Comments by BobGreenwade
What if, instead of trading places with the Prince, the checkmated King simply teleported to the Prince's location, destroying the latter? (I really don't know if the ID can handle this as-is.)
I was thinking automatically, though if the ID doesn't support it I might as well go back to the original rule of the Prince becoming King automatically when the King is captured.
Short Sliders. Pieces are initially limited to 4 spaces (if that), and promote to longer moves. (12x16, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Actually, I'm now contemplating the idea a third promotion level for the Beast and Leader pairs, where the 6 would simply be dropped. The Leaders would clearly become the Chancellor (RN) and Archbishop (BN), but what about the Beasts? Do RFN and BWN already exist anywhere (with animal names)? While I'm actually leaning against this change, (and I defimitely won't do it if these don't already exist), I do have a general interest in this so any help would be appreciated.
Addendum: I did find the Crown Princess (BWN) and Archchancellor (RFN) in Teutonic Knight's Chess, by way of the Popess (BWN) and Heroine (RFN) in Very Heavy Chess. Those aren't animal names, though; I can't find any that go that route, and I'm really not inclined to invent something, so this change will almost certainly not happen.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The logic behind it is a very simple, "The King is dead! Long live the King!" In reality, the death of a king makes the prince into the new king; this simply replicates that. (A similar, if slightly spurious, logic appliess to the Princess's advancement to Queen on the Queen's capture.)
That's not what Tamerlane II succession does. In Tamerlane II, as you already described, when the King is in a checkmate position the player may exchange the King's location with the Prince's. This is, basically, abdication in favor of the selected Prince; the King becomes a Prince, and may remain in play. What I described is the King being removed, automatically making the Prince into the King, kind of like what recently happened with Elizabeth II and Charles III.
Anyway, the Nightrider problem was a matter of me miscounting. It should be fixed now.
Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]By "automatic promotions," are you referring to immediate promotion on entering a promotion zone, on the piece in question making a capture, or on another piece being captured? The Prince promotion in Vanguard Chess is an example of the latter, but I've also occasionally seen rules like, "The Pawn promotes to any piece that's been captured; if there are none, then the Pawn stays where it is until one's available, at which time the Pawn promotes immediately and automatically."
The Wizard/Sorcerer/Thaumaturge relationship in Short Sliders is also something that I'd like to see available, though if it's too complex I totally understand.
It'd also be good if certain pieces that can take a turn without actually moving (such as the Zero or the Bomb) could, when clicked, bring up a button asking if that's what the player wants to do (possibly as a spell or something similar).
"Starts Off Board" would be a great addition! It'd make something like Short Sliders a lot easier to create. It'd also be a good step toward adding a "drop" feature later.
The problems you describe with the "drop" feature are pretty close to what I suspected. That's why I said it would be "later." (And since I have yet to even think of a game that uses it, I'm in no hurry for it myself.)
If you ever do start working on it, I think some of the load can be taken by keeping a running score for each square for how useful a certain move (of one space) from that square would be for a drop. Something similar could also be done for how vulnerable the space is, and from what direction; this could evaluate how useful the space is as a block (since a drop can also be used to block a slider's or rider's move from check or capture). Those functions, which would activate only if drops are active, and could be calculated for each combination of piece and open space. That method is kind of crude and rough compared to "evaluating the future," but it's a possibility.
I suppose I could let the user enter the matrix per row, and then assign that row to a piece (the moving piece). Then there could be an Nx2 auxiliary board displayed, which on the upper rank shows all participating piece types, and pieces could be dragged to the lower rank to indicate what the moving piece should change to when it captures the piece displayed above it.
This does strike me as a very useful method. The matrix would be a separate table, I take it?
Well, I'm back from the convention, so it's time to get back to annoying people with my Piece of the Day.
