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Changes made as best I understood.
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Alas, the Happy Editor song can never be written down or recorded, lest the
secret society of web editors silence y
gnohmon, you're wrong about a few things. first of all, while black rooks can control double files if they are on the a,b,g, or h files, a white rook on the b-file would control both the a-file and b-file, and likewise a white rook on the g-file controls both the g-file and h-file. Download the ZRF and you'll see. Bishops may seem weak but they may yet have a purpose in the game. It may be true that their ability to penetrate the other side of the board and attack is more difficult, but they'll still be pretty good as stay-at-home defenders. Note however that white bishops at a3 or h3 control very long diagonals (bishop at a3 attacks e8, bishop at h3 attacks d8) and while black may be able to control the outside files with his rooks faster, white should be able to occupy the escalator squares more quickly. In order that white does not get an overwhelming advantage in the game, I gave black the first move. Time will tell if the game is balanced sufficiently or not. Incidentally, if anyone who has ZILLIONS OF GAMES would like to play either SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS, or SPINAL TAP CHESS http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/spinal-tap-chess.html or both, with me by email, drop me a line at [email protected] We can email each other the notation and record and save our games with ZILLIONS. What I really like about SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS is that not only is there interesting connectivity around the board, but that it's going to be a bit challenging for each side to try to navigate the board to get to the other side and get a good attack going. Should make things very interesting!
Um, okay, but Black has 2 doublings on each flank and W only one; and 1...a7-b6 already exploits a doubling to tie W down a tiny bit. Have you considered slanted escalators on a 9x9 board? On the 8x8 board, it seems to me that the clumsiness of Bishops should be regarded as an opportunity to find some other piece that fits the game better. Perhaps not as strong as a Rhinorider. Pieces have to use their own movement powers, so isn't it more of a staircase than an escalator? And so wouldn't ascending pieces get tired? It's too late at night, I'm getting silly.
The trouble with my Zillions implementation is, a piece that captures a Wall disappears until you make the board redraw itself. When the computer plays against itself, it's not a problem. But when a human captures a Wall, he needs to hit Ctrl-F twice or something. It would be an easy, easy thing for Zillions Development to fix. I guess it's my own fault for trying to make two boards, one on top of the other. I just thought it would be more elegant that way.
Don't use two boards... I suggest you download Rubble Chess (another one of my inventions, Z'd by Peter Aronson) and take it apart to find out how it worked. All you need to do is make variants of it where the <foo> leaves behind Rubble Pieces, for <foo> being any chess piece. (I don't think pawns would work very well, but...) You can also make special starts where the board starts full of walls (rubble chess start), etc... --Adam
Leaving rubble pieces behind as the TronQueen slides is the problematic part, because (and I've run into this problem again and again) there's no (direct) way to generate a move that creates more than one piece. The solution that leaps to mind is to have so-called 'empty' squares be dummy pieces with no images, and turn multiple ones into Walls at the appropriate time (which is also problematic, but doable). That's probably what I'll have to do, but it means reimplementing all the Chess moves so that chess pieces are trading places with dummy pieces instead of moving to empty squares. Capturing means trading places with the captured piece and turning it into a dummy. There are lots of things that could go wrong and strange bugs that would surface. The two-board approach meant that the dummies could cover the underboard while the chess pieces moved about on the overboard. When you play the game, you only see one board. The second board occupies the same pixels. It's just an implementation device.
My comment that Black was ahead was based on R+B vs R+N multiplied by pawn
promotion. The B vs N is probably just a wash -- maybe giving White some
early play but moving towards Black in mid-end play.
Agree with gnohmon that there is an imbalance. Suggest reversing e-side
escalator and transposing one side's royals (e.g., Kd1 and Qe1).
Here's an amusing possible solution to the problems with this variant:
combine it with <a href='../other.dir/alice.html'>Alice Chess</a>.
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Here's how it might go. You add a second board, like in Alice Chess,
except the 2nd board has reversed checkering: a1 is white, not black.
When a piece's move would otherwise cause it to move to a square of a
different color, it instead lands on the equivalent square of the
other board. Thus Knights always switch boards when they move, and
Bishops never switch boards.
