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Comments by TonyPaletta
[Sorry I accidently posted my last comment under a 'Fergus' thread (Game Courier), rather than the 'Constitutional Characters' thread.] Fergus, The fact that I can use 'the shortest possible distance between two points on the surface' to connect points on both planes and spheres does not tell me that it is appropriate to refer to both types of constructions as 'straight lines'. [and now, new comment] Peter, Interestingly, in his earlier (more informal, mass market) 'Brain Games', (Penguin Books, 1982) Pritchard used 'files' and 'lines' in describing the paths in Glinski's 'Hexagonal Chess', rather than 'orthogonals' and 'diagonals'.
Fergus, Both the Bishop and the Rook do indeed have orthogonal lines of movement. I touched on this this in a 12-13(?) comment directed to Charles concerning why Rooks, and not Bishops, are usually described as are orthogonal movers; basically, my answer was that its a convention -- meaning a tradition -- and a bow to common usage; since Bishops are described as diagonal movers it seems relatively harmless to describe Rooks as orthogonal movers. In fact Solomon Golomb (who developed Cheskers, Pentominoes and was a leading light in recreational math), in a write-up on Cheskers, once described Bishops as Rooks on the 32-space board formed by one color of the chessboard, and Camels (Cooks in 'Cheskers') as Knights on the same board. I certainly don't find it a problem to think of Bishops as orthogonal movers, and I think any rule that uniquely identifies Rooks and not Bishops with 'the possible set of orthogonal movement patterns' would be somewhat deficient, since they are simply rotations. [Aside: I have used the 'Cheskers' game as an inspiration for a very odd game called 'Dichotomy Chess' (modest - goal variant), where I also tacked on a Dabbaba-rider + Ferz (B+K on 32!)]. My comment about 'straight lines'? It illustrates a construction guideline that does give rise to straight lines in one context (planes) and arcs in other (spheres), even though we might have been trying for 'meaning the same thing' and used a rule that is used to produce straight lines in planes. I certainly don't consider straight lines and arcs the same thing -- and I don't feel a need to call them both straight lines, or both arcs. They are simply analogous with respect to the rule of construction, but do not fully represent the same meaning. Walking the 'straight-lines' over to the orthogonal discussion: a rule that does produce paths of orthogonal movement on a square-grid and can be applied to produce paths on a hex-grid does not replicate orthogonal movement on the hex-grid -- it produces sets of movement paths through a point that are orthogonal on square-grids boards, but not on hex-grids. Analogous with respect to the rule of construction (and even using the word right angle -- so it must be legit?) if we apply the rule to square- and hex-grids, but producing results not reflecting the same type of thing. On a hex-grid, the simplest orthogonal movement pattern involves an 'edge-path' and a 'point-path' (e.g., vertically and horizontally on the Glinski board). A while ago (few weeks), I indicated to Charles G. that this is a mapping of a standard Bishop (e.g., from a chessboard rotated 45 degrees) that was 'halfbound' as opposed to the 'thirdbound' pattern of g-Bishops. To try and wrap up my end of this discussion of 'angles dashing from a hex in a plane'. There exists a usage convention (tradition with a group of supporters) for using 'orthogonal' and 'diagonal' to describe some possibly paths on a hex grid. The usage (1) isn't especially apt, since it conflicts in some important ways with the usual meaning of orthogonal and diagonal in both chess and mathematics (especially plane geometry) and (2) suggests a 'rightness' (based on the analogy to standard chess) that is misguided, a frequent source of confusion, and somewhat stifling for developing other approaches to hex chess. I therefore feel its a usage ripe for replacement.
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