Yes, I'm sorry, this is more complicated than I'm prepared to implement
I expected as much :)
I'm concerned people won't sufficiently understand it
That is my main reservation with it as well
Look how hard it has been to even get everyone understanding the current issue, and we are all experienced players of chess variants
To be fair, most variants are in this respect noticeably simpler; temporal imitators raise some very subtle timing‐related issues that ‘normal’ pieces can easily ignore
H.G. did present another idea which we could call Option 4 - for purposes of check determination when the other side is on the move, the Joker is always considered to move as a King
Indeed, I saw. For moving out of check, this proposal is equivalent to mine as H.G. has since noted; for mate, it differs only in that the null move (per H.G.'s explanation) can be performed by any piece (with a pseudo‐legal move — though I suppose it'd be a valid simplification to allow it to simply be any piece), not just the King.
(But I don't think this will be a popular option.)
Indeed; it seems a tad artificial to me. My proposal eliminates a bit of the artifice at the expense of some definitional clarity. Which is a tradeoff that I can understand one might be reluctant to make (especially if, as in your case, one finds the J distasteful in any case ;) )
If you add a Joker to Xinagqi, how does it imitate the King? Is it restricted to the palace? If it is not currently in the palace, can it move? Does it "check" the opponent king across an open file? Only in the palace?
That depends on how much of the restriction is considered to be a property of the General and how much is considered a general game rule. There's no general consensus on where that line lies; I think all of the particulars you list have been interpreted in a variety of ways by different extrapolations
I expected as much :)
That is my main reservation with it as well
To be fair, most variants are in this respect noticeably simpler; temporal imitators raise some very subtle timing‐related issues that ‘normal’ pieces can easily ignore
Indeed, I saw. For moving out of check, this proposal is equivalent to mine as H.G. has since noted; for mate, it differs only in that the null move (per H.G.'s explanation) can be performed by any piece (with a pseudo‐legal move — though I suppose it'd be a valid simplification to allow it to simply be any piece), not just the King.
Indeed; it seems a tad artificial to me. My proposal eliminates a bit of the artifice at the expense of some definitional clarity. Which is a tradeoff that I can understand one might be reluctant to make (especially if, as in your case, one finds the J distasteful in any case ;) )
That depends on how much of the restriction is considered to be a property of the General and how much is considered a general game rule. There's no general consensus on where that line lies; I think all of the particulars you list have been interpreted in a variety of ways by different extrapolations