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The way I Imagine it the base value of the fool should be changed inside the program after each caputure of opposite pieces, or even in other cases. I'll try to implement that in ChessV as ChessV plays the game as intended (for example is now able to promote pawns to different pieces on different ranks). Would you guys care to speculate what should the fool base value function should contain, as it's value along the game is very weird?

Where do we read about the fool or the game it is used in? I could not find any info about apothecary chess. Did you post any info any about it yet?

For what it's worth, wikipedia's entry on fairy chess pieces has the fool (by 'standard' usage of the name?) equated with a wazir:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece

@V.Reinhardt

I'm still working on inventing the game, the rules are done now and I'm calculating piece values, by making tests with ChessV. For your benefit and the benefit of everybody I'll post the complete rules set soon on this discussion. Agreed?

@Kevin Pacey,

I'd like to appologise for forgetting to say what the fool actually does. This is the fool from omega chess advanced that does not immobilize pieces. So the apothecary fool moves and attacks like the last moved piece of the opponent, nothing more. If that piece is a pawn it moves like the fool owners pawn (ahead), moving even two squares if possible. The fool cannon capture or be captured en passant though.

The value of the fool is a very difficult question.  I think the value should be based, at least in part, on what material the opponent still has in his army.  But I am confident that having the value of the fool change after every move based on the piece last moved will work very badly.  That would result in the engine completely changing the way it plays.  The engine is trying to maximize its score.  So its thinking goes like this: if I move a queen, suddenly my opponent's fool is worth a queen!  It's like he got an extra queen.  But if I move a pawn, the value of the opponent's fool drops to that of a pawn.  So it will try very, very hard to move nothing but pawns and never move a queen.

Probably the value should be based on the value of all the opponent's remaining pieces.  The engine should think like this: if the opponent has more powerful pieces than I have, then that makes my fool more valuable than his fool, and I should consider this when deciding whether to trade another piece for a fool (which is the point of material evaluation.)

I'd probably start with this: value is somewhat less than the average of all the opponent's remaining material not counting the pawns.  We can probably do better, but I think that would be a reasonable starting point (although it would be computationally expensive to implement.)

P. S. Good job getting the fool working in ChessV.  Impressive!

Apothecary 1 the Rules
Pieces:
major:
Queen:Classic chess queen
Griffin:Moves 1 step diagonally and then like a rook towards outside. It may be blocked by intervening pieces.
Aanca:Moves 1 step orthogonally and then like a bishop towards out side. It may be blocked by intervening pieces.
medium:
Rook:Classic chess rook
Fool:Moves like the last opposing moved piece. At the first ply the white fool is pinned.If the last moved piece was a fool then the current fool imitates the move of the previous ply,and so on, basically imitating the last fool imitation.
minor:
wizard:Ferz+camel(taken from omega chess on what this game is based upon along with grand chess)
champion:Wazir+dabbaba+alfil(taken from omega chess on what this game is based upon along with grand chess)
knight (advanced knight):A knight that also moves but not captures like a zebra(taken from advanced omega chess)
bishop:Classic chess bishop

pawn:a classic chess pawn that promotes to any of the minors on rank 8,any of the minors or rook on rank 9,any of the minors,rook or any of the majors at rank 10. It never promotes to fool. (Two fools is maybe ok but three fools would be to much for one side)

Initial setup
There is no 1 initial setup but 48 possibilities. They can be represented by three coins tosses and a dice throw.More on that below.
But first let's place on the board the pieces that have fixed places.
For white the rooks start on A1 and J1,the wizards start on d1 and g1, the champions start on e1 and f1, and most importantly the king starts on f2.
For black the rooks start on A10 and J10,the wizards start on d10 and g10, the champions start on e10 and f10, and most importantly the king starts on f9.
The first coin toss (let's say a nickel) equates to the bishops in variable meaning that if we have true on this value (say we have heads on the coin) we have the bishops closer to the king than the knights.
The second coin toss (let's say a dime) equates to the white fool left side variable meaning that if we have true on this value (say we have heads on the coin) the the white fool starts of C1 and black fool starts on h10. Otherwise the white fool starts on H1 and the black fool starts on C10.
The third coin toss (let's say a quarter) equates the the majors tight variable which if it's true (say we have heads on the coin) the three major pieces are placed surrounding the king like in grand chess on d2,e2 and g2. Otherwise two of the pieces flank so the major pieces are places on b2,e2 and and i2. Black mirror that on rank 9.
This coin toss influences also the positioning of bishops and knights. Bishops and knights are never placed (nor other pieces) on a2 or h2 in order to make room for the rooks to get out quicker. So the bishops and knights are placed simetrically with respect to the vertical middle axis and the rules stated earlier about bishops being or not being closer to the king that the knights.
The dice throw defines the order of the major pieces from left to right, on the 2nd rank for white and 9th rank for black. We define:
1.Aanca,Griffin,Queen;
2.Aanca,Queen,Griffin;
3.Griffin,Aanca,Queen;
4.Griffin,Queen,Aanca;
5.Queen,Aanca,Griffin;
6.Queen,Griffin,Aanca;

