Almost a year ago it seems I had promised the automatization of my two apothecary games presets. So far laziness got the worst of me it seems :)! But before that after good feedback from the community, my own thoughts on the matter and according to the initial plan I had decided to change the rules to both the games a bit.
I'll start with apothecary 2 as it has more changes:
1. With the exception of the knight there will be no more divergent pieces as many have told me they are are confusing (the ones here I mean).
2. The zebra seems to have too long jumps so I had decided to change the zebra to a second camel.
3. Now , according to 1, the camel is a full WL (in Betza notation). Because the name "camel" has a classic meaning I thereby rename this piece "the mameluke". As mamluks were many times camel riders and some of them were rising to the governmental ranks (wazir).
4.Also according to 1, the elephant now becomes a full HAF. I rename this piece a "siege elephant" inspired by the Khmer unique unit in the Ages of Empires 2 rise of rajas expansion, and it features the elephant origin along with the siege (0,3) flavor. I'm not sure if thorough history elephants were actually used in sieges. It would not make much sens to me as the eat a lot and are unpredictable :)!
5. The knight in this game is the omega chess advanced knight and thus has besides regular knight powers zebra just move powers. In Betza NmZ (although according to Wikipedia zebra is J so it could be NmJ).
In apothecary 1:
1. I did not want to have the same knight in both games so here the knight has (3,0) and (2,2) jump just move powers instead of the zebra ones. In Betza: NmHmA. There is no H in this game and the alfil jump is a nice addition as that square is difficult to reach by regular knight jumps. And the diagonal jump seems better to me than a dababah addition as there is already an orthogonal jump :)!
In both games
1. The joker insert rule does not seem to make much difference so I've decided to reduce the max dropping turn for white to 8 and for black to 14.
2. A player may promote a pawn to joker at the 9th or 10th rank if he does not already own one. Meaning a maximum of 1 joker/side on the board :)!
Almost a year ago it seems I had promised the automatization of my two apothecary games presets. So far laziness got the worst of me it seems :)! But before that after good feedback from the community, my own thoughts on the matter and according to the initial plan I had decided to change the rules to both the games a bit.
I'll start with apothecary 2 as it has more changes:
1. With the exception of the knight there will be no more divergent pieces as many have told me they are are confusing (the ones here I mean).
2. The zebra seems to have too long jumps so I had decided to change the zebra to a second camel.
3. Now , according to 1, the camel is a full WL (in Betza notation). Because the name "camel" has a classic meaning I thereby rename this piece "the mameluke". As mamluks were many times camel riders and some of them were rising to the governmental ranks (wazir).
4.Also according to 1, the elephant now becomes a full HAF. I rename this piece a "siege elephant" inspired by the Khmer unique unit in the Ages of Empires 2 rise of rajas expansion, and it features the elephant origin along with the siege (0,3) flavor. I'm not sure if thorough history elephants were actually used in sieges. It would not make much sens to me as the eat a lot and are unpredictable :)!
5. The knight in this game is the omega chess advanced knight and thus has besides regular knight powers zebra just move powers. In Betza NmZ (although according to Wikipedia zebra is J so it could be NmJ).
In apothecary 1:
1. I did not want to have the same knight in both games so here the knight has (3,0) and (2,2) jump just move powers instead of the zebra ones. In Betza: NmHmA. There is no H in this game and the alfil jump is a nice addition as that square is difficult to reach by regular knight jumps. And the diagonal jump seems better to me than a dababah addition as there is already an orthogonal jump :)!
In both games
1. The joker insert rule does not seem to make much difference so I've decided to reduce the max dropping turn for white to 8 and for black to 14.
2. A player may promote a pawn to joker at the 9th or 10th rank if he does not already own one. Meaning a maximum of 1 joker/side on the board :)!