🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, May 15, 2023 08:33 PM UTC:
It turns out that Abbott has included a copy of the original 1962 article on Ultima on his website, and I have now added a link to it. Here is what it says on the object of the game:
KING: The king moves and captures in exactly the same fashion as the chess king. The object of the game is to capture this king. The same rules for declaring check apply as in chess.
One could get the impression from this description that the object is just to capture the king, as this does not explicitly mention checkmate or stalemate. If Abbott was referencing this version of the rules, he could have misremembered the object of the game. Since a change in object has not been mentioned as one of the changes between the 1963 and 1968 editions, I am assuming until I learn for sure otherwise that the 1963 edition specifies checkmate and stalemate as the winning conditions. Also, if it "moves and captures in exactly the same fashion as the chess king," it could not move into check.
It turns out that Abbott has included a copy of the original 1962 article on Ultima on his website, and I have now added a link to it. Here is what it says on the object of the game:
One could get the impression from this description that the object is just to capture the king, as this does not explicitly mention checkmate or stalemate. If Abbott was referencing this version of the rules, he could have misremembered the object of the game. Since a change in object has not been mentioned as one of the changes between the 1963 and 1968 editions, I am assuming until I learn for sure otherwise that the 1963 edition specifies checkmate and stalemate as the winning conditions. Also, if it "moves and captures in exactly the same fashion as the chess king," it could not move into check.