Ratings & Comments
Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
The depiction I was talking about, and S.Musser is talking about, is the unique illustration that is known of this game, the one on the codex
Link, please. I already hunted for a picture yesterday and came up with nothing. Your website included a link to another site, but that site was down, and archive.org wasn't very helpful.
Bear Chess. A popular Russian game; bears leap to second perimeter.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This appears to be a fine variant, in spite of the 2 unprotected pawns per side in the setup (that kind of helps make up for the 6 ranks distance between the initial pawn ranks, actually).
@ Greg:
Hi. One player mentioned to me that this preset doesn't seem to work perfectly. Namely only two-square K move to castle either side (i.e. not three-square K move to the queenside) has been allowed by it. Also, capturing by en passant isn't always allowed, I guess meaning if a 3-step pawn move is made by the opponent. Has this preset been tested for either of those possible problems? If not, please fix if you can, at your leisure.
K
. Adds rifle-capturing archers and royalty-inheriting princes.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]“Rook” is a mistranslation of an Old Arabic word for “Siege Tower” Could you elaborate on this? I don't see what you mean.
Delta-Nabla Chess. Chess translated to a triangular grid as naturally as possible.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]You understand correctly. Whether it's a feature or a bug is a matter of opinion I suppose. Pawns potentially getting stuck with only capturing moves is a natural consequence of a hexagonal board with players at opposite edges. Playtesting is probably the best way to determine whether that's an interesting new strategic consideration or just a nuisance.
If it is just a nuisance, then in place of castling, Delta-Nabla's own cludgy rule should probably be to give pawns the option of moving (without capturing) in the obliquely forward rook directions whenever they're not in a position to promote by moving directly forward, or perhaps only when the directly forward option is impossible due to reaching the board edge.
Vao. moves like bishop but must jump when taking.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
Dear Fergus
I'm glad you accept my first point.
For the second, you just repeat what I said, it is a name consistent with my tree of CV, so I don't see why you insist it is only consistent with myself. It is what I said. To elaborate more, I don't want to give another name to a piece I have used under this name on 6 or 7 other variants.
For the last and most interesting point, sure your objection is valid. Indeed a Bishop is not a Vao. But both are diagonal and this is just the starting point of the association I'm making. It is a thin point, but it is better than nothing and there are plenty CVs where there is no logic at all behind the naming of the pieces. The way you had chosen Arrow is very elegant, really. I have nothing against that. Few years ago when I was using a Vao I used to call it a Bowman, which is not so far from your idea. I have no problem you call this piece an Arrow, just let me call it a Crocodile if I like. (And Vao is not a good name imo, I would have say a Xao to look more Chinese and the X is better bearing the diagonal character than the V)
For the last point on Alfonso's codex, I worked very closely with Sonja Musser who got her PhD on this text and together we studied carefully the Spanish text (hablo español). Of course a Cocatrice is a mythical beast, and a Crocodile is a real animal. I know this. But in 1283 they didn't have Wikipedia, and behind many mythical beast there is sometimes a real animal, living in very remote lands, that could have inspired the legend. Interestingly, this is the case in this Codex with the Aanca, for the Unicornio and for the Cocatriz. About this animal the text says: E la otra que esta dell otro cabo del Rey a la mano derecha es a semeianca dela Cocatriz que es bestia & pescado. & esta es fecha como lagarto. & cria en las aguas dulces & sennalada mientre en el grant rio que llaman nilo. & ha tan grant fuerca que teniendo los dos pies de caga o la cola en el agua; no a cosa que tome en seco que non tire assi por fuerte que sea. & quando quiere tomar alguna cosa;
Sonja Musser translates as this: To the right of the [white] King is a Crocodile [The crocodile's piece is very realistically drawn] which is a beast and a fish like a lizard. It lives in fresh water, notably in the great river called the Nile. It is so strong that with two hind feet and its tail in the water that nothing it grabs on land can escape. Whenever it wants to grab something it pretends that it is looking somewhere else to lull it into a false sense of security and then it turns quickly and obliquely and goes after it until it captures it.
If you see a better description than a crocodile, tell us. The depiction I was talking about, and S.Musser is talking about, is the unique illustration that is known of this game, the one on the codex. Please refer to it, the drawing is small but it really looks like a crocodile. Everyone can check with good faith. We have this and no more than that.
Also you may understand that a given name of a mythical animal could refer to different representation for different people, different places, different times. A gryphon could have goat's legs here, a snake's tail there, etc.
Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
this is my variant. I name the pieces as I like. Plenty of other chessvariants have names for their pieces that I don't like. I beg you to respect my choice
Agreed. I respect the right of game creators to use the piece names they wish to.
I use the name of Crocodile for the Vao for several of my variants already published here and on my site. So, I wish to be consistent in the tree of my variants. See Zanzibar-S, Zanzibar-L, Maasai Chess, Teramachy, Gigachess II, Terachess II, etc.
