Comments by BobGreenwade
Antelope. 
Makes (3,4)-jump.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]PS: If (2,4) is a Hare, then I suppose (2,4)(3,4) would be a Jackalope.
New Submissions for Review. A listing of all submissions still awaiting editorial approval.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Clearly, there's a bit of a backlog. :)
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Re: the position-swapping Wizard:
Nah. Not this time.
Royal Lion Chess. Chess with a Royal Lion and many strong pieces. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I, for one, like the looks of this game. I think I'd want to play it on 10x10, but that's my own extension of your variant.
(PS: Paladin has one L.) :)
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well, I can take the point-value chart off, if that's an issue, or put in a note about it being controversial or not strictly reliable, or some such. I frankly would've gone with some other point-assignment system (either instead or in addition) if I could find one, especially one that takes board size into account. (If you know of any, please provide a link! Or, maybe I'll try to figure one out for myself some time.)
As for Lioneer vs Queen, I happen to believe that, even on this 16x16 board, the value is pretty close, given that the Lioneer can double-capture. And its move past the first circle is only blocked by friendly pieces; enemy pieces are subject to capture, and the lack of a leap is the only real difference from the Chu Shogi Lion. The Lioneer may cover a relatively small part of the board at any given time, but it's very powerful within its scope. The Queen may be a good piece for offense, but I can see how, in a midgame, a well-positioned Lioneer can be a good defensive piece, keeping mid-range opponents at bay.
Regarding the Helepolis, I went with WDH because the Rook jumping the first square was too similar to the basic Rook, giving the latter piece no advantage over the former. Given the size of the board, though, I could WDH followed by a four-square slide, sort of splitting the difference. (It's in the same way that I'd give the Archer only two spaces diagonally on an 8x8 board, but am leaving it 3 for one of this size. If there were only two of them, it'd be 4.)
As for the value of the Comments section, I think the value here is much greater to the author than to the general reader. The latter person might or might not even think to read the Comments (I often don't, unless there's a point to be made and I want to see if someone already made it). An author who's on the ball will address any points within the text, and never assume that a reader will read them.
Rather than writing for "most readers," I tend to write these things with the assumption that the reader is fairly familiar with chess in general, but new to the idea of chess variants (which happens to be fairly close to where I am right now). That is to say, I don't "dumb down" the text, but I don't assume a lot of experience either.
Helepolis: The WDH might be an "interesting" piece, but how effective is it on a 16x16 board? For the Helepolis, it has a trade-off of range vs. the ability to leap, and 3 spaces is good for an 8x8 or even 12x12 board, but how does it play on a 16x16? That said, there's the saying, "It's not the size that matters; it's what you do with it." A well-placed slow-mover, such as the Knight in standard chess, can make a huge difference if it's well placed and can do something the other pieces can't (in this case, leap orthogonally). Based on that, I'll leave it as simply WDH for now, but I'm open to add a slide (or a fourth space for the leap) if it's recommended.
Lioneer: Yes, the Lioneer was always able to double-capture, from the beginning. Unfortunately, the Musketeer Board Painter (which I use because everything else is awkward for me) has a very limited palette of symbols for moves. And after playing a couple of Jocly games with a similar piece, I've started to think of the Lion as strong defensive piece, rather like a 6'8" offensive linebacker; working with other team members, I'd double-dog-dare any other piece to come close.
Piece value: I didn't know that about the ID. I'll give that a close look further into the week (as in, not today, but before Saturday and maybe as early as tomorrow). In the meantime, I'll put in a disclaimer about the GPCS.
When I say "everything else," I mean everything else. That includes MS Paint and even Gimp. I might be able to draw stars there, but with my neurology, wish me luck in getting them even reasonably centered on the square.
As for range, H.G., you're not wrong (since you're obviously more experienced in this stuff than I ever will be), and I'm starting to think that a board only 12 deep might work better. That, or add another level to the Lioneer and Helepolis.
I think I'd want to rename the Lioneer and make it a whole new piece if I gave it three moves, though. I could go with Ninja, Samurai, or Berserker... leaning toward Berserker. (And I'm kind of warming to the idea, too.)
I decided to go ahead and upgrade to the triple-capturing Berserker. When I make the graphic, I'll only put the circles in the outermost ring; and then, yes, if you would be so kind as to fill the two inner rings with stars so the diagram is clear, I would appreciate it.
With the inclusion of the Interactive Diagram (which I, and hopefully other visitors, will use to test things out), I've not only included the Berserker, but also simplified the Falconer so it leaps to its destination. I might return the Falconer to its previous "alphabet soup" movement pattern, but this will do for now.
There; the Lioneer is now the Berserker (which I think makes more sense in "game-world" terms) and the Falconer is simplified.
The Helepolis in the ID is WDHWX, so I may change it to that in the description too, or take the WX out of the program, depending on how well it goes over. (It basically turns it into a leaping Half-Rook.)
After playing a couple of rounds, I can see two things:
1. The Berserker may be too powerful; it can Mate the King by itself, even with a bunch of other pieces nearby. Compound leapers would be needed to defend (maybe replacing one Archer on each side?), so it may go back to being a Lion, but just a straightforward Chu Shogi Lion.
I may still use the Berserker somewhere, but with plenty of compound leapers like the Bison, Auroch, Impala, Wyvern, Zebu, Jackalope (Antelope/Hare), etc. to defend against it.
2. Putting the Generals in the same column as the King and Queen may be a mistake; moving the King's Sergeant puts the King in Check. I may move those Generals to the outside, and line all the Archers up in a row.
