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I is pretty hard to judge if your other armies are anywhere near balanced with the FIDE ('Human') army, without computer assistance. Because of the unconventional Pawns. Any uncertainty in their value will be multiplied by 8.

It seems all the pieces you use are well within the capabilities of Fairy-Max. So it should be easy to configure Fairy-Max to play this variant.

Yes, the Pawns are the most dangerous because they are very complex and progressive units, especially with pawn's chains in any different forms.
But I can't configure Fairy-Max to play this variant because of problems with configure linear-leaps (unicorn/werewolf, wyvern/hunter). It has very strange instructions and unclear mechanics of configuring complex moves, even for a programmer.
For example, if I put a move like 15,FFFF070 (-16) then a piece can move from g8 through f7 to e7. If put 15,1070 (+1) then a piece can move from g8 through f7 to... d6. But any other tries with -1 and +16 do nothing. I need help for it.

Do you know any online chess service supporting illegal moves (free moves by agreement between the players themselves)? It would be the best for playing many non-classic variants without any programming (no AI analysis, no AI player, no AI tips - but the natural, origin wood form of a chess doesn't have these options too).

Hi Dmitry,

This is an interesting looking invention you have here.  I like the concept of the game and the principals you followed.  It has led to a promising game.  Of course, something so radical will require testing.  The only thing that is unfortunate is the bishop "blink". I think the Elven pawns may be powerful enough that the extra blink might be unnecessary.

Regarding playing, your best bet is Game Courier on this site.  You can open one of the Chess presets, click Edit to modify it, and just erase all the code in the seven boxes at the bottom to stop it from enforcing any rules.  Then, in the first box, change the name from Chess to Asymmetric Chess, enter your user id and password, and click Save.  It will give you a link that you can then use to send out invitations to play.

Cheers,
Greg

to Greg Strong
Hi Gregory!
Thanks for the feedback.
The blink is added only to the Phoenix (Archbishop) not the Hunters (Bishops).
Adding the blink wasn't a simple decision, but at the current moment I think it is necessary (and is a minimal fee for the balance). A Phoenix without the blink (classical Archbishop) has an estimated value 8.2 (instead of 10.6), a half pawn less than a Dragon (Chancellor). And a Fairy promoting to non-blinking Phoenix has an estimated value 1.25 (instead of 1.33). Summary a blink removing makes elves 3.0 classical pawns weaker. It will be wonderful if such elves with so much estimating weakness will be balanced. But now I believe to these estimatings more than to a wonderful equality.

As an alternative variant without the blink, there is possible to buff the Pegasus, from 2 up to 3 range (leaping) but this is controversial and gives more advantages to elves (according to my estimates extended Pegasus has value of 4.9 instead of 3.1)

"For example, if I put a move like 15,FFFF070 (-16) then a piece can move from g8 through f7 to e7. If put 15,1070 (+1) then a piece can move from g8 through f7 to... d6. But any other tries with -1 and +16 do nothing. I need help for it."

I agree, for pieces that change direction the definitions are awful. But the latest Fairy-Max version (5.0b) actually improved on that. Rather than having to specify the step change in hexadecimal in the upper bits of the move rights, (which is how it is interally stored) it allows you to simply write the secondary step as an (optional) 3rd element in the move definition. So 17,3,1 would now be a Griffon move, a slide that first steps diagonally (17), and then continues orthogonally (1). Fairy-Max itself then calculates what bits have to be changed to make a 1 from a 17.

The 'Skip Rook' in a sense is also a 'bent slider' like the Griffon, except that the move step does not change direction, but only length. The first step of the slide is that of a Dababbah, then the slide continues with single steps. The description of moves that do this would look like 2,3,1 32,3,16 -2,3,-1 etc. The 'lame Knights' move description would be like 1,43,17 (blockable orthogonally) or 17,43,1 (blockable diagonally).
 

I might equip future versions of Fairy-Max with a compiler for Betza notation, so that the piece definitions can be given in this form. That wouldmake it a lot more user-friendly.

to H. G. Muller
Thanks you for your program and advices!

I put this variant and it works but I need to configure pieces' images: elvish (black in this case, and white for future presets) bishop and knight must exchange their starting places.

I use classic preset (images), but maybe it's better to draw alt. queens as chancellor and archbishop, but I don't know how to configure it.

// Asymmetric Chess (Orc-Elf)
Game: normal # PNBRQ.........Kpnbrq.........k
8x8
6 4 5 7 3 5 4 6
8 11 10 9 3 10 11 8
p:125 -16,24 -16,7 -1,5 1,5
p:130 15,24 17,24 15,7 17,7
K:-1  1,34 -1,34 1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
N:430 1,043,-15 1,043,17 16,043,17 16,043,15 -1,043,15 -1,043,-17 -16,043,-17 -16,043,-15
B:280 17,7 15,7 -17,7 -15,7 34,7 30,7 -34,7 -30,7
R:450 2,3,1 32,3,16 -2,3,-1 -32,3,-16
Q:860 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
R:310 1,7 16,7 -1,7 -16,7 2,7 32,7 -2,7 -32,7
Q:1060 15,103 17,103 -15,103 -17,103 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
N:440 17,043,1 17,043,16 15,043,16 15,043,-1 -17,043,-1 -17,043,-16 -15,043,-16 -15,043,1
B:280 34,3,17 30,3,15 -34,3,-17 -30,3,-15

Update: randomly get exchanging of the black knight and bishop, but how to get chancellor and archbishop images, it's a riddle...

