Comments by GerdDegens

I am not sure what you mean here. A 'transfer' is something you do, so how can it be 'missing'?

Of course, it is me who transfers the script from the piece table to the preset to create a custom piece set. But the point is that it doesn't work - at least not for me. I still get the error message 'Your Custom Set description failed to decode properly. Make sure it has no errors in it.'

The piece table and the automatically generated piece description for presenting the variant is a nice feature. A very useful tool for a quick approach. In my opinion, however, move diagrams provide a more rapid overview, both for the description of the variation and for the presentation of the rules in Game Courier. After all, you want to play a variant in Game Courier and that's where move diagrams pay off in my opinion. Perhaps also a matter of taste.

The solution to the highlighting problem in the preset is also great.

If I see it correctly, the correct transfer of the piece table when creating a custom piece set in the preset is still missing. Or have I overlooked something. Anyway, I am grateful  for your doing.

I don't understand anything at the moment.

HTML according to 'custom sets (only needed for non-standard piece set)' which shows the old PTA under GAME code okay. But what does this HTML sequence have to do with the Pieces section of my description of the variant? Does it fit together? When I enter the HTML sequence in the pieces section and save it, the output only shows the HTML sequence.

I must have misunderstood this completely, right?

When a Diagram is pasted in the (old) PTA, and you generate GAME code from it, piece types that are not on the board won't be mentioned in the custom set that is generated.

If I see it correctly, this seems to be the case. Here is an excerpt of the generated code, which concerns the part of the pieces that are not on the board (royal pieces - markings in the text are mine):

<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal pawn</td><td>slides orthogonally, slides to the 2nd square straight ahead for capturing only, or steps one square straight ahead</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal amazon</td><td>slides in all 8 directions, slides in all 8 directions, or makes a knight's jump</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal chancellor</td><td>steps one square in all 8 directions, castles by stepping 2 squares towards the king (fast castle), makes a knight's jump, or slides orthogonally</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal archbishop</td><td>steps one square in all 8 directions, castles by stepping 6 squares towards the king (fast castle), makes a knight's jump, or slides diagonally</td></tr>

The suggested lines [set wroyal (K J L M O);
set broyal (k j l m o);] I have tried several times before - and just now again. The following happens: as soon as a white piece is clicked, the game stops immediately and the message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' appears.

It appears I have now solved this.

I have just tested this with the following result:
When the king enters the morph zone, the previous error message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' no longer appears. Instead, the king is shown in the table of captured pieces, which was the case before. The game can be continued, whereby the new king appears to be recognized as such and the king also receives the upgraded or downgraded move options. The only strange thing is that whenever the new king comes into check, this is not shown as a 'check'. The move options displayed for the new king also include those that put him back in check, which should not actually happen. If he makes such a move, an error message 'GameEnd This exposes your royal piece to capture' appears. Moves that free the king from check are possible.

Did you move the King to a5 through an illegal move? 

Yes, I did. To test it, I moved the king from e1 to a5. I understood that it can't work like that.

As should be expected, as otherwise only the last piece in the table is royal.

You are certainly right, in the piece table only the king is marked as the last in the table with 'c00'.

I just wonder how it can be that the game ends with 'I win' when a king on a5 is captured with a move from a9. Consequently, the king on a5 must have been recognized as royal. The same applies to any other square in the morph zone.
 

@H.G.

Select a Set Group 'Custom', and then a Set 'Completely Custom' in the preset Edit page, and paste the text the PTA suggests for this section.

I have tried it, both with the old PTA (.../MSplay-test-applet-for-chess-variants) and with the new PTA (.../playtest.html). 

The result is the same in both cases and the error message appears 'Your Custom Set description failed to decode properly. Make sure it has no errors in it'. 

A very nice feature and would help a lot.

So the I.D. doesn't understand these morphed Kings are royal, and as a consequence also has not passed that info to the GAME code.

That seems to be the case, because the I.D. works as intended. I.e. the morphed kings are recognized, they get new moves (pawn, archbishop, chancellor, amazon) and the game is over when they are captured. So in the I.D. everything works as expected.
 

The suggested lines [set wroyal (K J L M O);
set broyal (k j l m o);] I have tried several times before - and just now again. The following happens: as soon as a white piece is clicked, the game stops immediately and the message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' appears.

The matter with the custom set is new to me - I'll have a look at it. Many thanks in the meantime.

@H.G.

I have been trying for days to transfer a working interactive diagram to Game Courier - without success.
I have transferred the HTML code of the interactive diagram to the PTA via editor (including the IDs of the royal pieces) and then transferred the GAME code to the preset for Game Courier. It does not work. (Interactive diagram see here, preset see here.)

Another problem I see is that the piece labels/IDs used in the PTA are only partially compatible with the piece labels/IDs in the Diagram Designer for Game Courier. For some pieces this can be adjusted (archbishop, chancellor, amazon). But the royal pieces needed for my idea can apparently not be realized with the options of the Diagram Designer (each piece has a unique label). At least that is what I know. Can't get any further without help.