I've returned the Berserker to the Cho Shugi Lion moves, but retained the Berserker name because it fits this army so much better. (The move diagram still needs those stars, please, Mr. Editor!)
There was no need to move the Generals; I'd absentmindedly had them programmed as leapers instead of sliders. That's fixed now.
I also gave the Knights a bit of extra range, both to help deal with the larger board and to help deal with the Berserkers.
And while I haven't changed the text description yet, I've also restored the Wizard's leaping, and given it the ability to swap with a friendly piece.
Depending on how well these things go over, I'll update the Wizard's text (or its moves on the IG) and the Helepolis's moves (to reflect the added (0,4) leap) tomorrow.
Betza notation (extended). The powerful XBetza extension to Betza's funny notation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Here's a simple idea for Immobilizing: x0 -- basically, "exciting" with a zero move. My Jellyfish could then be mKx0K, while the classic Immobilizer would be mQx0K.
It would default to a passive ability to all squares, but something like mx0 could make it something deliberate affecting only one piece, until the piece doing the Immobilizing either moves or is captured, or until the target piece is passively moved (such as with a displacement or relay). So, a Wizard able to do this into his own moves would be FCmx0Fmx0C.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I've edited the Wizard and Helepolis, as promised. I also figured out a better way to represent the Archer's rifle captures, and a semi-decent symbol for the Berserker's intermediate stops.
I'm now toying with the idea of restoring the Berserker's third move of terror, but also replacing two of the six Archers with Bowmen (and I'm glad Fergus never got around to deleting that page).
I'm hesitant on the first one, as it can become a true terror with a three-move range.
Bowman. Moves as knight, and takes a piece that is an additional knightsmove in same direction away.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Mild objection; I'm planning to use this piece in at least one of my variants.
But, as I say, the objection is mild; I can live without it.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A few more test runs tell me that the Berserker is just fine as a renamed Lion; the computer treats it as a powerful defensive piece, which is what I'd hoped for. I'll try to figure out something for the full-on three-move Berserker at some later date (and I do have a specific idea or two).
I did decide to throw in the Bowman, though, and there's at least one good result: I'd badly screwed up the Black side of the previous Setup chart, and had to redo it anyway.
Betza notation (extended). The powerful XBetza extension to Betza's funny notation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ah, I'm starting to understand it now. (The "spell" has no automatic entry, and must be entered onto the code manually; that's what threw me.)
Interactive diagrams. Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]A couple of questions:
1. I'm not quite clear on how to apply some of these parameters. My guess, from reading this, is that making a royal Prince (symbol Pr) I'd just have a line royal=Pr, but the text here says it should be a number for the piece type, and I have no clue how to find that. Or is it something that I add to the piece description?
2. Is it even possible to set up a rule that "if piece A is captured, piece B immediately promotes to A"? (It looks to me that it is not.)
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]My test games since I added the Bowman have been pretty good, but I'm not sure I coded it right. I have it as NafcabN, and the illustration looks right, but it doesn't seem to behave that way in practice on the ID.
Other than that, there's only the matter of handling the royalty and (if possible) capture-promotion rules, and that part's good to go.
I'm also toying with the idea of replacing the outer remaining archers with alibabas, both for better variety and because I really love the image of an elephant with a turret. I'd probably want to add a W or F to the move so they're not limited to just 1/4 of the board, and of course the Archers would get one more space to their diagonal.
(Normally I'd code Archers as mF2caibN, but they're mF3caibN here because of the much-larger board. I'm talking about mF4caibN in exchange for reducing their numbers. I probably could also go with mF3caibNcaibZ, though I think that's probably a bit much.)
I decided against the Alibaba, because of the issue of its move limiting it to 1/4 of the board. The Archers are adequate. So, unless there's any other feedback, that's the last rule change.
I still need to figure out how to express the promotion rules for Pawns, Soldiers, and Sergeants, and make sure that the Bowman behaves properly, but otherwise I think the ID is good too.
OK, I think you'll like this, H.G.
In my test games, I noticed that the AI never brought out its Helepolises, and I got a good look at what the real deal was like. It seems to me that it should be able to move like a Rook, but with the added ability that it can do a locust capture on an enemy piece in its path -- though of course I'd limit it to just one capture per move. I'm not sure, but I think this would be coded RcamfR. If I add the ability to jump over a single piece without capturing on the initial move, I think that would make it RcamfRipfmR. (I want to confirm that before I make the change, so I have it coded right in the IG.)
Man and Beast Overview and Glossary. Table summarising what piece characteristics Man and Beast articles cover, with glossary of terms used to describe pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Charles, I really like this series of articles, at least in principle; the main problem is that I find many of the long, run-on paragraphs very hard to wade through.
Would you mind terribly if I were to take the text and play "Editor" on it, formatting it into an easier-to-read (and comprehend) document? I could just email the result to you, and let you take full credit if you like.
If you'd like I could even put it together into a PDF file (again, emailed directly to you), suitable for self-publishing somewhere like Lulu, Amazon, etc.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating] Man and Beast Overview and Glossary. Table summarising what piece characteristics Man and Beast articles cover, with glossary of terms used to describe pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks for the info, Bn Em.
I probably will go ahead and do the editing pass myself by year's end, if only for my own use.
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I don't remember asking, but I'll take a look at those.
PS: I changed the name of what was the Virtuoso (QNN) to Centauride, and gave the explanation.