71. Double Cross. After working out the Vivi (#57), I thought I'd experiment a bit with 135-degree turns, and this was the only one that really seemed to work. The Double-Cross starts its move one space to the left or right, then may stop there or turn 135 degrees to slide diagonally like a Bishop. ([sW?bB])
Notably, while the spaces directly in front and behind are a part of the piece's move, they can only be reached if the space to the left and/or the right are open; the Double Cross cannot go directly to those spaces.
I think this would be an interesting substitute for a Bishop in a Chess With Different Armies setup, in a game where the player otherwise only gets one (since the Bishop is colorbound whereas the Double Cross is color-switching), or similar situations.
The piece design echos the move diagram, so that the name Double Cross applies equally well to both.
Short Sliders. Pieces are initially limited to 4 spaces (if that), and promote to longer moves. (12x16, Cells: 192) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The significance of using animal names in this context is that these two pieces are the "Beast" pair. I'd feel silly using the Teutonic Knight or Very Heavy Chess names and calling them beasts.
Note that, as H.G. suggests, the beasts aren't necessarily of the same family: already it's Kirin -> Tiger -> Unicorn and Phoenix -> Elephant -> Buffalo. If they went on to be Penguin and Tasmanian Devil or even Babe the Blue Ox and the Loch Ness Monster, it wouldn't be out of place.
PS: Not that it matters so much, but I still favor "Abbess" over "Popess." :)
I looked things up a while back, and Abbess is actually the highest rank for a woman (that is, specifically female) in the Catholic Church. There are a few women who have been ordained as bishops; the more-or-less nickname "womanbishop" (an extension of the movement name Roman Catholic Womenpriests, or RCWP) would be a bit awkward, I think.
And just musing here, but I may go ahead and make pieces for Babe and Nessie -- though probably quad-sized.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In the rule as you see it Bob, I understand that the checkmated King is removed but no attacking piece is moving on its square. Imagine White King is checkmated and that, in checkmating, Black is eating a piece. As he also removes the white King, Black is actually taking 2 pieces in a single move. That was probably my problem. This is why, I said that the White King is becoming a White Prince.
In the rule as I'm trying to implement it, for the succession on White's side to be triggered, Black has to actually take a turn to capture the White King. Then the White Prince immediately becomes the White King.
This is part of why I'm wanting to also implement the King and Prince as both royal, at least for purposes of the extinction royalty rule.
I don't quite know the rule for declaring check or checkmate with extinction royalty, but my take on it is that it isn't required (except on the last one) but is good to do as a courtesy.
In any event, if the White King is in check, then the White player is strongly encouraged to get it out, though if he has a better move (such as capturing the Black Prince, or otherwise doing serious damage to Black) then he may take that. Likewise, Black is not required to take the White King if he has an opportunity, though he may also find something better to do (like capture or trap the White Prince, capture the White Queen, or just leave the White King where it is because if the White Prince promotes to King it'll be in position to move and capture something in an orthogonally neighboring space that Black doesn't want captured). Only when the Prince is off the board, either by being captured or by promoting to King when the King is captured, do normal check/checkmate rules apply for that side.
That means that, if White still has his Prince and Black doesn't have his, White can deal with his King being in check by putting Black's King in check. Black is then obligated to get his King out of check.
And, as I mentioned, the promotion of Prince to King only (and immediately) happens when the opponent actually makes the move of capturing the King.
So, basically, your scenario is correct but for a couple of minor details, the main one being those generated by the extinction royalty rule.
Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I experimented a bit using the opening position for Short Sliders, and the capture matrix looks great. I'm only unsure about how to enter information for more than one capturing piece, but that can come as you develop it.
I also don't think I quite understand how to keep a piece available without including it in the opening setup, but that's more likely because of me (unless you haven't implemented that yet).
To get it to fit, maybe you could put the morph board information on the left; if nothing else, that'll move the capture matrix up a bit. You could also put it in its own frame or something, like the piece list is, so that any left-to-right scrolling from having a massive number of pieces only has to affect the matrix itself.
(Of course I wish there were more symbols available on the diagram... but then, I would, wouldn't I?)
