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Comments by CharlesGilman
Five Tigers. A Chinese Chess variant with unequal armies. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]In response to the comments about Tigers inevitably moving into danger on their first move, note that a Tiger movew can tak two forms: moving one Tiger two steps, or moving two Tigers one step each. Thus the first Tiger move would normally be to move one each from the fourth to the firth rank. This would put them in a threatening rather than threatened position.
Carnival of the Animals. A nearly-FIDE variant with Eurofighter Pawns (first implementation on an 8x8 board) dice (two aside for preference) which mutate. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]That's a very good question. I'll have to think about it and update the page.
I've already got that one - it says 'without River'. that means that Bishops moving as Elephants can go to both halves of the board.
Alice Chess. Classic Variant where pieces switch between two boards whenever they move. (2x(8x8), Cells: 128) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well here's another approach to En Passant. Given that this is a special move comprising two 'normal' Pawns moves, should it be treated as such, with the first step taking it from its starting board to the other board and the second bringing it back? Were this the case an enemy Pawn capturing En Passant would have to do so as if the Pawn being captured, now back on the starting board, were on the other board having made only the first step. A question that follows is what about Castling, whose bar on moving can also be seen as a form of En Passant - and again the King makes two of its 'normal' moves. On the issue of the film, is anyone else surprised that in this age of gratuitous sequels the film conflates two quite distinct stories, even going beyond previous films in this respect by conflating two queens? You would think that this would be a golden opportunity to make two films, one for each book. Through the Looking Glass in particular has its own distintive (chess-related) plot structure that gets lost when the two storylines are merged.
Suffixing an integer with -leaper indicates the piece making all leaps of that length, and sandwiching between Root- and -leaper indicates the piece making all leaps the square root of that length. Substituting -rider for -leaper gives the rider of the same piece. Does anyone have an idea for a system for indicating a piece with all leaps of both length? Examples are, for increasing numbers on geometries where they are of interest: 2 Ferz+Dabbaba+Rumbaba (P) 3 Viceroy+Ninja+Trebuchet (C/T) 4 Rumbaba+Dabbaba+Sabbaba+Drummer+Cobbler (P) 5 Knight+Antelope+Quibbler (S/C), Knight+Antelope+Pentagram+Quibbler (T) 6 Sexton+Nhirolais+Bitrebuchet (C/T) 7 Sennight+Heptagram+Settler (H), Sennight+Foal+Heptagram+Molerat+Settler (P) 8 Heffalump+Elephant+Cubbaba+Safter+Cornettist+Bicobbler (P) 9 Ninja+Trebuchet+Oppossum+Ultimatum+Nhimois+Tritrebuchet (C), Ninja+Trebuchet+Ultimatum+Nhimois+Tritrebuchet (T) 10 Camel+Nharolais+Biquibbler (S/C), Camel+Nharolais+Pherolais+Biquibbler (T)
Peasant Revolt. Modest variant with unequal setup. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
The reason why the array
is less friendly to Black than it looks is twofold. Firstly, a Queen can be captured in one move whereas two Knights cannot. Secondly, Knights can be moved otu of camp straight away, whereas a Queen usually requires two moves: first a move either by a Pawn or to a camp square with a clear path, then a Queen move out of camp. The exception is that c7-c6 allows two Queen moves out of camp. This means that Knights can be developed more quickly, with Pawns only needing to be moved at all in order to prevent Checkmate once the Queens do break through. I suspect that Black might do better without the v7 and f7 Pawns, despite this making a still smaller army! Incidentally, how are Pawns promoted? If it's White to Knight and Black to Queen because that's what they start with, Black should be able to compensate for the slow development time and concentration of power, especially as their Pawns have necessarily been developed. If it's White to Queen and Black to Knight because that's what starts on their promotion ranks, Black is stuffed.