While consistency makes sense, it is only consistency with yourself, and you retain the right to rename the piece in all your variants if you desire to.
Saying it has no sense is wrong and upsetting.
It would be wrong to say that you had no reason for the name, because of course you did. I can't speak for Theresa, but I was aware, more or less, of your reason for the name Crocodile. I just don't think it is a good one.
In Grant Acedrex (from 1283) there is a Crocodile, named Cocatrice to be precise in medieval Spanish but which is depicted as a crocodile in that codex. This piece plays as a modern Bishop. The diagonal move is the inspiration for the name of Crocodile in my variants. You can estimate that this reason is weak but it is not "no sense".
Okay, it is weak, and I will now back that up. First of all, I disagree with the principal that it is a good idea to intentionally name a piece after a different piece that moves similarly to it. To be clear, this is different than accidentally giving a piece the same name as another piece or intentionally giving a piece the same name as another piece despite that name already being in use. I consider a name already being used for another piece a prima facie reason against using the name. But as long as you have other good reasons for using a name, these reasons may override this reason against using the name and independently justify the use of the name. In this case, though, you have no independent reasons for using the name Crocodile. Your only reason is that the name was used for the Bishop, which moves in the same directions as the Vao. Since I would count this as a reason against using the name rather than as a reason for using it, I do not consider this a good reason for using the name.
Second, you are using a translation of the original name, and I do not trust your translation. Cocatrice (or cocatriz as I actually found it spelled in the text of the Grant Acedrex) is not the Spanish word for crocodile, which is actually cocodrilo. Both spellings, cocatrice and cocatriz, are suspiciously close to cockatrice, which is a mythical serpentine beast or dragon with two legs and the head of a rooster, and when I search for either term, that is what I get articles on. Although you claim that the Grant Acedrex depicts the cocatrice as a crocodile, I did not find any depiction of it in the images we have of it on this site. But if you have images we don't have, I would be happy to see them. Additionally, the Grant Acedrex has included the names of other mythical animals that you have translated into the names of real animals, such as AAnca and Vnicornio. I am suspicious of those translations as well. Naming pieces after mythical animals has not been uncommon. So, if a name in a historic text looks like the name of a mythical animal, that may well be what it is.
Finally, I did have very good reasons for selecting the name Arrow. My first idea for a name was the punny name of Canon, which is a kind of cleric whose name sounds like Cannon. But it's not really a good name for the piece in a game that already includes a Cannon, and I also decided to give it a Chinese name. For that, I chose the character 矢, whose meanings include both arrow and vow. The idea of an arrow fits with the idea of a cannon as a long-range projectile weapon that can go over the heads of others, and vow is a homonym for Vao, the name that the piece goes by in fairy chess.
The Sultan's Game. Variant on 11 by 11 board from 19th century Germany. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Bn Em wrote on Thu, Oct 21, 2021 12:24 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from Wed Oct 20 10:20 PM:Is that Tressau's interpretation? And do we know how much info the original sourcs gives on the matter?
After all if the latter does specify, as this article does, that both pieces move four spaces each, the Kc/i–Rd/h interpretation would make sense both in terms of preserving usual castling and lining up with the frequent use of inclusive counting (see also paragraph 4 of the Comments in Cazaux' page on Grant Acedrex)
Vao. moves like bishop but must jump when taking.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
Dear all. Few elements of answer:
- this is my variant. I name the pieces as I like. Plenty of other chessvariants have names for their pieces that I don't like. I beg you to respect my choice
- I use the name of Crocodile for the Vao for several of my variants already published here and on my site. So, I wish to be consistent in the tree of my variants. See Zanzibar-S, Zanzibar-L, Maasai Chess, Teramachy, Gigachess II, Terachess II, etc.
- Saying it has no sense is wrong and upsetting. In Grant Acedrex (from 1283) there is a Crocodile, named Cocatrice to be precise in medieval Spanish but which is depicted as a crocodile in that codex. This piece plays as a modern Bishop. The diagonal move is the inspiration for the name of Crocodile in my variants. You can estimate that this reason is weak but it is not "no sense".
Delta-Nabla Chess. Chess translated to a triangular grid as naturally as possible.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ben Reiniger wrote on Thu, Oct 21, 2021 02:50 AM UTC:Do I understand correctly that the edge pawns cannot promote without capturing? Is that a feature or a bug?
Vao. moves like bishop but must jump when taking.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
Calling the diagonal Cannon a “Crocodile” makes zero sense. I prefer Gilman’s term for the piece: Arrow.
Agreed, except that I introduced the name of Arrow in Yang Qi, and Gilman copied it. See Comment 14476 on the Yang Qi page.
Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
Calling the diagonal Cannon a “Crocodile” makes zero sense. I prefer Gilman’s term for the piece: Arrow.
The Sultan's Game. Variant on 11 by 11 board from 19th century Germany. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]K to b/j, R to c/i.
