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Comments by GregoryStrong
Quinquereme Chess. Large variant with a new piece, the Quinquereme. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 8, 2004 05:35 PM UTC:I think that there are a significant number of people who play Tenjiku Shogi, which is 16x16. In that game, however, each player has 2 Fire Demons which constantly 'burn' all enemy pieces on the eight adjacent squares, and it has quite a range, so the game has some very voilent openings with mass casualty. Maybe that helps to make it more playable.
ChessV
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jul 11, 2004 01:01 AM UTC:New version posted. Now also plays Extinction Chess, Berolina Chess, and Kinglet Chess. Also added and corrected numerous little things.
Chaturanga. The first known variant of chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Jul 12, 2004 09:26 PM UTC:<p>I am implementing this game for ChessV, but am unclear about the pawn promotion. It says that a pawn can only promote to a specific type, and only if a piece of that type has been captured. So what if no piece of that type has been captured? The pawn moves to that square and stays there forever? or stays there until a piece of that type is captured? or just disappears? or isn't even allowed to move to the eigth rank in the first place? And does this apply to the E1 and D8 squares?
<p>And I'm probably reaching here, but anyone know if there was a repetition rule?
Switching Chess. In addition to normal moves, switch with an adjacent friendly piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 15, 2004 09:26 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★This is a really neat one! I wonder, though, how this changes the value of the pieces!?! A bishop can now change color. Maybe that makes the bishop better than the knight. But then again, one of the problems with the knight is that it must change color when it moves; I guess that is no longer true, either. And the pawns had the least mobility to begin with, so they benefit most, yes? And that brings down the value of all the other pieces, since they are all relative to the pawn...
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Jul 17, 2004 11:17 PM UTC:It might be worth considering a rule that you can't switch your way out of check. Hiding behind your pawns on the eigth rank can't get you into trouble here, and that's no fun! :) In fact, switching makes it much harder to inflict checkmate, so games will last longer. This rule-change would help mitigate that.
Abstract Chess. Pieces are represented by stacks of different heights.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jul 21, 2004 03:28 PM UTC:This game is very interesting. It does look like the knight is a heck of a value at only 2 stones. I would make 14 Knights and a Rook. I bet that would be hard to deal with!
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 22, 2004 01:14 AM UTC:<p>ChessV version 0.4 posted to sourceforge:<br>
<a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv'>http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv</a></p>
<p>Added support for the following games:
<ul><li><a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/diffmove.dir/switching.html'>Switching Chess</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/boardrules.dir/cylindrical.html'>Cylindrical Chess</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html'>Chaturanga</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/shatranj.html'>Shatranj</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/courier.html'>Courier Chess</a></li></ul></p>
<p>Added many user-interface features, including changing colors of the board squares and the pieces, and selecting from multiple piece sets. Support for <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/abstract/index.html'>Fergus Duniho's Abstract Graphics Set</a> has been added. Also, settings are automatically stored, and on a game-by-game basis, so if you like to play Chaturnaga on an uncheckered board with old-world pieces, but not other games, it will save it that way automatically. Additionally, right-click on any piece in any game, select properties, and it will give all kinds of information. In addition to a movement chart, it gives statistics for average mobility, average squares attacked, average directions attacked, and average number of safe checks on a board of the given size.</p>
<p>Finally, many bugs have been fixed, most importantly the problem with it freezing during computer thinking.</p>
Switching Chess. In addition to normal moves, switch with an adjacent friendly piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 22, 2004 03:53 PM UTC:<p>When I implemented this game in ChessV, I delibrately disallowed switching of like pieces, since if I allowed them the computer would waste time considering lots of silly moves.
<p>Now that I think about it, however, I was hasty. I did not consider that if you could swap with like pieces, it would allow you to 'pass'. This would be a significant change from Chess. A good change or not, I don't know...
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 22, 2004 04:00 PM UTC:<p>Some known bugs do exist (and perhaps some unknown ones). I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but there is a problem with resetting after a game concludes. You might need to just close the window and start over after each game. I have a list of about ten issues I'm working on before the next release, and this is an important one. Version 0.5 will probably be out in about 5-7 days!
<p>And thanks for the bug report; please let me know if I'm not understanding the bug you describe, or if you notice anything else! (The fact that the move list doesn't scroll is also a known problem.)
Switching Chess. In addition to normal moves, switch with an adjacent friendly piece. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jul 23, 2004 03:12 AM UTC:ChessV is already right; I have always disallowed like-piece swapping. I disallowed it originally, because it never even occured to me that one could do that to avoid moving, and I didn't want to inflate the number of legal moves.
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jul 23, 2004 10:54 AM UTC:<p>The Invaders are just a test army with very bizarre pieces I created just for the purpose of testing different functionality of ChessV. The other pieces probably aren't appearing because they have custom bitmaps I forgot to include in the distribution.
<p>I may make an actual army out of them in the future, though. I have had a couple of ideas recently...
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jul 23, 2004 10:24 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★<p>I love this Game Courier. It really is fantastic!</p>
<p>A <i>very tiny</i> bug report though, and I don't know if this is actually a problem with the GC or not, but when viewing the list of games in progress, and you click on 'Unicorn Great Chess' you get the description of <a href='/historic.dir/indiangr1.html'>Turkish Great Chess</a> and not <a href='/large.dir/unicorn.html'>Unicorn Chess</a>. In fact, I'm not sure the 'Great' belongs at all.</p>
<p>Thanks again! I'm so glad that I can play these games online! Now I just need to get around to reading the Developer's Manual ...</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jul 25, 2004 01:12 AM UTC:<h3>Entry 2: Chaining Chess</h3>
<p>Players start with the normal Chess setup, except that there are no Pawns. The remaining pieces move just like they do in Chess, except that they cannot capture. Since there is no capture, there is, of course, no Check or Checkmate. I don't know if it's even possible to get into a Stalemate situation or not, but if you are stupid enough to do it, you lose.</p>
<p>A player wins by forming a chain from rank 1 to rank 8. One of the player's pieces must occupy rank 1, and another must occupy rank 8. The player wins, if he also has other pieces 'chaining' these two together. Two pieces are chained if either can 'cover' the other by the rules of normal Chess capture, and are within a range of 3.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Jul 25, 2004 05:48 PM UTC:Hmmm... very interesting idea, but I don't think that this can happen. Do you mean just not orthogonally adjacent? Otherwise I don't think there's enough squares to achieve a win ...