Apparently I was able to get the PTA running. The upgrade of the pawns does not seem to work with the GAME code. I had to make some adjustments here, i.e. I added the missing IDs for the pawn to the 'set morphers' (P p ...........). For 'set morphs assoc' I added the missing P (0 0 0 0 (P P A C Z C A P P)) and p (0 0 0 0 (p p a c z c a p p)).

Furthermore, when converting the HTML code into the GAME code, the upgrading or downgrading of the king does not work, which works with the PTA. The royal figure is not accessed, but the non-royal figure appears with the result of 'White lost by absence of royalty!

Click here for the PTA and here for the preset.

Sorry if I'm making work, but maybe it's not just me.

This works very well with the newer version of the PTA when converted to Game Courier. Many thanks for that.

To make it work as you described, you should define a royal and a non-royal version of each piece type, and let the King morph to the royal types.

That sounds very plausible - but how should I do that? I'm currently at a loss, so please give me a brief explanation. Thank you.

@H.G.

Could you please take a look at my new idea, which you can find here.
I was able to implement it for the PTA, but I'm stuck with the preset for Game Courier.
I would be glad for help.

Thank you very much. Could you take another look at the game where I changed the moves for the knight and bishop again.

AI now seems to be selectively accessing opportunities when it comes to promotions. Can you live with that?

Click here for the preset.

First of all, thank you for the help. I hope I implemented it correctly; it works in Game Courier - with one exception: the first pawn (white and no matter which one) is not converted and appears as a white pawn on the baseline. All other pawns (white/black) are transformed correctly. Below is the GAME code.

A note about the game: rook, bishop and queen now each have 16 unblockable targets, which equalizes the playing strengths. Which choice the AI makes is one side, players in Game Courier can decide differently. Maybe that will level it out a little.
______________________________

include /membergraphics/MSgame-code-generation/betza.txt;

set legdefs
(0
1  1  0 -2     1 // pawn(1)
0
1  1  0  2     1 // pawn(7)
0
1  2  1  2     3 // knight(13)
1  2  2  1     3
1  2  2 -1     3
1  2  1 -2     3
1  2 -1 -2     3
1  2 -2 -1     3
1  2 -2  1     3
1  2 -1  2     3
0
1  1  1  1     3 // bishop(54)
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  1     3
1  1  2  2     3
1  1  2 -2     3
1  1 -2 -2     3
1  1 -2  2     3
1  1  3  3     3
1  1  3 -3     3
1  1 -3 -3     3
1  1 -3  3     3
1  1  4  4     3
1  1  4 -4     3
1  1 -4 -4     3
1  1 -4  4     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // rook(135)
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1  0  2     3
1  1  2  0     3
1  1  0 -2     3
1  1 -2  0     3
1  1  0  3     3
1  1  3  0     3
1  1  0 -3     3
1  1 -3  0     3
1  1  0  4     3
1  1  4  0     3
1  1  0 -4     3
1  1 -4  0     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // queen(216)
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1  1  1     3
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  1     3
1  1  0  2     3
1  1  2  0     3
1  1  0 -2     3
1  1 -2  0     3
1  1  2  2     3
1  1  2 -2     3
1  1 -2 -2     3
1  1 -2  2     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // king(297)
1  1  1  1     3
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1 -1  1     3
0);

def P cond #0 1 0;
def p cond #0 7 0;
def N cond #0 13 0;
def n cond #0 13 0;
def B cond #0 54 0;
def b cond #0 54 0;
def R cond #0 135 0;
def r cond #0 135 0;
def Q cond #0 216 0;
def q cond #0 216 0;
def K cond #0 297 0;
def k cond #0 297 0;

set staledraw 0;  // stalemate is a win
set extinction 1; // must capture all royals to win
set baring 1;     // bare king loses
set promotables (P p); // pieces that can promote
set supply (N n B b R r Q q); // in infinite supply
set promotab (         // allowed choices per rank
  (N B R Q)
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  (n b r q)
);

...also because I don't know what exactly you want.

The idea is to let the player decide which additional pieces (NBRQ) they want to play with. I would like to do this using a row of pawns that move against the usual direction of movement to their own base line and promote there.

This works in PTA, but not yet in GC. I inserted the morph as described (it worked), and inserted the script back into the PTA as a finished diagram using an editor. Unfortunately the morph does not appear in the HTML - nor in the GAME code. I also wouldn't know where and how to insert the morph into the GAME code.

For the idea see here.

@ H.G.

How do you manage to define your own baseline as the promotion zone? In the PTA it works if the promotion zone is set to 9, for example - I tried it.

On this basis, the PTA leads to a GAME code that apparently does not work in Game Courier, i.e. the own baseline is not recognized as the promotion zone.
How to do this, do you have any advice? Or is this a question for Fergus? Thanks.