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Way of the Knight ZIP file. Pieces with experience levels: a `role playing variant'.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Fri, Dec 27, 2002 01:38 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
This .zrf file plays WOTN well, but has two noticable bugs:

* The color scheme of the board is hard on my eyes.

* A king can capture the other King; this makes it impossible to checkmate
the person whose king was captured.

I have resolved both of these issues, and will place a fixed version on my
web page (http://www.samiam.org) momentarily.

Here is a UNIX-style patch which resolves the king-catpures-king issue,
basically remove lines with a '-' at the beginning of them and add lines
with a '+' at the beginning of them:

--- wotn.zrf.orig       Thu Dec 26 17:24:00 2002
+++ wotn.zrf    Thu Dec 26 17:30:17 2002
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@
 (define CQ-add (high-king-capture) (if (and enemy? (not-piece? Pawn)
(not-piece? Squire) (not-piece? Deacon) (not-piece? Knight) (not-piece?
Bishop)) (add Paladin) else add))
 (define Pal-add (high-king-capture) (if (and enemy? (not-piece? Pawn)
(not-piece? Squire) (not-piece? Deacon) (not-piece? Knight) (not-piece?
Bishop) (not-piece? Jarl) (not-piece? Vicar)) (add Hero) else add))
 (define Hero-add (high-king-capture) (if (and enemy? (not-piece? Pawn)
(not-piece? Squire) (not-piece? Deacon) (not-piece? Knight) (not-piece?
Bishop) (not-piece? Jarl) (not-piece? Vicar)) (multi-king) (add King) else
add))
+(define King-add (high-king-capture) add)
 
 ;***** this macro lets you find out whose turn it is in the middle of a
move block! *****
 
@@ -55,7 +56,7 @@
 
 ;***** special movement macros *****
 
-(define King-shift ($1 (available) (set-attribute never-moved? false)
add))
+(define King-shift ($1 (available) (set-attribute never-moved? false)
(King-add)))
 
 (define O-O
         ( (verify never-moved?)
@@ -513,4 +514,4 @@
    (piece
       (name Three-Kings)
    )
-)
\ No newline at end of file
+)

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Sat, Dec 28, 2002 01:47 AM UTC:
I have now updated this zrf to resolve the bug with mutual king captures, to use a different board which I find easier on the eyes (with as little of a shift as conveniently possible when flipping the board), and to have a number of variants available. <P> The file can be downloaded <A href=http://www.samiam.org/chessvariants/wotn2beta1.zip>here</A>. <P> - Sam

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Dec 31, 2002 11:12 AM UTC:
Looks like my zrf has a bug: If there is more than one King on the board, checkmating either one is a win. It should be that one has to take the last King to win. <p> I hope to have time to fix this soon. <p> - Sam

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Dec 31, 2002 08:25 PM UTC:
Talking to myself again here, but I have now updated my revision of the WOTN zrf file. <p> The revised version is available <A href=http://www.samiam.org/chessvariants/wotn2beta2.zip>here</A>. This release has the following improvements over the last beta: <ul> <li>Bug with multiple kings and checkmate fixed <li>Bug with moved improved pieces able to castle fixed <li>The 'six-point-handicap' is now a six point handicap instead of an eight-point handicap. <li>Seven and eight point handicaps added <li>Variant with mostly empty board added, to ease setting up custom positions. </ul>

📝Glenn Overby II wrote on Thu, Jan 2, 2003 03:45 PM UTC:
I for one appreciate Sam's interest in upgrading the ZRF of this deserving game. I hope that when the upgrade is finished it will be made available here, as my original was.

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Sat, Jan 4, 2003 12:36 AM UTC:
Glenn (and everyone else), <p> I finished up the zrf file last night. I increased the maximum number of kings from three to six (to handle any possible conceivable game), and have added one final variant (Cylinder Way of the Knight, which is a variant where people will choose the Way of the Bishop over 90% of the time because the cylinder bishop pieces are more powerful than the cylinder knight pieces). <p> I tried creating Way of the Knight extinction chess, but there are limitations to the Zillions engine which make this a non-trivial modification. <p> The final version is available <A href=http://www.samiam.org/chessvariants/wotn2final.zip>here</A>. <P> As an aside, I need to ask Ralph about our open question about pieces which improve to rooks on a1/a8/h1/h8 and whether they can castlw with a King of the same color. I feel they shouldn't (and have set up the .zrf thusly); the piece in question has already moved. <p> - Sam

gnohmon wrote on Sat, Jan 4, 2003 04:43 AM UTC:
A piece that improves has already moved, and may not castle.

How amusing it would be to improve one piece to K, improve another to R,
and then Castle them! Alas, it may not be so.

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Tue, Jul 27, 2004 06:56 PM UTC:
I have fixed a minor bug in this file. The bug only affected the 'no capture promotions' variant, and involved promoting a Vicar to a rook on the last rank (the previous version would not promote unless the vicar did its special orthogonal two spaces move). <p> <A href=http://www.samiam.org/chessvariants/>The file is available here</A> <p> Editors: Please update.

📝Sam Trenholme wrote on Wed, Mar 22, 2006 11:25 AM UTC:
I've noticed that this is one of the files that fell through the cracks when the big move happened last year. The current version of this file can be downloaded here.

I'm working on building a list of every single Zillions file that fell through the cracks when the big move happened.

- Sam


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