Option 2: The Joker retains the move capabilities of the last piece moved by the opponent. Therefore, both Jokers always have moves (except on the very first move of the game), and the two Jokers will not necessarily have the same moves. This is consistent with the description on the Apothecary Chess Modern page. But I don't think the description on Wikipedia is sufficient to distinguish between this and:
I think this is the implementation I want for my games!
Ok, if there are no objections, this will be the behavior of the ImitatorRule in ChessV. (I do not really want to support different flavors of imitators if I can help it.)
As long as we are revisiting the Joker, I would also like to address the pawn issue. I would like to avoid the Joker imitating the pawns differently in different Apothecary games if we can. I think the easiest and cleanest way is for me to add an ability to specify a position-dependant move by a Rule so that it won't be imitated. This way the game designer can have it either way -- as a regular MoveCapability of the piece (if you wanted it imitated) or as a Rule (if you don't).
Ok, if there are no objections, this will be the behavior of the ImitatorRule in ChessV. (I do not really want to support different flavors of imitators if I can help it.)
As long as we are revisiting the Joker, I would also like to address the pawn issue. I would like to avoid the Joker imitating the pawns differently in different Apothecary games if we can. I think the easiest and cleanest way is for me to add an ability to specify a position-dependant move by a Rule so that it won't be imitated. This way the game designer can have it either way -- as a regular MoveCapability of the piece (if you wanted it imitated) or as a Rule (if you don't).