Update: I figured out how to make pieces available without having them in the opening setup. I was right; my brain just wasn't processing it right.
Would it be possible to have a check box to the right of the piece selection for pieces to keep? The box would be automatically checked (and greyed-out to prevent from being unchecked) when the piece is on the board for setup.
As for reverting a cell on the capture matrix to empty, perhaps that could be done by simply clicking on the space when the piece selected is already there? Or with a right-click? Or by putting a Hole in that spot, and then double-clicking the hole?
Tangentially, maybe the "more rules" section could also include a box to specify Royal piece(s)?
Another tangent: Is there any way to add graphics to this? Besides not seeing an antelope, bison, or buffalo, I'm surprised to see zebrabishop but not zebrarook or zebraqueen (or camelqueen, while I'm at it). There are a handful of others in Short Sliders and other games that just don't fit with any of the existing graphics.
72. Colonel. There are many possibilities for military ranks in chess games; there certainly are plenty of them. In fact, I have piece designs for every rank from Soldier and Corporal up to Brigidier and General. But the Colonel is the interesting one for today. It moves to any adjacent space, or three spaces forward and one to the side. (KfC)
If you think you can see how I came up with that, you're probably right.
I'm building the "officer rank" pieces out of just putting the modern-day rank insignia on top of a base and stem, the latter of increasing height as the rank increases.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H.G., when you have a minute or two, could you take a look at this game's ID? I fixed the Wizard, and I think I got the Royalty right, but I'm really unsure about the Helepolis.
Play-test applet for chess variants. Applet you can play your own variant against.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The advantage of a checkbox per piece is that you can see at any time whether it is checked, though. But this could also be indicated by, say, changing the background color of the piece name in the table.
That would work great! (Personally I'd prefer light green.)
Eventually I will need some additional buttons anyway, to indicate other things than a piece or a hole. E.g. check and win squares for the morph board, evaporate / explode for the capture matrix. 'Blank' could be another button in that group.
Yeah, that makes more sense.
You don't have to leave the whole job to it, and it would be easy to edit the HTML code afterwards, e.g. to replace some of the graphics by images outside the alfaeriePNG35 directory. Even to images you uploaded yourself.
That would be great; I didn't know I could direct some of the graphics to another directory. Is there a tutorial or guide or anything for doing that?
Yeah, sticking that information under Pieces on the Interactive Diagrams page would be helpful. :)
Thanks. I think I can make some better-looking diagrams for both Vanguard and Short Sliders now, and possibly others as well.
Vanguard Chess. Game on 16x16 board, with 48 pieces per player. (16x16, Cells: 256) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Royalty: Excellent!
Helepolis: OK, I think I've got it. I'll fix that presently. The move as described should be RcamfRipfmRsb(caf)14R, right?
The ipfmR part should be idaufmR, then. I was actually more worried about the sb(caf)14R part, but apparently that's OK. :)
Many thanks for all your help on this!
Addendum: I have it now looking like I think it should. Now to work on the Game Courier code....
And, after evaluating the Teutonic Knight (from Teutonic Knight's Chess), I've decided to use its WNC move as a more appropriate expansion for the Knight in this game than the Aurochs. (Plus, it's still a Knight by name.)
Teutonic Knight's Chess. Played on an oblong board with rarely used pieces: The teutonic knight, the archchancellor and the crown princess. (8x10, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I was looking for a good way to expand the Knight for Vanguard Chess, I've decided to use the Teutonic Knight.
Piece-nik that I am, though, I also wanted a good FNZ piece to go with it, which I decided to name Calatravan Knight (because Hospitaller and Templar were taken, and the Order of St. James didn't lend itself well as a piece name).
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I plan to just go with a conventional "extinction royalty" rule, possibly with an added rule that the King has to move out of check if possible. Even with that change, though, the automatic promotion of the Prince to King upon the original King's capture makes your second paragraph still correct.