Apothecary 2 the Rules
Pieces:
major:
Queen:Classic chess queen
Chancellor:Moves like rook and knight
Archbishop:Moves like bishop and knight(the major piece combination is taken from grand chess and capablanca chess)
medium:
Rook:Classic chess rook
Fool:Moves like the last opposing moved piece. At the first ply the white fool is pinned.If the last moved piece was a fool then the current fool imitates the move of the previous ply,and so on, basically imitating the last fool imitation.
minor:
elephant:Ferz+alfil that can only move but not capture 3 squares orthogonally
camel:classic camel that may also move but not capture one square orthogonally
zebra:classic zebra that may also move but not capture one square diagonally
knight:A knight that also moves but doesn't capture three squares diagonally
bishop:Classic chess bishop

pawn:a classic chess pawn that promotes to any of the minors on rank 8,any of the minors or rook on rank 9,any of the minors,rook or any of the majors at rank 10. It never promotes to fool. (Two fools is maybe ok but three fools would be to much for one side)

Initial setup
There is no 1 initial setup but 48 possibilities. They can be represented by three coins tosses and a dice throw.More on that below.
But first let's place on the board the pieces that have fixed places.
For white the rooks start on A1 and J1,the zebra starts on d1, the camel starts on g1, the elephants start on e1 and f1, and most importantly the king starts on f2.
For black the rooks start on A10 and J10,the zebra starts on d10, the camel starts on g10, the elephants start on e10 and f10, and most importantly the king starts on f9.
The first coin toss (let's say a nickel) equates to the bishops in variable meaning that if we have true on this value (say we have heads on the coin) we have the bishops closer to the king than the knights.
The second coin toss (let's say a dime) equates to the white fool left side variable meaning that if we have true on this value (say we have heads on the coin) the the white fool starts of C1 and black fool starts on h10. Otherwise the white fool starts on H1 and the black fool starts on C10.
The third coin toss (let's say a quarter) equates the the majors tight variable which if it's true (say we have heads on the coin) the three major pieces are placed surrounding the king like in grand chess on d2,e2 and g2. Otherwise two of the pieces flank so the major pieces are places on b2,e2 and and i2. Black mirror that on rank 9.
This coin toss influences also the positioning of bishops and knights. Bishops and knights are never placed (nor other pieces) on a2 or h2 in order to make room for the rooks to get out quicker. So the bishops and knights are placed symmetrically with respect to the vertical middle axis and the rules stated earlier about bishops being or not being closer to the king that the knights.
The dice throw defines the order of the major pieces from left to right, on the 2nd rank for white and 9th rank for black. We define:
1.Archbishop,Chancellor,Queen;
2.Archbishop,Queen,Chancellor;
3.Chancellor,Archbishop,Queen;
4.Chancellor,Queen,Archbishop;
5.Queen,Archbishop,Chancellor;
6.Queen,Chancellor,Archbishop;

Well, I could not write all the rules but I hope for now it's comprehensive enough!

@Greg Strong

I doubt the value of the piece changed after each move would work, too. My initial thoughts were similar to yours an evaluation based on opponent material remaining. Also, and it relates, I came to the conclusion that the fool should change it's value after each capture of opposing pieces. Still it is a very interesting question. I'm Loving it.

P.S. Thanks for your apreciation

@V. Reinhart

Joker sounds better, I'll take your suggestion into consideration for when the official article gets posted!

V. Reinhart

Are you vickalan?Nice to meet you in both cases. Nice post with your game. I'm sure to follow it!

I forgot to say that the fool doesn't attain the royal responsibilities of the king!

While thinking about the marvels of the fool, I came across the fact that the presence of the fool slightly encourages sacrifices. For example if both fools are present on the board and it's at least ok to sacrifice an exchange, say a rook for a knight, then the side with the knight has it's fool imitate a rook and other pieces where the side with the rook imitates a knight and other pieces. So this is also an small levelling effect when making unbalanced exchanges.

Also I have noticed that a centralized fool is very senzitive to attacking pawn advances!

I've started, to see what happens, both an Apothecary1 and an Apothecary2 games (I have 2 processors). Funny story about the Apothecary1 game. All these pieces and what would you think: rook and pawns ending. One would justifiably believe that this is why I have invented apothecary, no more rook and pawns endings, well...

One more thing: the fool when imitating a promoted pawn, imitates the piece that was promoted to, but it doesn't promote itself!

I mentioned this in my latest email, but I should mention it here as well for the benefit of others who might be fans of the mighty fool (actually, I also prefer the name Joker.)

Repetition detection - the game is a draw when a position is repeated for the third time.  But what what if in one repetition the fool has the movement abilities of a knight, and in the next, a bishop?  Is that really a repetition?  Given the fact that castling privileges and en passant ability are considered to make the position different, the same should probably be true with fool ability.  But fixing that in ChessV may be more trouble then it is worth.  I doubt it is a situation that would arise very often.

So, by Popular vote Joker, it is, I'll make the modifications!

@Greg,

I think we had this discussion before, but I think after a certain time limit ChessV does nothing. 30 seconds/move looks ok. More is to much and worthless!

Given the discussions that have happened lately I'll use the value 3000 for the value of the king's move as required for the implementation for the value of the fool (and yes it's still fool, but you may use the word jester if you feel it to be more appropriate). It means exactly 3.75 pawns. An apothecary pawn in chessV is now 800. It may be a bit too much though. On a 10x10 board the usefulness of a king move depends a lot on how for from the action the piece (in our case the fool) is.

Criticism on my own games:

One criticism I bring on myself is that in these two games action does not start for all pieces. There are a lot of pieces, many of them jumping over the pawn lines, and not all of them get developed before action starts. Some of the games end up practically with tactical achievement in early middle game. That's somewhat bad, in my opinion as I think outcome should be postponed until later. The good side, there is one, is that most endgames (the ones that are not rook and pawns :)) ) are unbalanced and have enough pawns to make them interesting, meaning pawns don't die that often until the endgame as many pieces just jump over them.

What do you guys think on my thoughts?