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Roman Chess

. Commercial chess variant on 10x10 board with two non-royal kings added.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jan 13, 2016 09:22 AM UTC:

As the link to the official website for this (once commercial) game seems to be dead, I guess the only place where the exact rules are conserved is in the Zillions implementation of the game. <p> Now that I extended the capabilities of Fairy-Max to also handle boards with other than eight ranks, and even boards with more than 8 ranks (upto 16), it would be possible to add Roman Chess as one of the pre-configured variants. I would have to know the exact rules with respect to Pawn pushing/e.p. capture and castling, though. Do Pawns have initial triple-pushes here, as they often do when they start on the 2nd rank of 10-rank boards? If so, can they be e.p. captured on all squares they skip? And do they also have a double-push on 3rd rank (as in Wildebeest Chess)? <p> As to castling, does the King make 3 steps here in the direction of the Rook, as is usual on 10-wide boards?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jan 13, 2016 03:16 PM UTC:

The only differences from Chess are that the King moves three spaces when castling, a new piece is added, and the board and setup are different. So, Pawns do not move three spaces on their first move; they move two spaces.

H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jan 15, 2016 08:26 AM UTC:

OK, thanks. Double Pawn pushes were of course standard in Fairy-Max, so this is easy to do. Any simple move can in fact be defined as initial move on a piece, but the problems arise when a multiply-pushed Pawn can be e.p. captured on more than one square, because Fairy-Max keeps only a single e.p. square as part of the game state. But I have added some code that would make that possible for the special case of 10-rank boards and straight-ahead triple pushing. It seems that Mexican Chess has that. And Wildebeest Chess, but that then has the extra complication of still allowing a normal double-push from 3rd rank. While Fairy-Max does not enable initial moves by board location, but by whether the piece has moved before. (Which for Kings and Rooks is the proper thing to do, and for Pawns normally doesn't make a difference, because of their irreversibility.) I built in a kludge now to define an initial triple-push that turns into a double-push on 3rd rank. Still, Wildebeest Chess is a strange beast, and I am still choking on castlings where the King steps one square, as this creates an ambiguity in move encoding. Anyway, Roman Chess seems the perfect example of a no-frills not-too-unimaginative 10x10 Chess variant.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jan 15, 2016 02:18 PM UTC:

<P>In games likes <A HREF="/play/fischer_random_chess.html">Fischer Random Chess</A>, which allows a King to castle by moving one space or no spaces, I handle castling as a Rook move, because that makes it unambiguous. For en passant moves, I record that the piece at a certain space can be captured by en passant, and then I test whether any neighboring Pawns can take it by en passant. This is what I do in <A HREF="/play/gross_chess.html">Gross Chess</A>, for example. I have had to store multiple en passant locations only for <A HREF="/play/marseillais_chess.html">Marseillais Chess</A>, which allows a player to make two double moves with Pawns in the same turn and allows the other player to capture both by en passant.</P>

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2017 04:47 PM UTC:

I have a few questions about this page.

First, does CVP have any connection with Zillions of Games? (other than both are about variant chess).

If there is no connection between the two websites, then what is the purpose of this page?

Is there an interest for CVP to promote Zillions of Games, could it be done more in a general way (like an ad on the home page) rather than at one specific game?

Also, some of the content on this page appears to be obsolete. Visitors such as me may end up wasting their time opening links that don't exist, or link to non-remarkable information.

Should this page be deleted altogether? (especially in light of the fact that Greg did superb work to make a better page for Roman chess).

Also, what does "It is categorized as Orthodox chess" mean? (mentioned on this page).

Thanks for any explanation or insight into the purpose of this page.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2017 04:50 PM UTC:

Your questions are answered on the Zillions of Games page.

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2017 05:16 PM UTC:

Thanks - that's good info! Is there any reason there is a special Roman Chess page which only links to Zillions of Games, rather than just putting the link on the main Roman Chess page (so all content is in one page)?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2017 05:28 PM UTC:

That's how it is done for every game you can play with Zillions of Games here. Doing it this way allows people to search and browse through the games available for Zillions of Games here.

V. Reinhart wrote on Sun, Oct 29, 2017 10:13 PM UTC:

Thanks Fergus. From the alphabetical index it appears there are many pages that are links to Zillions of Games.

I appreciate your feedback.

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