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jul 28, 2004 03:39 AM UTC:<p><b>ChessV 0.5 released</b>. This is mostly a maintenance release, but it does fix several important bugs. A couple of nasty bugs were allowing illegal moves to be made under strange situations. The move list now scrolls. Restarting games should also work correctly now in all cases (I hope.)</p>
<p>The only new variants added in this release are Archchess (historical) and Polymorph Chess, which is a new game I just invented. I will be uploading a page shortly, but basically it's normal Chess, but you can transform a Bishop into a Knight or a Knight into a Bishop instead of making a move. I also added Switching Chess variant João Pedro Neto suggested, disallowing switching of royal pieces.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
Archchess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Jul 28, 2004 04:31 PM UTC:ChessV now supports this game. Since some rules are not known exactly, I had to make some guesses based on information on this page. So here you have it:
Castling: Castling is allowed if neither piece has moved previously. The King always slides 3 squares when castling to either side. The King may not castle into or through Check, but there is no prohibition against castling out of Check.
King's Leap: The King may also make a single 2-space leap horizontally or vertically on its first move. You may not leap into Check, but may leap out of it. Attacks on the square jumped over are irrelevant.
Misc: The special 2-space pawn move restriction mentioned here is implemented. Stalemate and 3-time repetition are considered draws. The 50-move pawn rule is also in effect.
Unicorn Chess. 10x10 variant with a new piece that moves as a Bishop or a Nightrider. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Jul 29, 2004 02:53 PM UTC:I like this game a lot (or more particularly, the Unicorn Great Chess which doesn't have a page yet.) I have been thinking about how the pieces should be valued, and here is my suggestion:
Knight - 2.5
Bishop - 3.5
Lion - 4
Rook - 5
Chancellor - 8
Queen - 9
Unicorn - 9.5
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Jul 30, 2004 07:38 PM UTC:These values may well be closer than mine, but I'm having a hard time believing that the Queen is worth more than the Unicorn. At the beginning of the game, the board is 44% full, and at that point the Unicorn has an average mobility of 14.18, compaired to only 12.36 for the Queen. Now, as pieces get traded off and the board clears out, the mobility of the Queen goes up a little faster. The average mobility of the two just happens to break even when exactly half the pieces are gone (board 22% full). And with even fewer pieces, the Queen begins to develop a small mobility advantage.
But, of course, there's more than mobility. I think other factors favor the Unicorn as well. The Queen attacks in 8 directions, whereas the Unicorn attacks in 12, giving it more forking power. Also, of the Queen's 8 directions, only 3 of them are forward. The Unicorn has twice as many forward attack directions (although 2 of them have a rather shallow slope.) Finally, there's stealth. The Unicorn's attacks along Knightrider lines is stealthy, meaning pieces attacked this way cannot counter-attack, with the exception of the Knight.
Presumably, the Queen has advantages, too. The forward Rook-slide is a very nice move because of it's ability to coordinate with the move of the pawns, and the Unicorn lacks this move. Any other Queen advantages I'm overlooking?
If anyone is interested in running a test, I think we can with the Game Courier. You take 2 Queens, I'll take 2 Unicorns ...
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Aug 3, 2004 10:43 PM UTC:<p>Thank you for the query! Actually, Grand Chess is quite easy to implement, and I've got it about 75% done! I hope it will be in version 0.6, but I am waiting for permission. I have e-mailed Christian Freeling, but have not received a response yet (I only mailed him earlier today ...)</p>
<p>I also hope to have support for Omega Chess in the next version; I've already written the code for the extra 'hanging squares' on the corners. I contacted them for permission yesterday, and haven't heard from them yet, either.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Gothic Chess will probably NOT be supported, ever, unless the patent is found to be invalid (which by all rights it should.) Please don't ask why I don't license it; it's too long a story ...</p>
<p>Also, everyone may feel free to request variants! Most variants I can slap in pretty darn quickly. Only a couple of things that are problematic: (1) No support for hexagonal or circular boards YET, but that is comming by version 1.0 at the latest; (2) No support for 3-D or multiple boards, and not planned for version 1; (3) No support for wierd turn-orders like doublemove chess and unlikely in version 1; (4) games with drops (like shogi) could be supported fairly easily, but the level of play would be much lower than the other games; maybe not even any better than Zillions (at least not without a lot of work.)</p>
📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Aug 4, 2004 12:05 AM UTC:<P>Ahhh ... Ultima! I was afraid someone was going to ask for that! :)</P>
<p>Actually, there's no technical reason that Ultima can't be implemented, but it would take somewhat more time than a normal variant, because I have to teach it about: withdraw capture, pinching capture, coordination, etc. Still not tooo bad. There is another problem, though ...</p>
<p>Unlike Zillions, when I add a game, I need to not only teach it the rules, but I also specify quite a bit of information about how pieces and board positions should be evaluated. This is the primary reason why ChessV plays more intelligently. Unfortunately, I'm but an average Chess player, and probably below average at variants. Thus, to make ChessV play <i>really</i> well, I will need strategical help from more experienced members of the community. In the case of Ultima, I don't even have a guess at the most basic things, like what the pieces should be worth. If anyone has any ideas on this, please post them on the <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/ultima.html'>Ultima page</a>.</p>
<p>P.S. Thank you for the blanket permission; that makes life much easier!</p>
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Aug 5, 2004 12:14 AM UTC:<p>Thank you. This information is most helpful!</p>
<p>The previous anonymous poster does make a point about sliding piece values, and ChessV already supports this. In Orthodox Chess, for example, I evaluate the Rook starting with the Speilmann value of 4500 (relative to a 1000-point pawn.) The value then is scaled up by 50 points for each capture of any piece, starting with the 10th. So, when the board is down to only 12 pieces, for example, the rook is then evaluated at 5000. I don't know how much this applies to Ultima, but since the previous poster brought it up, I thought I would mention it.</p>
Twenty-First Century Chess. An updating of Chess for the video game generation, on a 10x8 board with Barons and Jesters. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Aug 5, 2004 10:07 PM UTC:Good ★★★★This is, indeed, a very interesting game! I did just notice, however, another game with this name on George Jelliss' A Guide to Variant Chess site. The site indicates that this game was published in Variant Chess in 1991. I don't know if this is a problem or not, but I thought I would point it out.
Please understand, though, that I do not mean to diminish the creativity of this game in any way. The Jester is a particularly good innovation, and helps to diminish the value of opening books in a big way!