I tried your game definition, and it needed the following fixes:

• The first was my bad: the lame Knights did not require 43 move rights, but 70 move rights, because otherwise they would be able to make the W or F step already with full rights (3), and the secondary step would only toggle the termination bit (4) on. But the W or F step should not have any rights (0).
• The piece ID of N and B equivalents in the piece lines was made lower case; this makes them seek the center. Otherwise Fairy-Max becomes very tardy developing them. I also did that for the Elvish Queen, as in Capablanca Chess the Archbishop also seemed to be worth more when seeking the center. Not sure if this is also true for the cylinder version, however. Perhaps the short Rook should also be center seeking to let Fairy-Max make better use of it.
• I changed the name into orc-elf; it should now appear under that name in WinBoard's New Variant dialog
• I appended " # fairy" to the game line to specify 'fairy' as parent variant. This variant implements normal Chess rules w.r.t. promotion, check, stalemate, castling etc., and is thus a good parent for most western Chess variants. Because it is a 'catchall' variant where WinBoard has no prior notion of the initial setup, WinBoard will pay attetion to the engine's setup command even when legality testing is on,which is another advantage.
• I appended Betza move definitions to the game definition, which don'tmean anything to Fairy-Max, but are sent to WinBoard at the start of the game, to make WinBoard aware of how the pieces move. This enables WinBoard to highlight target squares in human-engine games, and properly disambiguate the move notation. (It is of course bad design that two independent, and therefore possibly conflicting move descriptions are needed. But the ability of WinBoard to accept piece definitions from the engine is a recent enhancement, and was then added to Fairy-Max as an afterthought. Ideally Fairy-Max would derive one set of move definitions from the other.)
• I played a bit with the 'pieceToChar' string in the game line. Each position in this string corresponds to a WinBoard piece glyph, and specifies the piece it has to be used for. The first half of the string is for white pieces, the second half for black. The first five for each color are standard symbols for PNBRQ, the last one for K. In between come upto 17 other piece glyphs built into WinBoard. I selected some of those that seemed applicable. (Masked knight and unicorn for the lame Knights, commonly used pictograms for Archbishop and Chancellor. WinBoard does not have enough rookish or pawnish glyphs, however, so the 'Skip-Rook' is still depicted as an orthodox Rook. Of course it is a matter of taste whether you want all pieces to look different or just use the orthodox images. This whole issue can also be solved purely on the GUI level, by configuring use of (and providing) external images in WinBoard.)

______________________________________________________________________

// Asymmetric Chess (Orc-Elf)
Game: orc-elf # P..R..B.....N...Q....K.......q.....br...p.nk # fairy
8x8
6 4 5 7 3 5 4 6
8 11 10 9 3 10 11 8
p:125 -16,24 -16,7 -1,5 1,5
p:130 15,24 17,24 15,7 17,7
k:-1  1,34 -1,34 1,7 16,7 15,7 17,7 -1,7 -16,7 -15,7 -17,7
n:430 1,070,-15 1,070,17 16,070,17 16,070,15 -1,070,15 -1,070,-17 -16,070,-17 -16,070,-15
b:280 17,7 15,7 -17,7 -15,7 34,7 30,7 -34,7 -30,7
R:450 2,3,1 32,3,16 -2,3,-1 -32,3,-16
Q:860 1,3 16,3 -1,3 -16,3 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
R:310 1,7 16,7 -1,7 -16,7 2,7 32,7 -2,7 -32,7
q:1060 15,103 17,103 -15,103 -17,103 14,7 31,7 33,7 18,7 -14,7 -31,7 -33,7 -18,7
n:440 17,070,1 17,070,16 15,070,16 15,070,-1 -17,070,-1 -17,070,-16 -15,070,-16 -15,070,1
b:280 34,3,17 30,3,15 -34,3,-17 -30,3,-15
#
# P fWscWifnD
# p fFifnA
# N afsW
# n afsF
# B FA
# b jB
# R jR
# r WD
# Q RN
# q oBN

" Do you know any online chess service supporting illegal moves (free moves by agreement between the players themselves)? It would be the best for playing many non-classic variants without any programming (no AI analysis, no AI player, no AI tips - but the natural, origin wood form of a chess doesn't have these options too). "

I took the liberty replying to this in the Asymmetric Chess comments, as it did not seem to have anything to do with ChessV. You could use a page like this one. Although it highlights how pieces can move, it does not enforce this, and you can move them any way you want. If you have your own web space you could copy the page and change the rules it uses for highlighting to be the rules you want.