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Here is a Fairy-Stockfish variant file that I made for the variant. Despite the E and Elephant symbol, these pieces are still princes (princE). It might not be 100% accurate, but this should be incredibly similar to the actual variant, as there are essentially no differences between promoting the princes to kings to win (by getting them directly to the last rank) or merely getting the princes to the end of the board (the last rank) to win. This variant also has defined castling rules.
[chessii:janus] startFen = rnbeqkebnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBEQKEBNR w KQkq - 0 1 customPiece1 = e:WF pieceToCharTable = PNBRQ............E...Kpnbrq............e...k castlingKingsideFile = i castlingQueensideFile = c whiteFlag = *8 blackFlag = *1 flagPiece = e maxFile = 10 archbishop = - promotionPieceTypes = rnbq
This is meant to be used with https://fairyground.vercel.app/, and should be pasted into a file called variants.ini, before loading the variants.ini file into the website.
In the variant: "moves along/across files" for the prince. Does that mean "along files and across ranks"? Cause this is a bit of contradiction and I see the prince piece as either a 2-square queen or a 2-square queen that cannot move horizontally in this variant. I'm hoping it's just a 2-square queen. Anyway I like the basic form and the variant where there are multiple kings. Feels like playing sho shogi again.
Game looks promising. Since players can win in two different ways, they can work on two strategies/fronts simultaneously during a game unlike in ordinary chess. Is the game available commercially?
Michael Farris wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2004 04:54 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★I am going to try this game. Is there yet a place on the web (besides Zillions of Games--I don't yet have this program, though I would like to get it) to play this variant? Any gamescores to date that anyone would like to offer up?
Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Apr 24, 2004 06:25 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★A clarifiaction is needed on castling: is it the distance moved by the King or by the Rook that is th same as in FIDE Chess?
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The article is a bit vague about the castling and promotion rules. The choices you made in the FSF settings (O3 castling and no promotion to Prince) seem the logical ones, though.
Anyway, I put in some section headings, and added an Interactive Diagram in the Setup section, playing by these rules.
And you are right: this 'promotion to King' business seems a bit nonsensical: you simply win by reaching the last rank with a Prince, so there is no need to change it for another piece. There is a question, though, whether it is allowed to promote it on a square attacked by the opponent. In the Diagram I programmed it as an immediate win, because the rules explicitly say that you can expose a Prince to capture. But if you would really promote it, it would no longer be a Prince, and you would have exposed the resulting King to capture. So this 'promotion to King' could be just be a roundabout way of saying that this is a delayed winning condition, where you have to survive the opponent's 'after-move' in order to win (like in King of the Hill). But this interpretation is subverted by the mention of the first variant, which uses the resulting King as extinction royalty, so that it could be exposed to capture.