Chess Rules for Kids. An illustrated guide to the rules of chess for children.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Aug 6, 2004 06:49 PM UTC:<p>The King can capture any piece. Only one thing to be careful of:
the King cannot capture any piece that is protected by another piece. If
you were to do this, you would be moving <i>into</i> Check.
You must move out of Check, and never into it.</p>
Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces. A series of variants with the Orthochess array transplanted to a 10x10 board and various exotic pieces added. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Aug 7, 2004 05:36 PM UTC:<p>In response to requests for <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/ultima.html'>Ultima</a> support in <a href='http://gregstrong.com/ChessV/'>ChessV</a>, it seems reasonable to implement this game first, so I can write (and test) each of the wacky pieces seperately. Unfortunately, however, this game leaves the details of pawn moves and castling unclear.</p>
<p>My first thought is to give pawns a 3-step initial move, subject to en passant (as in <a href='http://www.omegachess.com'>Omega Chess</a>), allow castling, with the King sliding 3 spaces toward the Rook, and have pawns promote on the 10th rank, and allow promotion to the Ultima piece being used. Although, I also like the previous poster's suggestion of a <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/other.dir/ultima.html'>Grand Chess</a>-like setup. But then again, I'm somewhat partial to Grand Chess, because castling is eliminated, and there's no 3-step pawn move necessary, which would make en passant (the other awkward move) even more pronounced. I have no idea if pawn promotion on the 8th rank is good (in this game or any other.)</p>
<p>Of course, I can always support a couple of options, and I don't mind doing this, but I don't want to go crazy either. One thing I want to avoid is every game having so many check-boxes for options, that there are so many permutations that no two people on Earth are playing the same game. Besides, it requires more coding :)</p>
<p>Any comments on this?</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Aug 7, 2004 07:15 PM UTC:<p>Thanks! Let me ask you, though, since you have played both ...</p>
<p>Do you have any relative opinion of this on 10x10 vs. 10x8? You mention that both work well, but do you think that one works better than the other? Or, in other words, is it worth implementing both in your opinion?</p>
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Aug 7, 2004 07:25 PM UTC:<p>Dear Mr. Duke,</p>
<p>In your recent comments, you mention a Positional Advantage Equation, the details of which may be found under the Game Design topic. I am interested in <i>anything</i> related to mathetmatical analysis of positions, but I cannot find this Game Design forum...</p>
<p>Sincerely,<br>
Greg Strong</p>
Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces. A series of variants with the Orthochess array transplanted to a 10x10 board and various exotic pieces added. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Aug 7, 2004 07:45 PM UTC:<p>Also, related to evalulation of pieces ... I have the following values for Ultima pieces (in Ultima):<br>
Withdrawer = 3.1, Coordinator = 2.9, Long leaper = 5.3, Immoblizer = 8.2</p>
<p>Anyone have any thoughts on how these values apply when each piece is taken in isolation and dropped into an FIDE Chess army, as in this game? Or values for the Advancer, Swapper, or Pushme-Pullyu?</p>
Mainzer Schach. Large variant with Janus, Marshall, and different setup. (11x8, Cells: 88) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Aug 17, 2004 08:32 PM UTC:Good ★★★★I would like to second David's comments, particularly regarding the pawn promotion. You have created a new piece combining all moves which can only be attained by pawn promotion; I see little reason to offer under-promotion. You already have to have an Amazon piece in the set, so you shouldn't need the option to promote to weaker pieces for that reason. Also, the more promotion options you allow, the slower computer programs which play the game become. The more promotion options there are, the more legal moves there are, and the larger the search tree becomes.
I do think this game looks interesting, though. I like the starting array, especially the symmetry. I'll post a Game Courier invitation shortly, and give it a try...
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Aug 18, 2004 01:15 AM UTC:<p>Ahhh, I had not considered that. I had previously thought that under-promotion was just for psychological impact (which makes it silly for computer-chess, as the computer can't be intimidated or confused.) I guess your thought might be right-on, though, but I wonder how rare this situation is. Does anyone know of an example of a professional Chess game in which this happened?</p>
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Aug 29, 2004 04:16 PM UTC:<h4>ChessV 0.6 released</h4>
<p>Added support for:
<ul>
<li><a href='/large.dir/freeling.html'>Grand Chess</a></li>
<li><a href='/large.dir/janus.html'>Janus Chess</a></li>
<li><a href='/large.dir/unicorn.html'>Unicorn Chess</a> and <a href='/play/pbm/presets/unicorn_great_chess.html'>Unicorn Great Chess</a>
</ul></p><p>Also supports <a href='/large.dir/chess-with-ultima.html'>Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces</a> with the following pieces: <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/withdrawer.html'>Withdrawer</a>, <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/advancer.html'>Advancer</a>, <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/coordinator.html'>Coordinator</a>, and the <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/longleaper.html'>Long Leaper</a>. Full Ultima support isn't too far away now, and should be available in the next version.</p><p>This version also includes many small feature and user-interface improvements, and many, many bug fixes. <a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv'>Download from Sourceforge.net here</a>.</p>
📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Aug 31, 2004 09:56 PM UTC:Thank you, Robert. Actually, there is something that you (and others) can do to help. If you beat it (as you did in Grand Chess), and if it's obvious how you did it, that information could be helpful to me. It should be possible to tweak the evaluation function to fix strategical weaknesses, provided we can identify those weaknesses. A save-game file could be helpful to me, too. Of course, I realise that often a win is achieved by staying slightly ahead throughout the game, and not by exploiting some weakness, but if you (or anyone else) does identify some specific weakness, I would like to know about it! In any event, if anyone beats ChessV in a game in which it is able to calculate to a reasonable depth (depending on time and speed of your computer), I would appreciate it if you could e-mail the save-game file to me!
Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Sep 13, 2004 04:04 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★I agree completely with all of Tony's comments. I have found the Recognized Variants list to be a very useful starting point when trying to find the most popular and interesting games from the literally hundreds that are described on this site.
