, L, R, and B are aliases for four of these. I plan to add P and S for port and starboard directions. On a square board, these would default to the two forward diagonal directions. Y could be used for (P|S), and a Mao's movement could be represented as OeY. A Knight might be described as moving OY. A Holywar Squire would be OeY|DeY or (O|D)eY. I'm also planning on adding symbols for rotation without moving. I may use lowercase d and w for deasil and widdershins, which mean clockwise and counterclockwise but start with different letters. Each of these would rotate a piece's orientation to the next axis. This would be 45 degree turn on a square board, a 30 degree turn on a hex board. The letter u could be used for a U-turn, i.e. rotating 180 degrees. Rotation would change a piece's relative directions without moving it. This would give another way to do a Mao move: Oe(w|d)F. Using lowercase y to represent (w|d), a Mao's move could be expressed as OeyF, moving one space orthogonally, then if the space is empty, rotating one turn deasil or widdershins to one of the forward diagonal directions, then moving forward.
Regarding the Herald's move, I have not yet added anything for taking into account the position of a piece. Given that I want Piece Code to define pieces in a board-independent way, and to be understandable both by humans and by software, there may not be a feasible way for it to handle how the Herald moves. I plan to eventually add strings of Piece Code to PBM piece sets, and these are intended to be used with any board someone gives FEN code for. If I tried to define a piece in terms of a particular board, it may break down on another board. Instead of trying to make it do everything, I'll accept some limitations in Piece Code and use it mainly for generating warning messages that a given move may be illegal. I may take the earlier suggestion of using some symbol that indicates that the code only partially describes how a piece moves.
In my game Holywar, the Mao+Moa was called a Squire, because it was like a Knight but weaker.
Sam wrote: 'The beuity with Chinese chess is that you can move any piece at the beginning of the game, giving the game many more posiblitys in the game.' While it is true that any piece can move at the beginning of Chinese Chess, it is also true that any piece may move at the beginning of Yang Qi. If you consider more opening moves a reason for favoring a game, consider that Yang Qi has 55 possible opening moves, while Chinese Chess has only 44.
The three personality types in the Enneagram's competency triad are distinguished by how they relate to rules, and this bears on how members of these three types approach Chess variants. The three types in this triad are One, Three, and Five. Type One likes to obey rules. Type Three likes to master rules. And type Five likes to play with rules. While Ones like to obey rules, they sometimes feel dissatisfied with the rules, seeking to reform them or supplant them. Enneagram author Don Riso calls type One the Reformer. When a One is interested in creating Chess variants, it is usually out of a feeling of dissatisfiaction with Chess and other variants. A One typically seeks to create the perfect variant, and he may devote his efforts to perfecting one variant rather than to creating several variants. Unlike Ones, Threes aren't driven to create the perfect game. A Three is more likely to be driven to be good at a game. I expect that several of the most accomplished players are Threes. Threes generally don't have any inner drive to create new variants, but if a Three perceives a market for a new variant, he may create one, then invest his time and money into promoting it and marketing it. Threes are driven mainly by a desire for success, and for some Threes promoting a new Chess variant may be a means to success. Fives like to play and tinker with rules. When a Five is interested in Chess variants, he generally likes to play with Chess like it's a box of Legos or Tinker Toys, mixing and matching various rules, pieces, and boards to try out various possibilities. While Fives may employ standards in creating their games, they generally regard the perfect variant as a myth. For them, creating variants is more like playing with a kaleidescope than it is about seeking perfection. Although Fives may like to see their games manufactured, they generally lack a marketing orientation, and they are usually too busy working on their next variant to spend much time promoting their last one. Fives tend to create several more variants than other types do. There are six other Enneagram types, but the other six are probably less interested in creating Chess variants. This doesn't rule out the possibility that some variants have been created by other types, but it may be rare.