is less friendly to Black than it looks is twofold. Firstly, a Queen can be captured in one move whereas two Knights cannot. Secondly, Knights can be moved otu of camp straight away, whereas a Queen usually requires two moves: first a move either by a Pawn or to a camp square with a clear path, then a Queen move out of camp. The exception is that c7-c6 allows two Queen moves out of camp. This means that Knights can be developed more quickly, with Pawns only needing to be moved at all in order to prevent Checkmate once the Queens do break through. I suspect that Black might do better without the v7 and f7 Pawns, despite this making a still smaller army! Incidentally, how are Pawns promoted? If it's White to Knight and Black to Queen because that's what they start with, Black should be able to compensate for the slow development time and concentration of power, especially as their Pawns have necessarily been developed. If it's White to Queen and Black to Knight because that's what starts on their promotion ranks, Black is stuffed.
WWII Chess. Fight between a shogi and an orthodox chess army. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The problem with 4 Seasons with Xiang Qi and Shogi armies is fitting things in. My Pass Variants are 4-player corner versions of Xiang Qi and offshoots, but their boards are 10x10. A Shogi army would also have the issue of what forward would mean for the Gold and Silver, which can indeed cross the long diagonals.
Lance. Moves one or more squares straight forward.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This piece does indeed have connection with the Rook - it occupies the corners of the board, as the Rook does elsewhere, and both pieces' Shogi names refer to the Rook's origin representing a chariot. Given that link, it is strange that it gets called a Lance. Rooks (in any sense) don't have lances, knights do. I could understand if they'd called the next piece along a Lance - although to avoid confusion I avoid calling any piece Lance.
Yalta. A three player chess variant. (Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Regarding variants with even numbers of both ranks and files I agree with the previous comment. Odd numbers of either are slightly more complex. Nine-file variant can however be adapted for 4 players with each facing each across 3 files, as in my Flyover Shogi and Flyover Xiang Qi.
Chess with Promoters. Missing description (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It should be noted that while a player has their full complement of pieces the enemy Promoter cannot promote at all. What happens when a Pawn is promoted by the usual end-of-trek means and then captured? Can the enemy Promoter then promote to the piece to which the Pawn was promoted?
Chogi. A step further further to shogi from chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well if you want to get pedantic about the first use of the name Chogi on these pages, I would point out that it was the name of one of my Year of the Pig Variants of 2nd February 07 - very early in the last such year. By my calculation that precedes the Maxson variant (22nd July 07) by over 5 months and the Correia one (11th May 09) by 27. The pages on large Shogis identify Cho as an actual Japanese word, meaning boar.
As someone who actually found out about these pages while searching for 3d nomenclature I have always found it odd that anyone should want to go to four or more dimensions. We experience the world in just three spatial dimensions, so that's the most in which an accurate game board can be built. It is no accident that most 3d variants, including most of my own cubic ones, are designed for relatively few board sizes - 5x5x5, 8x4x4, 8x8x3, 6x6x6, 8x8x4, 8x8x8. They gravitate toward boards that might already have been built for some other game. This is one of the reasons why I have never considered 4 dimensions, either for my own variants or for piece names. Has anyone ever had a successful game of a 4d variant? I hope that Redistribution 3d Chess is a bit more than a 'name game' - a 3d contribution to the Short-range project, at least. Or are you referring to my recent process of moving 3d pieces round the alphabet in Man and Beast 18?
As someone who actually found out about these pages while searching for 3d nomenclature I have always found it odd that anyone should want to go to four or more dimensions. We experience the world in just three spatial dimensions, so that's the most in which an accurate game board can be built. It is no accident that most 3d variants, including most of my own cubic ones, are designed for relatively few board sizes - 5x5x5, 8x4x4, 8x8x3, 6x6x6, 8x8x4, 8x8x8. They gravitate toward boards that might already have been built for some other game. This is one of the reasons why I have never considered 4 or more dimensions, either for my own variants or for piece names. Has anyone ever had a successful game of a 4d variant? I hope that Redistribution 3d Chess is a bit more than a 'name game' - a 3d contribution to the Short-range project, at least. Or are you referring to my recent process of moving 3d pieces round the alphabet in Man and Beast 18?