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Sep 14, 2004 02:01 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★<p>Oh yeah, Fergus. I think you are right on the money. I was already thinking about the need to segregate, but I was considering categories more like the catagorizations on the <a href='/Gindex.html'>Main Index</a> page. But I think that your classification, buy degree of <i>prestige</i>, and <i>time-testedness</i>, (to invent a word,) really makes a lot of sense. And the CVPA acronym sure is sweet icing on the case! Good work!!!</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Sep 14, 2004 06:21 PM UTC:<p>IMHO, Star-Trek Tri-D Chess, and Los Alamos chess, are the two obvious ones that don't belong, for the reasons you mention. I agree that it makes sense to create a 'historical interest' category as well, for games like <a href='/historic.dir/chaturanga.html'>Chaturanga</a>, <a href='/historic.dir/chaturang4.html'>Chaturanga for Four Players</a>, <a href='/historic.dir/shatranj.html'>Shatranj</a>, and <a href='/historic.dir/tamerlane.html'>Tamerlane Chess</a>. Whether or not Star-Trek and Los Alamos belong even here would be a question for the community.</p>
<p>As to the proposed process of weeding, I would agree that some weeding should occur, but I don't like the threshold of exactly ten for all categories. I think the threshold for weeding should be larger for the lower categories. The bottom category, the Acclaimed games, in particular, should be allowed to grow rather large; I think even 40 or 50 in this category wouldn't be unreasonable. This site has hundreds and hundreds of games. I think many people who like to look through, and read the rules for games just for fun, would appreciate having a listing of those games on the site that have actually been playtested and enjoyed. And I would hate to see that list limited to any small number. For the Popular and Vintage categories, a threshold of 10 might be reasonable.</p>
<p>For the top level classification, it seems to me that an exact definition of what's in and what's out is in order, so here's my humble suggestion: <blockquote>A game that is played <i>exactly in its current form</i> by at least one million people, and has been played by at least one million people for at least one hundred years.</blockquote> Of course, this would also include <a href='/oriental.dir/koreanchess.html'>Changgi (Korean Chess)</a>, along with Fergus' great three, but I see no reason for it to be excluded. This definition also sets the exact conditions for games to fall out of the list as well ... If the game is ever played by less than a million players, then it has lost too much popularity, and should be dropped to the next lower bracket (Vintage.) The other possibility is that the game mutates, i.e., the rules of the game change and fewer people are playing with the old rules than with the new rules. In this case, the game should drop to Vintage, and the new version won't qualify for Classic status until the new version is dominant for at least one hundred years.</p>
<p>As for those you list as Popular or Acclaimed, may I humbly suggest that <a href='/unequal.dir/cwda.html'>Chess with Different Armies</a> be Popular, and <a href='/3d.dir/dragonchess.html'>Dragonchess</a> be Acclaimed. <a href='/3d.dir/startrek.html'>Star-Trek</a> and <a href='/small.dir/losalamos.html'>Los Alamos</a> should be in the new Historical Interest category, or none at all. I have no opinion on the others you leave open (Magnetic, McCooney's Hex, and Wildebeast.)</p>
<p>Thanks again for your great work on these important classifications, Fergus!</p>
Rococo. A clear, aggressive Ultima variant on a 10x10 ring board. (10x10, Cells: 100) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Sep 18, 2004 06:41 PM UTC:Swapper question ... Can a swapper perform 'mutual destruction' with a friendly piece? The rules aren't clear on this. Thanks!
Carrera's Chess. Large chess variant from 17th century Italy. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Sep 21, 2004 02:25 AM UTC:Ohhh... Thank you for pointing this out! I will have to update ChessV to correct this. Actually, I'd like to add support for the Duniho variant, too (now that I'm aware of its existance.) Is this OK Fergus? and what are the additional rules? Thanks! Greg LATER EDIT: I had posted this before Fergus had posted his additional comment. Now I'm really confused ... :)
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Sep 21, 2004 04:17 PM UTC:Hmmm... I do like the idea of the Enhanced Castling presented here, but it might be a bit too powerful. How about a half-enhanced castling, in which the King can go as far as desired, but the Rook must then always be placed just on the other side? That should be a little easier to program, and I think I like the rule better, too... I don't like giving the King a free choice of any square, *and* letting the Rook pick the open file, all on the same move.
Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Sep 22, 2004 03:43 PM UTC:I still like the social aspect of sitting at a table with the friend I'm playing, and pushing pieces around. I'm not sure that everything should be done from behind a computer, just because we can ...
Games for Game Courier. The many games you can play online with Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Sep 26, 2004 08:24 PM UTC:<p>The Game Courier seems to be having a problem. On the <a href='/index/whatsnew.php'>what's new page</a>,
if I click on Last Game Courier Move link, to show the index, I get this
error:
<p>Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in
/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbmlogs/anti-king_chess_ii/markthompson-ben_good-2004-264-065.php
on line 82
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Sep 28, 2004 05:48 PM UTC:Thank you for your feedback, and I sincerely do appreciate it. May I ask which game you were playing? ChessV is better at some games than others. It would also help me if you could tell me which operating system you use. I seem to have problems with Windows 98/ME that I don't have with 2000/XP. Also, save-game files of any game in which you win are helpful. Thanks again! If you are having problems with bugs, please wait for a couple of new versions. I am about to stop adding new games, and concentrating on fixing all bugs. When I feel it is a stable as possible, I will release version 1.0
📝Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Sep 29, 2004 03:27 PM UTC:Sorry for the delay, Roberto, I've been distracted by a couple of things ... I will have version 0.7, Ultima-enabled, posted either late this evening, or tomorrow. Of course, I'll make a post here when it's up. Thanks for your continued interest!
Maniac: Chess and Chess Variants Program . Chess and Chess Variants Program.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Sep 29, 2004 03:34 PM UTC:Yes, I was excited to see this program, as I had never noticed it before and am happy to see other freeware chess-variant programs. I was disapointed, though, to see that it doesn't appear to have been updated since 2001. Too bad, this program looks to have potential. Also, too bad that it's in Visual Basic :)
Kristensen's Game. A conscious attempt to restructure Chess from 1948. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Oct 2, 2004 04:30 PM UTC:Poor ★I haven't given a game a 'poor' rating yet, but I really can't give this game anything else. The first thing I think when I look at this is 'Isn't there ANYTHING about the game of Chess that was ok as-is?' He changed the number of files, the number of ranks; changed the move of the Rook, the Bishop, the Pawns (no enpassant) ... He re-arranged the pawns! He doubled the number of Queens!!! And then there's the barrier pawn, which might make center-play more interesting, but boy is it nothing like a 'normal' Chess piece. And no resigning?!? I won't even comment on that one. On the up-side, yes, he did add symmetry, but I just can't see giving it a 'good' rating. It just looks like an extreme over-reach that wasn't all that well thought-out. Of course, I must admit that I haven't played it (yet) ... It is possible that my opinion would improve.