I remember Shako from the large variant contest. I discovered this site shortly before that contest ended, and I voted for Shako. I'm less familiar with Giga Chess. You may be pleased to know that I considered the name of Crossbow for the Vao, and I even created a Chinese piece for it before settling on the name of Arrow. You can see it at http://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/big5/index.html
Regarding what Ralph and Tony might be, I would look more at why they create variants than at how well they play Chess. Although Threes are more competitive than Fives, I think Fives have more natural aptitude at Chess-like games. I think Chess appeals mainly to people in the intellectual triad (567) and to people in the competency triad (135). Type Five is the only type in both triads, which probably gives Fives more of an interest and more of a natural aptitude at such games. Also, when I spoke of best players, I meant people like Bobby Fischer, who played Chess very competitively. I'm sure many Fives play Chess very well, and I know that Fives can be competitive, since I am a Five and frequently enjoy competition. Regarding competition, I think one difference between Threes and Fives is that Threes put more of a premium on winning, while Fives enjoy the challenge of competition without worrying as much about winning or losing. Concerning why Threes and Fives create Chess variants, I have more thoughts on the matter. Besides creating variants for viable markets, Threes may create variants for the sake of competition. I suspect that the competitions at this site prompt some Threes to create Chess variants. While Fives, such as myself, also enjoy competing in these contests, I think one sign of being a Five is that someone frequently creates variants without entering them into contests. Getting back to Ralph and Tony, I'm fairly certain that Ralph is a Five. Tony might also be a Five, but I have less evidence to go on. Ralph clearly loves to play with rules. He has created several variants without any hope of marketing them or entering them in competitions. He seems to create Chess variants for the fun of it rather than for any extrinsic purpose. Also, his funny notation is the sort of thing that I expect only a Five would create.
As good a place to start as any is my own page on the Enneagram at http://www.duniho.com/fergus/enneagram It includes links to several of the main Enneagram websites.
Zillions of Games comes with a game called 'Double-Move Chess (Checkmate),' whose description says, 'Checking the opponent is only allowed on the second move.' To test whether it enforced this rule, I played both sides. After moving all four center Pawns forward, I captured the Black King with two moves from the light-squared White Bishop. The game went like this: e2-e4, d2-d4; d7-d5, e7-d5; B f1-b5, B b5-e8. Although the rule was stated in the description, the ZRF did not enforce it.
I'm thinking the two moves should be of different move-types. The second move can first check whether the enemy King is in check. For example, preceed each move of the second move-type with (no-check?). Link all spaces on board with next direction. (define no-check? mark a1 (while (or (not-piece? King) (not-enemy?)) next) (verify not-defended) back) This searches for the enemy King's position, verifies whether its position is defended, which means the current player is threatening that space, then returns to the position of the piece moving.
I've had an additional thought on how to make a Marseillais Chess ZRF more optimized. Between each player's first and second move, have a dummy player check whether either King is in check, placing a piece on a specified location if either King is in check, and clearing the same space if no King is in check. Then on the second move, each piece just verifies that this space is empty before moving. This will eliminate a whole lot of overhead caused by multiple checks of whether any King is in check. It might also be useful to use two spaces instead of one. Checking both spaces could be done with an or. Doing this would reduce a bit of overhead. There could be two dummy players, a white dummy and a black dummy. Each could first check for a marker indicating that it's side is in check. If so, it would check whether it's still in check. If it was empty, it would not have to check whether it's in check. In either case, it would check whether it's side has placed the other side in check. Another advantage of this would be the presence of visible check indicators for each side. Zillions does not normally tell you when you're in check. This would be a nice side effect of implementing the game in this way.
I have completed Zillions implementation of a simplified version of Marseillais Chess, which I call Simple Marseillais Chess. Implementing the rules for en passant would have been very tricky, and there seems to be nothing I can do about getting it to accept checkmate as a goal. So I just let myself create a new version of the game, then implemented that. The simplified version is played like Chess with these differences: 1. Each Player normally has two moves per turn. 2. The second move of a turn is allowed only when no Kings are in check. 3. Although a Pawn may move twice in a turn, it may not make the two-step initial move available in Chess. 4. Pawns may not capture each other by en passant. 5. The object is to capture the enemy King. 6. 3-times repetition is a loss. 7. A player who cannot move must pass.
