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Diamond Chess 306. Missing description (22x24, Cells: 306) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝David Cannon wrote on Sat, Jul 3, 2010 01:47 PM UTC:
The short answer is no. The Princess belongs to the 'slider' family and the Zealot to the 'crooked slider' family. The Lance shares membership of both families and can therefore be assimilated by members of either family - as a simple piece. But when it is part of a compound, it can be assimilated only by members of the same family. Therefore, a Princess cannot assimilate the Lance part of the Zealot to become a Queen.

You may ask why this fussy distinction. There are two reasons. The first is that I could either allow every piece to assimilate every other piece, or I would have to draw the line somewhere. The first option would create such a huge number of pieces that even I wouldn't be able to remember them all. The second option, which I chose, means that some arbitrary distinctions have to be made. I settled on confining assimilation to within 'families' - and in the case of families whose membership partially overlaps, a certain degree of subjectivity creeps in.

The second reason for this is programming. There were a number of things I would have liked to do, but the limitations of Zillions (or, rather, of my knowledge of it) forced compromises. The case you mentioned is one, although I think I would now be able to work around it if I was so inclined. I may may tweak the program that way when I get around to it.