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Oct 3, 2004 06:01 PM UTC:<h3>ChessV 0.7 Released</h3>
<p>Adds support for the following games:<ul><li><a href='/other.dir/ultima.html'>Ultima</a></li><li><a href='/large.dir/grotesque.html'>Grotesque Chess</a></li><li><a href='/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DLions+and+Unicorns+Chess%26settings%3DLandUChess'>Lions and Unicorns Chess</a></li></ul></p>
<p>Enhances <a href='/large.dir/chess-with-ultima.html'>Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces</a> by adding support for <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/immobilizer.html'>the Immobilizer</a>, the Swapper, <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/pushmepullyu.html'>the Pushme-Pullyu</a>, and the Mimotaur.</p>
<p>Also added support for couple of small features, and numerous bug fixes.<br><a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv'>Download from sourceforge.net here</a><br>Enjoy!</p>
Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Oct 3, 2004 07:11 PM UTC:Since you all provided so much input into evaluation, I thought you might be interested in the various terms I used in the Ultima evaluation function for ChessV... I used George Duke's piece values of Pawn = 1000, Withdrawer = 3100, Coordinator = 2900, Chameleon = 4300, Long Leaper = 5300, and Immobilizer = 8200. All immobilized pieces are penalized -25% of their value. The Withdrawer gets a small bonus proportional to the value of the most valuable adjacent enemy piece (provided there is at least 1 square in the opposite direction for it to move into, although it need not be vacant presently.) The Coordinator gets a small bonus proportional to the number of enemy pieces on the same rank or file as the friendly King. The Chameleon gets a couple small bonuses: for standing adjacent to an enemy Withdrawer (if there is at least 1 square in the opposite direction to move into), and when the enemy coordinator is on the same rank or file as the friendly King. The Immobilizer gets no bonuses, instead immobilized pieces are penalized. The Long Leaper also has no bonuses, but only because I have no good answers here. Roberto correctly points out that the Long Leaper is more valuable if the enemy pieces are not clustered, and not on the edge, but I cannot think of a way to determine that without spending far too much CPU time. I will continue to think about it. Also, in the opening, pieces are given a bonus for the first move (development), a small penalty for moving twice, and a large penalty for moving the same piece three or more times. These adjustments are slowly scaled down as the game progresses into the middle-game.
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Oct 3, 2004 11:00 PM UTC:The bugs you metion would a dramatic effect on play skill, even with a good evaluation function. I'll have to take care of those, and post an update ... Thanks for the test-report!
Mecklenbeck chess. Pawns can promote on the sixth row.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Oct 4, 2004 05:20 PM UTC:According to Pritchard, this game is titled 'Mecklenbeck', not 'Mecklenberg', Chess...
Extended Chess. Standard setup with changes in moves and win conditions. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2004 04:08 AM UTC:This game is interesting enough that I would like to try it, but I would like to have seen a little more introduction; that is, a bit more rational for why these specific rules were chosen. It seems almost all pieces have been changed, but not in any consistent way. It says that you have increased the mobility of some pieces, and decreased others to provide 'an equalization of forces' ... which makes a lot of sense ... but the two pieces in standard Chess which are pretty much equal (Bishop and Knight) you have potentialy un-balanced by changing both. In particular, I think you have made the Knight better than the Bishop. In any event, I would like to see some explaination of how this balances things (and exactly what is now balanced.)
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2004 04:25 AM UTC:Roberto: I have found a couple of bugs in the function that decides when the King is in check (the problem responsible for the Kings being captured.) I will e-mail you a new program file shortly ... There could still be additional bugs with this, though ... Check-detection in Ultima is *really* ugly! But when these problems are solved, I bet it will immediately play a much smarter game. Fergus: Ick! I have heard a similar report from a Windows 98 user. I assume you are using Windows 95/98/ME ... Which is not to say that the problem is with your OS, and not with my program; it's just that this problem is extra-tricky for me to solve... The new versions of Microsoft Developer Studio do not run on Win 95/98/ME at all, which means that I cannot use the debugger to help me track this problem. Still, I need to come up with some way to find and fix this. And, if you are running Windows 2000/XP, then my problems are even worse than I thought :)
📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2004 10:49 PM UTC:<p>Ok, I think I have got all the Ultima problems taken care of.</p>
<p>Roberto, (and anyone else who's interested,) you can download the updated program file <a href='http://gregstrong.com/ChessV.exe'>here</a>. Just save this file on top of the old copy, and all should be well. I expect it will play much better now.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2004 05:20 PM UTC:<p>I am excited to announce a new variant I've been working on ... <b>Chess with Terrain</b>. I will submit it to chessvariants.org for posting, but meanwhile, please check out the description here:</p>
<p><a href='http://gregstrong.com/ChessWithTerrain.html'>http://gregstrong.com/ChessWithTerrain.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks! I look forward to feedback on this fairly radical concept!<br>Greg</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 7, 2004 12:06 AM UTC:Roberto: Thank you for your kind offer to make the ZRF, but it won't be necessary; I'll make one in the next few days ... As you point out, it shouldn't be too hard to make. The only thing I'm not sure about (off the top of my head) is how to handle the alternate victory condition. I also wonder about the length of a typical game. I added the alternate victory condition in hopes of keeping the game short, but it still might be a problem. Definitely needs testing ... If anyone wants to try a game, I have already made a Game Courier preset; let me know and I'll send an invitation. Thanks, Greg
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 7, 2004 03:03 PM UTC:Thanks, Antoine. I like the Serpent-Serpent capture restriction, and think it's almost certainly an improvement, so I've added this rule. I must disagree, however, that the Bishop is not stronger in the 49-square center. In this region, the Bishop's average mobility is 8.1 where the Knight's is 7.5. When considering the entire board, the Bishop is 5.54, compaired to 5.71 for the Knight. The Knight is probably a little bit better, but not by much. When I submit this game, I will include my spreadsheets with the mobility data... Thanks again!
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 7, 2004 05:27 PM UTC:Yes, I have changed the rule so that one Serpent cannot capture another. I was going to name the piece Alligator or Crocodile, but then I decided not to because those animals can walk on land; this piece cannot. Of course, that may not be an important distinction. In any event, I will need to make some new icons soon. I'm also using a Lion icon in place of the Druid. I don't want to name the piece 'Lion', though, because there are already several different pieces in different games with that name. I will write up a help file to appear at the bottom of the Game Courier page, but I cannot post it (at least I don't think so.) I will have to e-mail it in to an administrator, and get them to save it... But I will send it out shortly. Thanks!
