Comments by Graeme Neatham

Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for your interest in this variant.  The move to the 3rd / 6th ranks for the Pawns was the last modification made to the starting array, and was an idea taken from Makruk (Thai Chess).
It was done to  balance the loss of the Pawn's initial 2-step movement and the loss of castling.  I did not see the undefended a, e, and l pawns as detrimental to the game.

The number of pieces for each compound type was based upon my estimates of their relative strengths - one of each for the more powerful and two of the least powerful Courier. In naming the piece types I try to ensure that the initial letters of the names different from each other.

Cheers
Graeme
 

I have been running ZoG on 64bit Windows for about a year now

My System:
Manufacturer LENOVO
Model IdeaCentre A310 10056
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2

Wiki page now uses wiki-syntax throughout.

They need not be team games.  The command/control structure may be used to determine movement of non-command units/pieces.  Have a look at Joe Joyce's Chieftain Chess for an example of an hierarchical game.

Whether or not the term "wargame" is sufficient by itself is debatable.  In the context of CVs it probably is.

Fergus Duniho writes:

What kind of performance issues are there? With a composite primary key, will it search individual keys until it finds a match instead of directly knowing where to go?

It is quicker to traverse a numeric key than an alpha or alpha-numeric. But it is not just a question of machine performance - development time including code production (manual and automated) and testing can be less efficient with composite primary keys. There is also the question of maintenance and the persistence of natural composite keys when compared to surrogate primary keys.

But this isn't the place to conduct a seminar in database design and I have already declared myself guilty of misapplying enterprise practice - it isn't easy, sometimes, to put aside work practices gleaned over 3 decades.

'The single defining quality of 'Chess' is that

the winning condition is predicated on one (the royal) of two (royal and non-royal) classes of pieces

If a game exhibits this quality it is a Chess Variant, if it doesn't it isn't.'

(http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/chess-variants)

Enthronement
The intention is that this is allowed only with respect to your own Regents.

Randomness
The use of cards or dice to determine the final landing square is certainly worth exploring.

Yes, Charles, castling is only allowed with Rooks on the same rank. And the comparison with your variants is certainly interesting - particularly so with my newly added 10x10 subvariant.

Charles: I respect your right to your opinion, but please leave me out of your squabbles. If you have a comment to make on my variant or its presentation then kindly do so in the appropriate comment area.

Graeme.

Yes I played chess before discovering chess variants. I played for my school team and at university, and when I got my first job for a London based insurance firm I played for them in the London Insurance Chess League. I also played in some local leagues and chess tournaments.

These activities came to a halt with the arrival of children and a career change from insurance to IT. Although I still play chess, my real passion is for wargaming (also started way back in my school days) and much of my gaming time is taken up with perfecting my own set of rules for my own particular circumstances.

Most of my CV designing is inspired by ideas from other activities - like my degree studies with the Open University - and tend to be very conservative in terms of pieces used.

Sorry, but I'm unclear what point you're making about the contraction capture image. Can you elaborate please?

There are 4 drop levels, and each side begins the game on the first level. At this level only Pawns can be dropped. On dropping the fourth Pawn the level for that player advances to the second. On the second level Knights and Bishops can now be dropped as well as Pawns. The third level is reached when the second Knight or Bishop is dropped. Rooks may be dropped at the third level. Dropping a single Rook advances that players drop level to the fourth level. Once the fourth level is reached the Queen may be dropped.

Captured pieces are removed from the game. They cannot re-enter the game by being dropped again.

Another board of pentagons that might be of interest is this:



And why the colours? I just think it looks nicer when presenting a board
with no game context.
Of course if the board were to be used in a variant, the number of colours
and their placing might need more careful consideration.

Thanks for the comments, Joe. I was thinking of adding a note on using random assignment of the final destination hex as a variant, but in the end decided that the Quantum concept was already radical enough in itself.

Play testing has been minimal. I used Zillions running a non-quantum version to test and refine the transfer of Ultima to a hex board, but have not yet been able to get a working Quantum version. I have just finished constructing a non-enforcing pre-set and would be happy to push a few pieces around at a leisurely pace.

The zrf has been uploaded but the page is currently hidden

Thank you for your comment and your rating. And thanks for mentioning the poor link design - a bad habit I am trying to break. I have removed the deprecated target=_blank property from the links to return browser control back to the user.

Your understanding about the connection of the poles with their adjacent cells is correct. It should be noted that from the starting position the Horses, although appearing under threat, cannot in fact be captured by the Cannons as this would place the General (King) in check.

Hi Jeremy, that's fine by me