As the script stands right now, piece values are falling into approximately what Michael Howe suggests. Two Gold Generals have a value between the value of a Bishop and the value of a Rook. A Lance plus a Knight is worth around the same as a General, though Zillions values a Lance more than twice as much as a Knight. In a previous script, Zillions valued the Gold General almost as much as the Bishop, and the new script was able to beat it. But since the old script inflated its value with redundant code, it could have lost from having to use more processor time, rather than from valuing the Gold General too much. But in observing the game while mediating between two runs of Zillions, its overvaluing of the Gold General did seem to be a liability.
I just updated the Shogi ZRF again. I added a new tuning. This is tuning #7, which currently stands at second place. The first place tuning is currently #1, and #5 is coming in third. My ZRF avoids bogus moves as much as possible. To raise the value of pieces that can be dropped, it merely splits drops between the King and the piece. Giving drops to the piece increases its value, but having the King handle its drops does not. To increase the value of other pieces, I give them a measured amount of drops. These drops could be used if they showed up in-hand, but they never do. For optimization, I use directions instead of zones to check whether a piece is in-hand. I use up and down for in-hand areas, but I avoid using these directions on the main board.
Who nominated Double Chess? All you have provided here is a quotation from its inventor, and there is a rule in place against inventors nominating their own games.
While I prefer Hostage Chess to Chessgi, it may still be appropriate to include Chessgi as a recognized variant at some time. What I wonder about is whether Chessgi or Crazyhouse is more popular. I know that some PBM sites include Crazyhouse play, and this game is very similar to Chessgi but slightly different.
Fusion Chess was preceded by Sentai Chess, a Power Rangers inspired variant in which every type of piece could combine into one mega-piece. Even though the most basic Sentai pieces were weaker than Chess pieces, the mega-piece was capable of checkmating a King on its own. Overall, Sentai Chess was not that good a game. Based on similar ideas, Fusion Chess was a considerable improvement over Sentai Chess. One of the main improvements came from limiting fusions to two basic pieces. Besides this, I have regularly found that the Amazon is too powerful of a piece. It hurts gameplay, and I normally avoid using it in any of my games. If Fusion Chess allowed fusion to an Amazon, it would be a worse game. Likewise, a Multi-fused King would be too difficult to checkmate. British Chess sat on the shelf for a couple years until I figured out how to make the royal Queen more checkmatable. Nevertheless, multiple fusions might not hurt the gameplay of something like Metamorphin' Fusion Chess, Thunder Chess, or Bedlam. For in these games, the Metamorph Chess rules would turn any multiply-fused piece that makes a capture into the piece it just moved as. This would limit the destructive capability of such pieces. But even so, the Amazons would be more menacing, and the mutiply-fused Kings would be harder to checkmate. Actually, a Thunder Chess variant might not work, for the Metamorph capturing rules and the Assimilation capturing rules would conflict. One compromise between them would be for a compound piece to convert to the simple piece it moved as whenever it could not assimilate the piece it was capturing. I may try to implement all-out fusion versions of these during the summer.
The coordinates used for Glinski's Hexagonal Chess are not standard for other games using the same board. I'm sure these coordinates were chosen without any thought given to what kind of standard should be used for hexagonal boards in general. In Game Courier, I provide one standard that people might choose to use. It treats a hexagonal board as a cut-out from a parallelogram-shaped hex board with 60 and 120 degree corners, and standard coordinates are given to each hex in the parallelogram. Game Courier's Developer's Guide gives details.
Message edited 06/18/2010 to refer to Game Courier instead of the PBM.