Bn Em wrote on Wed, Oct 20, 2021 06:06 PM UTC in reply to Georgi Markov from 04:35 PM:When saying ‘four squares’, is that counted inclusively or exclusively? In the former case, both king and rook moving ‘four’ squares each would in fact land next to each other, on the bishops and adjutant's squares on the queenside and the marshall's and knight's on the commanderside.
In fact, the rook - both here and in the Emperor's game - does end up next to the king. After Tressau's (and I believe this is the correct name, not Tressan: see Oettinger’s Bibliotheca Shahiludii) rules for the Sultan's game, K moves four squares towards R which lands on the adjacent square. Check the illustrative games in Tressau's book. I have a paper in press in the Board Game Studies Journal dealing with the Emperor's game and the Sultan's game which I hope will be published in 2022; will provide a link when it is.
Turkish Great Chess variation V. Large variant with three new pieces. (13x13, Cells: 169) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The rules above seem to be seriously flawed due to a series of errors in the literature. Please check our paper with Stefan Härtel in Board Game Studies Journal 14, pp. 43-60: https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/bgs-2020-0003
Russian fortress chess. An old Russian variant for four players. (Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Please check my 2015 paper on this game in Board Game Studies Journal 9, pp. 41-49: http://bgsj.ludus-opuscula.org/PDF_Files/41_49_Markov_web.pdf
As for "Tchigorin, Capablanca and Lenin": photos of Ulyanov's chess table on the internet show a board with 160 squares, i.e. the western variant with 3 additional rows, and no fortresses. Information on Capablanca, I suspect, is due to mixing up double chess (which Capablanca did play indeed), and four-handed chess. No idea about Tchigorin but I doubt it.
About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A. M. DeWitt wrote on Wed, Oct 20, 2021 04:06 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:55 AM:I saw your comment after I fixed the error in the preset's code, but thank you for posting the information anyway. I'm guessing the errors above the subroutine error in the log were the main cause of the Error 524 problem, but it could be that the preset was just so big that it took too long to spot the error and print the log. After all, Taishin Shogi's GC preset is the largest GC preset with full rule enforcement and display of legal moves that I know of (in terms of board size (25x25), number of piece types (232 in total), and number of lines of code (total is probably close to or over 1000 as of right now)).
Is it just me, or is the latest version of my Taishin Shogi GC preset overloading this whole site? Whenever I click on my settings file to play it, I get nothing but 524 errors for a while.
When I first tried loading it, I checked the error log and got
PHP Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/chessvariants/public_html/play/pbm/gamecode.php on line 2524
I fixed some of the errors above it, but I still get a maximum execution time exceeded error. There is one persisting and multiply-repeating warning that I think is due to your own code:
PHP Warning: Undefined array key 897 in /home/chessvariants/public_html/play/pbm/gamecode.php on line 1122
The line in question, line 1122, is part of the code for the "sub" command, which indicates the beginning of a subroutine definition, and it says:
$linenum = $links[$linenum];
This refers to an array that is calculated before any line of GAME Code is executed. This comes from analyzing the structure of the code. So, I would recommend looking for a structural problem in one of your subroutines. Perhaps a block of code wasn't closed off properly, causing endsub to not be expected yet when it appeared. The problem might be around line 897 of your code, since that was the value for $linenum in the warning that kept repeating.
A. M. DeWitt wrote on Tue, Oct 19, 2021 09:18 PM UTC:Is it just me, or is the latest version of my Taishin Shogi GC preset overloading this whole site? Whenever I click on my settings file to play it, I get nothing but 524 errors for a while.
I will admit that the thing is one of the biggest GC presets out there in terms of file size (if not the biggest) since there are so many piece types, as well as special promotion rules (i.e. contagious pieces), and all manner of multi-part moves, but I haven't had problems like this before.
Edit: I found the problem. It was a tiny syntax error in the isdoublemove subroutine. Everything works fine now.
Pemba. Extension of Shako, with 60 pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Dear editors I believe this page, Pemba, is ready to be published. Thank you
Pemba. Game Courier Preset to play Pemba, 60 pieces on the decimal board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Dear editors I believe this page, GC to play Pemba, is ready to be published. Thank you
Zillions of Games. It can play an endless variety of abstract board games, and we have a large collection of Chess variants you can play on it.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Guess I could try emulating windows 95
I don't think that will help. I think you just need to coordinate with another person who is willing to play against you at a certain time.
Guess I could try emulating windows 95
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The Edit Comment scripts aren't working properly. Whenever I try to edit a comment it fails. Posting comments still works though.
Until I'm feeling better, I have simply reverted this to Sunday's version. I have been having fever symptoms. I had chills last night, and now I'm feeling too warm. I will continue debugging code when I'm feeling better.
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Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
I assume JL means this one? His page includes it thrice: that ‘close‐up’ at the beginning of the Rules section, the full page featuring it after the list of volumes in Alfonso's book, and a reproduction on a commemorative stamp at the end of the page