Canvasser. 
Compound of Rook and Camel.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]While extrapolation issues make the name Goum unsuited to a radial-oblique hybrid, it has struck me as highly suited to replacing the unsatisfactory Hajji for the Camel+Antelope compound. For this reason I would like to know the name of this name's contributor so that I can credit you in MAB 03: From Ungulates Outward.
WWII Chess. Fight between a shogi and an orthodox chess army. (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Galachess has a bigger board, but still has the problem of a corner orientation and so of what 'forward' means for Shogi generals on this orientation. Also, what you do about the complication of pieces changing their move when they cross to the cruciform section of the board? Would you ignore it, or have pieces flip to other pieces of the same national game, or have orthogonal moves flip to diagonal analogues and vice versa, or what?
Snark Hunt. Variant with unequal armies on board with 41 squares, inspired by a poem of Lewis Carroll's. (6x8, Cells: 41) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The Beaver as described in my previous comment is now listed in my piece article Man and Beast 08: Diverse Directions, and as one of the forms taken by one of the mutating pieces in my year-of-the-Rat-themed variant Random Rodent Chess. The Man and Beast series has no Butcher yet, but it does have a Baker (Man and Beast 14: Oddly Oblique), Barrister and Bellman (Man and Beast 10: The Hybrid Diagonal), and Broker (Man and Beast 02: Shield Bearers). The Baker, Barrister, and Bellman are however specific to hex-prism boards and the Broker to boards other than the square-cell 2d one. In addition Man and Beast 21: Lords High Everything-Else has Bandersnatch, Jabberwock, and Jubjub versions of various pieces.
By now you may have noticed that my Barrister is different from the one here. This is perhaps a lesson is making names memorable. When I devised names for MAB 10 pieces I had certainly seen Snark Hunt Chess, but use of this name in it had slipped my mind. My own name for the Rook+Elephant compound, the Infanta, was deliberately chosen to have the mnemonic of the reputed origins of the pub name 'Elephant and Castle'.
I have recently been extending the number of compounds of two oblique pieces in my Man and Beast series, and am wondering how good some of the endings are. Apart from -u for a compound of duals and -an for the forward-only equivalents my current ending sets are -elle/-on/-or/-ace (fixed by the standard Gazelle and Bison), -ut/-in/-et/-al, -en/-ure/-ar/-ill, -ir/-um/-ede/-ave, -at/-ess/-up/-ad, -i/-ant/-o/-age, -ie/-and/-ulge/-est, -id/-ot/-ing/-y, -us/-ive/-ast/-ist, and the two one-offs -er/-ock and -ol/-ic. Both -ede and -ol seem to have a very limited range of words ending in them and have so far been used only for Helm+Quintet=Stampede, Propounder+Opossum=Protocol, and Genome+Gerbil=Genepool. I would therefore welcome any ideas for replacing these with more promising endings.
Redistribution 3d Chess. Relatively small 3d variant with short-range pieces including Pasha family. (4x(4x6), Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Give me a chance to answer already! As it happens I've been offline analysing your analysis:
'If I'm looking at this right, the Viceroy is not merely colorbound, but also rank-bound, visiting only 1 in 4 cells on the board.' It is not rank-bound but rank- (and filestack- and level-) switching. It always moves from an odd to an even plane or vice versa in all three dimensions. Nor is it colourbound in the same way as the Ferz. It is in fact bound to one quarter of each Ferz binding, rather than half of just one. A Dabbaba binding (on a cubic board) is the intersection of a Ferz and a Viceroy one.
'The Eunuch is colorbound, rankbound, and filebound, and given the particular geometry of this board, can only access 3 cells by itself.' True, but as the rules specify, it can never actually be by itself in this game.