Dabbabante Chess.. Played on a 10x10 board with Super Dabbabah pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 7, 2004 11:56 PM UTC:The link to 100 Squares for Chess and Damate is no longer good. :(
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Oct 8, 2004 05:13 PM UTC:Yes, I see the bug you mention. The move !c2 is a suicide move (immobilized piece on c2 kills itself.) Apparently, it is not reading the sucide moves back in correctly. I will post a fix shortly. About your question, what changes I made ... I fixed several bugs ... Not just the check-testing bug, which allowed the King to get captured, but I also found a couple of others where things were not being evaluated correctly. The program now functions (hopefully) exactly acording to the evaluation function previously described. In other words, the bad play you experienced was entirely caused by bugs. Thank you for testing, and reporting these problems! Greg
Dabbabante Chess.. Played on a 10x10 board with Super Dabbabah pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Oct 8, 2004 05:15 PM UTC:Cool! Thank you for redirecting that; I am looking forward to reading it ...
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Oct 9, 2004 06:19 PM UTC:<p>I have posted an update which corrects the load-game-with-suicide-move problem. This update also re-activates the Transposition Table, a feature which speeds things up considerably, which I disabled long ago due to a bug. I pretty sure I've got that fixed now, too, so it should now be about 25% faster at all games. On the other hand, if you have less than 128 Megs ram, it's not likely to function well at all. You can download the updated executable here:</p>
<p><a href='http://gregstrong.com/ChessV.exe'>http://gregstrong.com/ChessV.exe</a></p>
<p>I will post a full update to sourceforge soon, with the version number 0.71. The disappearing board problem on Win 95/98/ME won't be fixed in this version, though, but hopefully the next; still trying to get a handle on that one ...</p>
Alice Chess Play-By-Mail game. Examine this game![All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Oct 10, 2004 03:27 PM UTC:The link from this page to the actual game appears to be dead.
About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 14, 2004 03:07 AM UTC:Thank you, this is a very handy new feature. It is now much easier for me to 'cut out' opening lines from Game Courier games for inclusion into ChessV.
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 14, 2004 11:53 PM UTC:I am working on the Zillions file, but I am unsure about how to do the move of the Serpent. Anyone have any ideas about how to make it follow the river and turn the corners without penalty? Roberto: Yes, the light-square Bishop is probably slightly stronger because of the 5-2 imbalance of victory squares. This is an unfortunate consequance of the 15x15 board - the corners and center square are all the same color. Perhaps I should have used a 15x13 board, then there would still be a center square, but there would be 4 dark and 3 light victory squares.
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Oct 15, 2004 09:51 PM UTC:<p>Thanks for the feedback! Regarding your requests:
<blockquote>Would be nice if settings made in 'Options / Board and Pieces...' would be kept between program starts.</blockquote>
Actually, it should do that already. Be aware that those settings are game-by-game; in other words, if you change settings in one game or variant it should be saved, but only for that variant. There is currently no way to change these settings for all games. If your settings are not even being stored for a specific game then I will need to look into that; if this is the case, please let me know what OS you are running.
<blockquote>I use 800x600 screen resolution and games with 10x10 board, e.g. Grand Chess doesn't fit on my screen. Would be nice if the board is scaled automatically when window size changes, like in Arena.</blockquote>
Yes, this is a problem. I have a partial solution underway that will be available in the next release. I am creating a 'small' piece set for use with larger games and/or smaller monitors. These new icons I am creating are derived from the Alfaerie set, but not by reduction - that leads to blurry or poor-looking images; I am tweaking these pixel-by-pixel. As for zooming the board, since the pieces are bitmaps, any scaling would probably look rather bad.
<blockquote>Pieces are flashing when you make a move. This can be fixed e.g. by using double-buffering technique.</blockquote>
Yes, this is a known problem, and your proposed solution is exactly what is needed. At present the problem isn't too bad with a fast video-card and modern video driver (on my computer it isn't even visible) but still needs to be fixed. Sadly, graphics program isn't something I know much about ... In the meantime, please make sure you have the latest video driver for your video card. This can make a big difference.
<blockquote>Can we have Three Checks Chess in ChessV?</blockquote>
Ok. This is simple, so it will be in the next version.</p>
📝Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Oct 16, 2004 02:58 PM UTC:There is no good reason for limiting the colors; I just haven't gotten around to adding the color-picker dialog yet. There are several reasons why it would be problematic to make global piece & color settings. For one thing, not all piece sets are supported by all games. Right now only the Standard set supports all, but the Abstract set is pretty close. Also, although right now all boards are 2-colors, the boards for some games will be 3 or 4 colors. Finally, I wanted to be able to provide default settings for games, like Chaturanga, for example, always appears for the first time on an uncheckered board with the Old World pieces. If you could provide global settings, then it wouldn't appear right by default - it would have checkered squares. Thanks for the bug report! Someone had reported this on sourceforge, but didn't provide me with an example, so I couldn't reproduce it. Now it should be easy to track down ...
Backward Pawns. Pawns move both ways. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Oct 16, 2004 03:03 PM UTC:It could be identical to Fish Chess, but this page doesn't really provide a rule set at all. Can capture backwards diagonally? Can move 2 spaces? This page seems more like a discussion topic than a game description to me.
Ed Friedlander's Chess Variant Applets. Hundreds of Java Applets for Playing Chess Variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Oct 21, 2004 03:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★<p>Yes, this extensive collection of applets is truly remarkable! The large number of games Ed has been able to support is a clear indication that the underlying Java code is very clever and well-designed. I can say from experience that this is <i>not</i> an easy endeavour...</p>
<p>Also, Peter asked about Dai and Chu shogi support. Those games have very large boards (and lots of extra pieces) and the CPU usage goes up exponentially with the number of legal moves. These applets search to a shallow depth, even on 8x8 games, so as to be light-weight. It is probably not possible to make a low-memory usage, low-CPU usage applet to play any game with a really large board. However, there is a nice freeware program by Steve Evans that plays several Shogi variants, including the two you request (although I don't know how strong an opponent it is.) It can be found here:
<a href='http://trout.customer.netspace.net.au/index.html'>http://trout.customer.netspace.net.au/index.html</a></p>
Wildebeest Chess. Variant on an 10 by 11 board with extra jumping pieces. (11x10, Cells: 110) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Oct 26, 2004 01:42 AM UTC:Mark Thompson and I have just started a test of his proposed game; see Game Courier under the name 'Zebrabeest Chess'. I have never previously played any variant with a Zebra, so I'm finding a little difficult to visualize the zebra-moves - we'll see how quickly I get used to it. I'm certainly curious ...