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There are a number of ways to handle switching boards:
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<ul>
<li>Alice Chess-style. The move on the board on which the piece
starts must be legal as in orthochess, and the square on the other
board must be empty.</li>
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<li>The Plunge. A piece moving to another color may only to move to
a square that is empty on their current board, then they plunge through
the board to the equivalent square on the other board, capturing any
opposing pieces they land on, except for Pawns who may not plunge to
occupied squares.</li>
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<li>The Switch-a-roo. A piece makes a normal orthochess move on the board
on which it starts, and then, if the destination square is of a different
color than the piece's starting square, it moves to an equivalent
position on the other board. If the space on the other board is occupied,
then the piece occupying that space is moved to the space just landed on on
the board that the moving piece started on. This version actually allows
Bishops on the 2nd board.</li>
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<li>The Last Square. The piece's move is as normal, except that if the
piece would land on a color of square different from which it started, the
last square of its move is the equivalent space on the other board, and the
move does not pass through what would be the final square of its move in
orthochess. The last square on the board on which the board-changing piece
moved from may be occupied by a friendly or opposing piece -- it doesn't
matter as the moving piece does not pass through it.
</ul>
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I don't know which would be best.
Question: can a wounded friend move over (but obviously not stop on) a square occupied by a mummy? i am not sure. if anybody wants to try this game with me by email, send to [email protected]
I wish I had thought of this! The idea of finding the weakest possible pieces that still provide a chess-like game is inspired. For some reason, it reminded me of my attempt to create a <a href='../newideas.dir/construction.html'>chess variant construction set</a>. The concept of a flipping move to switch between capture-only and move-only is something I never thought of. On the whole, a well-thought-out, and aesthetically pleasing game. I must try it out sometime!
Okay, but I don't believe that the Chancellor is worth less than the Q. The midgame forking power of a piece that moves in 12 directions is quite amazing, the Chancellor has exceptional ability to save an inferior game by giving perpetual check, and finally, the drawn cases of K+Q versus K+P are wins in the endgame K+NR vs K+P. Of course there are positions that favor the Q, but all in all, my experience says they are equal.
A Wounded Fiend (not 'friend' unless you are a truly scary creature) is impeded by mummies, as indeed a Rook would be. Notice also that it cannot retrace its steps because of its own ichor, and therefore, as Azgoroth once said, 'carries within it the seeds of its own destruction'. (The endgame where each side has one Wounded Fiend and nothing else can be quite interesting.) This game is tough to get used to. For a while I thought I had made a major rules error, but in fact when a Leaf Pile engulfs, the mummy does not appear until it moves on, and so the Leaf Pile is vulnerable to being engulfed by an enemy Leaf Pile. If it were not so, the first player would attack with Leaf Pile (engulfing his own Human for greater speed) and win by force.
I am grateful for your effusive comments. There will be more on the subject, as I like the game and have analyzed the Weakest K versus Weakest King endgame -- it was very interesting. But at the moment, I've gotten out a chessboard and some coins (with which to mark mummies and statues) and am studying the play of the Game of Nemoroth.
If we created higher dimensional analogues of the Feeble/Weak/Weakest pieces, would we be able to make a playable higher-dimensional CV with them (perhaps even a Chess For Any Number of Dimensions)?
Oops. It seeme I misremembered what the Spirit told me in my dream, for when I tried to play the game it was too easy to end up in an impasse with no good way to break it; and the reason was clearly that the Go Aways were not performing their intended role. Then I tried a few games in which the Go Away moved by leaping two squares Rookwise or by moving one square diagonally, and things seemed to work much better -- in fact, just about exactly right, in conformance to the original vision of the game. It is funny how the Wounded Fiend seems to be such an unimportant piece, when it was the original inspiration for the game. Under 'Interactions', it should be added that 'Leaping pieces can cross unharmed a square seen by a Basilisk, for their talons never touch the ground and therefore the Basilisk does not see them.' The interactions are so complicated! I need to make a chart to see if I left anything else out.
Because they are so weak, the Feeble/Weakest pieces would do well on a
3x3x8 board, I think.
Addition to Interactions made as requested. Did you also mean to add a
diagonal step move to the Go Away?