'The Baron [FF'] and the Elk [AA'] can never get together to form their one allowable compound, the Imam, if I'm figuring the moves properly.' You're not, as the Baron, uniquely among two-component non-Wazir compounds, is unbound due to the Ferz and Viceroy bindings being independent. A Baron can reach an Elk square in two Ferz moves and a Viceroy one, without even interacting with another piece en route, e.g. a1-e2-j2-m1. Given that, are you now happy with the original array, or is your mind too blown to decide yet?
This all suggests that thinking of the Ferz, Viceroy, and Baron as variants of the same piece is not that helpful. Likewise for oblique directions the colourswitching 2:1:0 leaper, the 2d Knight, is a very different piece from a combined 2:1:1 and 2:2:1 leaper, let alone the compound of all three.
Demi chess. Chess on a 4 by 8 board. (4x8, Cells: 32) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Well my first suggestion of a Queen instead of a Bishop would still hold good, that's a piece in FIDE Chess.
Dual Direction Variants. Adding extra moves to pieces in historic forms of Chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]You have to read the 'Rules' section as well as the 'Setup' one. 'ABQ ... pieces ... can cross the River orthogonally or Knightwise but not diagonally or Camelwise.' In other words, the River blocks the Tanks from capturing the Queens as Arrows. Conversely you can safely advance the relevant Princeling leaving your Tank safe from attack by the Queen moving as a Bishop by the same River. I will get on to the Knight issue when I have had time to analyse it offline.
Alekhine Chess
. Named in honor of Alexander Alekhine, World Chess Champion 1927-1935, 1937-1946.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This variant escaped me in the past as it has no rules page. It has merit, if a quick and dramatic game is what players want, and I would normally rate it good. Unfortunately it has twice been rated Excellent by the inventor, which is generally looked down on, so I have used an Average rating to shift the average rating back toward the Good that the single rating, had things been done properly, would have been.
The idea of clipping off the simple-piece files is intersting as doing this and swapping the Marshals and Cardinals round would result in my independently-devised Overkill Chess, which produce the same compound pieces by adding moves to existing pieces rather than extra pieces from scratch.
Dual Direction Variants. Adding extra moves to pieces in historic forms of Chess.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]There are many interpretations of how the dual of the Mao move should work. My first thought was that the rotation-by-45° aspect would dictate starting with the diagonal step. Consider my Nested Xiang Qi in which, to replicate on the diagonals how the Mao moves on the orthogonals, 'In the stepping subvariant the move comprises a Ferz step to an empty square followed by a Dabbaba leap'. Fergus Duniho's Storm the Ivory Tower take yet another approach, using the Moa move which follows up the Ferz step with a single Wazir step, so that the full piece is effectively the Moo. At the time of invention a leaping move seemed more natural to me for oblique directions, as more direct than a move going through the heart of an 'off-route' square. Also, the Mao in the original Xiang Qi can cross the River by the disgonal part of its move, and Ifelt that a Mao compound of any kibd would complicate the rule against crossing the River diagonally.
Further to that rule, it occurs to me that this has some similarity to Jose Carrillo's Ajax Xiang Qi, which also restricts moves outside the conventional Xiang Qi pattern, but by making them strictly noncapturing.
Ajax Xiangqi. The Ajax 'effect' meets Chinese Chess. (9x10, Cells: 90) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Following a comment on my Dual Directional Variants, and Alibaba Qi in particular, it occurs to me that that variant too was one adding restricted extra moves to Xiang Qi pieces, explaining the attraction for me of applying the Ajax rule to Xiang Qi.
Double Chess. Play two Orthochess games at the same time, moving in either each move.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Are you saying that people who do like Chess variants are uneven people?
Redistribution 3d Chess. Relatively small 3d variant with short-range pieces including Pasha family. (4x(4x6), Cells: 96) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I still prefer my original array, as there is a method behind it, and will gladly give authorisation for an implementation based on this. As for your notation, why not go the whole hog and start from the orthogonal with Ferz as W', Viceroy as W'', Elephant as D', Eunuch as D'', and so on?
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