Strategy for Losing Chess . Website with strategic tips for Giveaway chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating] Four Handed Roman Chess. 4 player chess variant with additional new piece.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating] ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 8, 2004 02:53 AM UTC:<h3>ChessV 0.7.1 released</h3>
<p>This is mostly a maintenance release, and fixes numerous bugs. The castling-while-in-Check problem is solved. The Win 95/98/ME disappearing board problem should be dramatically improved, if not completely fixed (I don't have a machine with which to test this at the moment.) Also, another major bug was fixed that was slowing down performance substantially, probably 30-40%.</p>
<p>Added support for two new graphics sets: a 'small' set that I made from the Alfaerie set for use with large-board games on low-resolution monitors, and Fergus Duniho's <a href='/graphics.dir/motif/index.html'>motif set</a>.</p>
<p>Added support for <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Checks_Chess'>Three Checks Chess</a>.</p>
<p>To download, please visit the <a href='http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessv'>project's home on sourceforge.net</a>.</p>
📝Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 8, 2004 09:53 PM UTC:Gee, that is really disappointing. Still disappearing after 2 moves... Oh well, thanks for testing it. I will have to take more radical action (as soon as I figure out what that might be.)
📝Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 9, 2004 01:20 AM UTC:<p>Whoops! Thanks for pointing that out ...
To fix it, save the following two images into the 'ChessV/images/small' directory, and restart ChessV. It will be corrected in the next version, of course.<p>
<p><a href='http://gregstrong.com/WRookInv.bmp'>WRookInv.bmp</a><br>
<a href='http://gregstrong.com/BRookInv.bmp'>BRookInv.bmp</a></p>
Index page of The Chess Variant Pages. Our main index page.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 04:10 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Yes! This feature is very nice! Is there any maximum age of those which will saved, or will you keep them so long as disk space permits?
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 10:19 PM UTC:<p>Fergus Duniho says:
<blockquote>As you can tell by looking at the Age field when you go to the logs page, there is no age limit on the logs shown. </blockquote></p>
<p>Just because the age field has an option labled 'anytime' doesn't mean that you intend to save them forever. It was a perfectly reasonable question.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 12, 2004 06:06 PM UTC:Sweet! Thanks again; this is very useful for when I add new games to ChessV to be able to see logs of actual games for purposes of testing and creating opening books. Hopefully as the popularity of chess variants, this site, and the Game Courier grows, the number of game logs for the popular games will grow into the hundreds!
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:31 PM UTC:Each of these games requires some work, although not too much. It's going to be a month or two before I add any complicated games, though. I really need to get the last couple of bugs fixed, and there are still a few important performance enhancements I want to add, too. It is still possible to more than double the speed of ChessV at most games. Eventually, though, I will add support for all of the games you mention. Rococo will come first, as that's by far the easiest.
Game Courier Tournament #1. A multi-variant tournament played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:52 PM UTC:Bug report: When I click on 'View Entire' on Antoine's comment on this page immediately before this one, I get a 404 Page Not Found error, so I can only see part of his comments. Game Courier Tournament #2: Yes! I'm eager to get in on the next GC tournament... I have enough free time that I can I could deal with more ambitious time controls, but I understand that most people don't, and I think the priority should be on maximizing participation. As for game selection, I favor a democratic approach. From what I see from the logs, game selection was conducted in a very impressive way last time, and I would like to see that process repeated. The only change I can think of that should be considered is a rule to preclude inclusion of the same game in consecutive tournaments. My suggestion: exclude games from this tournament that were played in the last one except those that are Recognized Variants. This way, GC tournament #2 can still include Shogi, Xiang Qi, Ultima, Alice Chess, Grand Chess, and Glinski's Hex Chess, but other games won't be available again until GC tournament #3. Otherwise, I'm afraid we won't get enough variation...
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 05:32 PM UTC:Well, I'm certainly happy to have an entirely new list of games, and RL blocks.
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 11:08 PM UTC:<p>Sounds good to me!</p>
<p>It would be nice to get GC presets for Wildebeest Chess and Omega Chess available for consideration of inclusion. I have a Wildebeest Chess preset located here:</p>
<p><a href='/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DWildebeest+Chess%26settings%3DWildebeest'>/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DWildebeest+Chess%26settings%3DWildebeest</a></p>
<p>It does not enforce the rules, though, and has a Giraffe icon for a Wildebeest. Of course, I think of that piece as the GNU, and for all I know a GNU looks much like a Giraffe :) Seriously, though, in the next couple of days I'll try to make a Wildebeest piece that appears to match the other Alfaerie pieces, and submit a new piece set for this game.</p>
<p>As for Omega Chess, Ironlance has a preset for it that looks nice, but I don't have the link.</p>
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 02:49 AM UTC:Regarding possible game courier bugs, I have noticed a couple of things... I have also experienced the suddenly back-in-time that David describes, although I have never had it go back more than one move, and I have also discovered that I can completely prevent it from happening by always, always, ALWAYS clicking ctrl-refresh to force a full page re-load before entering any moves. I find that this is step is essential, or there's the occasional deja-vu-move. I use IE 6.0 SP 2, and it is configured to always reload all pages, so it's not IE configured to cache pages or the like. Also, in a game of Fisher Random Chess in which I was making the first move of the game, I noticed that every time I would click 'Refresh,' (which I always do, as described above) it would give me a different random configuration. But then, when I actually made the move, (a pawn move,) the pieces were suddenly in a different configuration (the original configuration, I presume, although I'm not sure. I wasn't paying that much attention.) Hope this helps! Greg
Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Nov 17, 2004 10:34 PM UTC:<p>A brief rules description can be found <a href='http://groups.msn.com/ChessVariantClub/pbmpresets.msnw?action=view_list&row=5&viewtype=2&sortstring='>here</a>. Basically:<br>
the Bow and Arrow piece is a Longbowman, which moves like a <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/dabbabah.html'>Dabbabah</a>.<br>
the Crecent Moon piece is a Seer, which moves like an <a href='/piececlopedia.dir/alfil.html'>Alfil</a>.<br>
the Warrior's Head piece is a Swordsman, and can move 2 squares in any direction without jumping. This brief description seems to indicate that it cannot move a single space, but I assume he meant to say no more than 2.<br>Also, there's a special castling rule.</p>
<p>It's too bad that the Game Courier preset has square colors that are so low-contrast. It would be nice if individual users could override square colors and piece sets on a game-by-game basis, but I realise that would probably be a real pain to implement.</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 18, 2004 03:01 PM UTC:Sure, you can change colors to make a new preset, but frequently I do not create the game. In any event, one player should be able to use alfaeire pieces and another use abstract pieces in the same game, for example. Even more useful for games like Shogi (not everyone can or wants to read the Kanji.) Color overrides is somewhat less important, but still bloody nice, especially with new games showing up with really wacky colors.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 05:49 PM UTC:When you make a move, just change the status field. It says 'ongoing' by default, but you can change it to 'John Doe has won.' Then when you verify the move, it will consider the game over.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 06:32 PM UTC:sorry, I just checked and that user doesn't have an e-mail address listed. I just tried something. Please try making your move again. There is a chance that it will work now. And if it does, please let me know.