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<br>
<i>(Fnord)</i>
Under 'compelled Moves', there should be a final notice that 'Sometimes it is possible to make a saving move with some other piece than the compelled one. For example, suppose that your Basilisk has been pushed onto an occupied square, and so is compelled to move off, but has no legal move; if you can engulf your own Basilisk with a leaf pile, you have removed the condition causing the compulsion, and therefore you have saved the game.' And, under 'Interactions', 'If a Go Away which is compelled to flee an enemy Ghast is next to the Ghast, it can scream GO AWAY! instead of moving. It ends its turn one move further away than it started and so it has met the compulsion to flee. A Leaf Pile which is next to a Ghast can engulf the Ghast; as it then no longer needs to flee, its compulsion has been satisfied.'
Thy bidding done once more, Oh Gnohmon.
For what it's worth, on Christian Freeling's Grand Chess site, under About Grand Chess, it says:
<blockquote>Finally, although the Queen may have the edge in the endgame, the Marshall is arguably the strongest piece, so it flanks the King in the center as does the Queen in Chess.</blockquote>
I'd think being on a 10x10 board would benefit the Queen more than the Chancellor/Marshall.
It's ok but crazyhouse is better.
I have rarely seen so much chatter as for this game. (N.B. there is significant commentary on Nemoroth in the Yellow Journalism thread.) A couple of points: Is Nemoroth a chess variant? If gnohmon says it is, who am I to gainsay him? I am an 'inclusionist' when it comes to chess variants, anyway. It actually seems more like an Amazons variant, and there are other more chess-like games that make use of the 'shrinking board' mechanism, but what the heck. (Bob Abbott, who invented Ultima, did not think it was chess, because it did not use replacement captures. He was an 'exclusionist'.) When Nemoroth is refined, and the rules settle down, may we expect pages on 'The Value of the Nemoroth Pieces' and 'Nemoroth with Different Armies'? Should we reserve the name www.nemorothvariants.com? If interest remains high, how about the CVP sponsor a contest in Nemoroth problem composition?
Hi, I have worked out a slightly different method of setting up Fischer random chess positions with a single six-sided die. It's fairly easy to memorizem because it follows logically from the positional rules of the game. As far as I can tell it will create all possible positions. Here it is: All die rolls are counted from the left side of the board from white's point of view and apply to remaining empty and 'legal' squares only. Because the king must be between both rooks, it can only occupy the central six squares on each side. Roll a die and place the king on one of the six 'central' squares. Now place the rooks. Roll a die for the left rook. If the number exceeds the number of squares on the left side of the king, roll again. Repeat for the right rook. If there is only one square to the right or left of the king, skip the rolls and simply place the rook. Now place the Bishops. Place the first bishop based on a die roll. If the roll value exceeds the number of remaining squares, roll again. Place the second bishop in a similar manner counting only the available squares of the opposite color of the already placed bishop. Place the queen with a die roll. If the die number is 4-6 then subtract 3 from its value (to minimize the number of rolls necessary.) Place the two knights on the last two squares. I have yet to study this method in detail to determine if it favors certain positions. A modification of the die roll procedure to minimize re-rolls is as follows: If there are 2-3 'legal' squares for the rooks or the second bishop take the remainder of the die in the 'modula' of the number of remaining squares. For example, if there are two legal squares for the left rook, and one rolls a 5, one counts this as a '1', as 1 is the remainder when one divides 5 by 2. If the roll had been a '4' one would count this as a '2'. In the case of 3 empty squares, one a '5' would count as a '2'. A '6' would count as a '3' and a '4' would count as a '1' (as in the queen roll, which will always have 3). This method will not work without bias when there are 4-6 legal squares remaining, and re-rolls must be employed. However, statistically speaking, fewer rolls will be necessary in such a case anyway. It is possible, though highly improbable, that one might require a very large number of rolls to finally 'nail down' a position for the rooks and bishops. But once they are placed, only 1 roll remains. What do you think? Brad Hoehne- Columbus, Ohio.
I searched all over the internet for basic information on Hexagonal chess and this one website gives me more information than all other websites combined!
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