I can't fully credit you with invention of the piece you describe, because it was a discarded invention of my own. It was a transitional form of the Queen in British Chess, but it made the game trickier and more confusing. So I made the Queen less complicated by exempting QxQ from the Queen's usual movement restrictions. By the way, if you want to be accurate in the way you formally refer to me, you should call me Dr. Duniho. Mr. Duniho is my brother, but he has no interest in Chess variants.
The description of this piece needs clarification. It says that the piece may move in <i>any</i> direction, but the diagram only illustrates movement in diagonal, orthogonal, and hippogonal directions. What about other directions, such as zebragonal or camelgonal? Can an Equihopper really move in any direction, or is it limited to directions the regular Chess pieces can move?
Here's something I thought of yesterday. M.A.D. Chess is just like Chess except that each side also has a large nuclear arsenal capable of wiping out the enemy many times over, and each side is able to use it at any time. In fact, if one side decides to launch a first strike, the other side still has a bit of time to launch a full strike of its own, mutually assuring the destruction of both sides. The game plays like Chess, but players may threaten a first strike for certain moves, and they may carry out their threats. For example, a player may threaten nuclear annihilation if his King is ever checked or a piece ever captured. Most games of M.A.D. Chess should end in stalemate.
'Your idea here of applying en passant to the highest piece as well as the lowest has given me an even more radical idea.' Is this comment on the right page? I really don't know what you're talking about. The only difference between Chess and British Chess regarding en passant is which ranks it can happen on.
'the name of your Anglican Bishop is odd because the standard Bishop would be assumed Anglican in most of the English-speaking world' Besides the very good point that John Lawson makes, England was still a Catholic country when the English began calling the diagonal moving piece a Bishop. The Anglican church dates back only to 1536, when Henry VIII had England break with Rome. The modern Bishop had been added to Chess about 50 to 60 years earlier.
'Why quote me on what I have already conceded was wrong?' For the sake of context. Anyway, I think you're really missing the point regarding the Catholic/Anglican distinction for the Bishop. Real Catholic Bishops take vows of celibacy. This is analogous to staying on only one color. Anglican Bishops may marry and have marital relations. This is analogous to being able to move on both colors. So, within the context of British Chess, Catholic Bishops have taken a vow to stay on one color, and Anglican Bishops have not taken any such vow.
Based on what I've found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Catholic Church denies what you're telling me about the Anglican Church. In its article on Apostolic Succession (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01641a.htm), it specifically says, 'That the Anglican Church, in particular, has broken away from Apostolic unity.' In its article on the Anglican Church (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01498a.htm), under the section entitled 'Anglican Revival,' it tells of a school of thought within the Anglican Church that 'has set up the claim, hopelessly untenable in the face of historical evidence, that the Anglican Church is one and continuous with the Ancient Catholic Church of the country, and is an integral portion of the Catholic Church of today.' So, the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to hold the position that Anglicans are not Catholics. Since I am neither Anglican nor Catholic, I have no stake in the issue. But I wanted to be clear on the subject. The claim that Anglicans are Catholics seems to be one maintained mainly by some, but not all, Anglicans, and it is not, as far as I've ascertained, accepted by Roman Catholics. So, it does seem to be an internal matter after all.
I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with fixing problems with a game. But I do appreciate the point Carlos is making, because there are more and less elegant ways of fixing the same problem. Let me describe a problem I fixed in one of my games that is like the one you describe with the Galaxy. In Three-Player Hex Shogi, players may capture Kings and hold them in hand, and the goal is to make all three Kings your own. The problem here is that a player might force a draw by holding one King in hand indefinitely. There were various ways to fix this problem. For example, I could have said that no King may be held in hand longer than five turns. But this would be an inelegant solution that overcomplicated the game. Instead, I chose to provide an incentive for dropping a King back on the board. So I added the rule that the King is the only piece a player may drop when he has one in hand. Since dropping other pieces is normally critical to doing well in the game, holding a King indefinitely would impair a player's chances of winning.
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