Greg Strong wrote on Fri, Nov 19, 2004 06:59 PM UTC:Oh well, it was a long shot. For the record, I'm not an administrator so I'm not supposed to have the power to fix anything. But I did discover a security flaw earlier today, which I reported to Fergus. It is possible that as I discovered that bug, it was my experiment that caused the problem with your game. I appologize if that is the case...
Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 20, 2004 12:34 AM UTC:Ok, that's good to know. This command is not mentioned in the manual.
Double Chess 16 x 8. On 16 by 8 board. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 22, 2004 09:48 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Noticing that I haven't previously commented on this, I must also give this an 'Excellent.' This varient is much more fun that I expected; the openings seem tame because the board is so large, but due the large amount of material, things become deadly in short order.
Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Wed, Nov 24, 2004 04:46 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Very nice! This new version is very well written and comprehensive! Thanks for this.
Games for Game Courier. The many games you can play online with Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 25, 2004 04:39 PM UTC:<p>I started on the code for verifying the moves in Wildebeest Chess, but hit a road-block with the three-space pawn move, because I didn't see a 'checkathreestep' function to correspond with the 'checkatwostep' function, and didn't see another way to do it...</p>
<p>Perhaps a useful function would be checknstep, which would check to see if it is a valid move of exactly n steps all in the same direction. This would allow you to put pawns on a really big board more easily. Or make another version of 'checkaride' that allows you to specify the maximum number of rider-steps. This would be important for the short rook in CWDA.</p>
<p>P.S. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!</p>
Greg Strong wrote on Thu, Nov 25, 2004 05:28 PM UTC:I don't think anyone has worked on rules-enforcement for Omega Chess; I don't think the O.C. people responded to Fergus' request for permission. They never responded to me when I asked about ChessV either ... I am going to work on rules enforcement for your L&U Chess; I think that one will be much easier, and thus will be better for my first attempt. The pawn move in Wildebeest is fairly tricky - unlike Omega Chess, pawns may make a single step, and then still make a 2-space move later.
Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 27, 2004 05:29 PM UTC:The code to enforce the rules in standard Chess is missing the lines that prevent a pawn from capturing directly forward...
Recognized Chess Variants. Index page listing the variants we feel are most significant. (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 29, 2004 06:20 PM UTC:I disagree with Robert Fischer. It is not possible to test EVERY possible permutation, since there are tens of thousands of them. And I think it is totally unnecessary. Fischer Random Chess has 960 different set-ups, and probably, by now, all have been played at least once, but *NO* organized effort has been made to test each and every one by high-level Chess players for playability. In fact, FRC doesn't even try to avoid unprotected pawns. Considering the number of FRC enthusiasts, I doubt it's necessary. Besides, as Fergus recently pointed out in a different thread, the most common opening move in Chess is pawn to king-4, which creates an unprotected pawn! As long as white and black have identical setups (mirror-symmetry, not rotational-symmertry) the game appears to be fair. I see no reason why Capablanca Random Chess would not be fair, especially since Dr. Scharnagl has excluded all setups with unprotected pawns. Regarding Capablanca Random Chess: Good work, Reinhard! You have taken the concept of crossing Capablanca Chess with Fischer randomizations and done a fantastic job of identifying the issues that need to be addressed, such as castling and proper notation. I look forward to adding proper support for this game to ChessV. You asked how a game becomes 'recognized'. I suspect you didn't mean to use that word. There are only about 30 variants that are listed as Recognized Variants on this site, and it takes a while to become a Recognized Variant. What I suspect you want is to have a web page created on this site for the game. There are well over a thousand such games, and it is not hard for yours to be added. Technically, all that is required is that you submit an e-mail to the editors. They are very busy, though, and they can get it up much faster if you have it already formatted into their HTML template. If you would like, I would be happy to take the description you submitted, and format it properly, and submit it for you. I can also create a Game Courier preset for you if you like. P.S. Is your book on Fischer Random Chess available in English? Sincerely, Greg Strong
Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Nov 29, 2004 08:13 PM UTC:Sorry George, yes, this was the comment I was thinking of. Not sure why I attributed it to Fergus - my memory is clearly not as good as it once was, which is kind-of scary since I'm only 32.
Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 02:32 AM UTC:Roberto is exactly right. Playability, etc. is very subjective. Part of the reason we publish games here is to get other people interested so that we may begin the playtesting. If you are only interested in time-tested games, that's what the Recognized Variant List is for.
Poll number Game Courier Tournament #2 Approval Poll. Vote for which games you would like to play in the second Game Courier Tournament.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 03:54 AM UTC:Something appears to be wrong ... I cast my votes, and the summary page shows only one person voting, but it includes games I didn't vote for. I tried the fields at the top of the form to review votes, but it goes to the GC Tournament #1 page, saying that the tournament is over.
Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 30, 2004 11:49 PM UTC:When I attempt to access this game log, I get an error... Log: /play/pbm/play.php?game=Anti-King+Chess+II&log=andreas-cvgameroom-2003-300-130 Error: Game Courier Warning: resigned is not a valid move, because resigned is not a recognized command, and it lacks any recognized operator. It says it's just a warning, but it keeps me from seeing any of the game.
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