[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]
Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
Atlantean Barroom Shatranj. Atlantean Barroom Shatranj Rules. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Sounds like fun (Priestess, swift like a horse, strength of an elephant?). Can a preset button or URL be added?
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, May 1, 2006 05:19 PM UTC:Hi, Tony. Thanks! There is a preset that should have been accessible by clicking on the picture of the setup. My 3 rules sets were supposed to be for 5 presets that should be linked to the pictures in the mini-rules. You still can get to the presets by going to 'Two Large Shatranj Variants', and clicking on those pictures. I'd fix it myself, if I knew how - at least my handful of attempts didn't eliminate the board picture, but I managed to get a little 'fuzz' around the bottom of the picture. Would it be possible to hook the 5 presets to the 3 sets of rules? Thanks, Joe
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Mon, May 1, 2006 09:51 PM UTC:The links to the presets are back in the mini-rules. Please list the 5 presets. Thank you. Joe
Joe, yes, the preset links work just fine, but I did not realize they were there. Could I suggest a note below the images noting the link to the presets? To list them as presets, we'll have to post separate pages for the presets. -- Tony.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, May 2, 2006 01:36 AM UTC:Hi, Tony:
I don't understand what you mean about having to make pages for the presets. Aren't their pages just like the following:
Atlantean Barroom Shatranj which is the url for Atlantean Barroom Shatranj? I'd love for people to actually know I made the presets. I suppose it's questions like these that demonstrate why I'm not an editor...
Joe, you are correct. The preset on your link is perfect, but it is not separately listed. The preset is not posted as a separate page with a green icon. Only individually posted pages can be listed, whether member or editor created. Someone looking for a preset in the preset lists could then find it. As it is, one can only find your preset by looking at the game page or the comments on the game page. That's ok too. A separate page is not necessary, but you had asked about listing your preset. For that, a posted page is needed. That's an extra step that requires an editor at this time (that's the slow part!).
Very nice. I think 'Atlantean Barroom Shatranj vs Symchess' preset will be interesting too.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, May 2, 2006 02:32 PM UTC:Thanks for the comment, Namik. The game you propose could be quite interesting, ABS vs Sym. As it stands, each side has 10 pawns, but Symchess has 12 pieces to ABS' 10. I might suggest throwing in a couple colorbound 1 or 2 square movers for ABS, 'FAD' leapers. They slide 1 diagonally or jump 2 orthogonally or diagonally, landing on every square of their color within 2. Just how closely the sides are matched is an interesting question. While piece values for Sym are pretty well determined, I know of no info on values of most of the (brand new?) ABS pieces. The zigzag general in particular is a deliberately overpowered piece restricted by its short range, as to a lesser extent are the twisted and flexible knights. So it's sort of 10x10 Chess with Very Different Armies. Very possibly worth doing.
Joe, David Howe has just added the ability to make a page for Game Courier presets at, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/membersubmission.php?isgamecourier=1 You still have to create the basic HTML code for the Game Courier preset URL and any text you want.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, May 4, 2006 04:54 AM UTC:Great, Tony! Three pages, with 5 presets, are now waiting for approval. David, thank you very much.
An excellent concept game and I think it will be quite playable. Joe's whole series of Shatranj variants are fascinating. The varying power levels of short and medium range pieces with few or no long range pieces make for something quite different. This particular variant with its direction changing moves reminds me of Jetan.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, May 16, 2006 10:35 PM UTC:Thank you very much for the comment, Mike, and I hope to be able to live up to the compliment. After I accidentally designed Modern Shatranj, I got interested in short-range and jumping pieces, and eventually realized I had a series of games that could feature pretty much nothing but short-range jumpers. And that seemed unusual enough to be worth pursuit. Great Shatranj was the 1st, with no (rooks optional) piece moving over 2 squares, but some 'new' combo pieces; then Grand Shatranj, featuring 2-step pieces moving up to 4 squares, and 1 more 'new' combo piece (the Squire/Jumping General/Mammoth). Finally, I found the idea of bent riders irresistable, and decided to make a game with almost super-powered short range pieces. The zigzag general comes close, and it may actually be a new piece. All the 2-step pieces would be quite comfortable on larger boards, also. I plan to continue exploring short and medium range pieces for a while. I'm looking at some 3-square movers and contemplating what might go 5 or 6 squares. There's gotta be some opportunities for genuine new pieces there.
you got enough variants going here Joe? he he, well another great looking 'shatranj' type game, terrific idea with 'jumpingking'! + direction changing pieces very interesting!
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Wed, Jul 12, 2006 07:46 PM UTC:Heck, no! More variants, I want more. Actually, the shatranj variants I've posted here pretty much give an overview of the territory set out in MS and 2Large. But there are obviously more games in the mix. For example, the Sliding General, a 2-step queen, is a very interesting piece that is not [yet] used. And the knight-ferz and knight-wazir are languishing in obscurity; yet they are very dynamic pieces, each worth about a rook, with interesting abilities and limitations. Perhaps there is a game hiding between Grand Shatranj and ABS that someone [maybe even you or I] will find and post. In the meantime, I'm still looking at more short range jumpers; can Lemurian Shatranj be far behind?
This is by far my favorite of all the diverse Shatranj games Joe Joyce has invented. Though I'd say they are all good, this one is excellent. If chess had evolved differently, with the scheme of short range movers becoming more powerful, Atlantean Barroom Shatranj would surely represent the apex.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Fri, Jan 26, 2007 04:25 PM UTC:Thank you, Jeremy. I did enjoy putting this one together quite a bit, even to being inspired by leftover letters for piece names ('T' being rarely used, for example). It seems one decent endpoint to a series of shortrange games. The major pieces should be strong enough to satisfy the power-hungry gamer. You might want to restrict the 50-move time limit to only when both players are playing face-to-face and drinking, though. ;-) Enjoy
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 12:36 AM UTC:Thank you for the rating, George. I'm never quite sure what to say when you give me a good rating. [I'm very tempted to say: 'Who are you really, and what have you done with George?' :-)] You've rated and discussed a few of my games now, this one most recently. I'd like to make a few comments, but before I do, I have to ask: is the ZigZag General in this game appropriately named? It is certainly and deliberately a multipath piece. ;-) Modern Shatranj, Great, Grand, Barroom, and Lemurian Shatranj are a tightly-connected series, each one growing out of the previous one. Obviously, they are what inspired the ShortRange Project. [Oh, yeah, Hypermodern is in there too, right after Modern.] I owe a great debt of gratitude to Christine Bagley-Jones, my collaborator on the ShortRange Project, effectively a co-inventor of Great Shatranj, and an independent designer of Hypermodern Shatranj. I also owe thanks to David Paulowich and Roberto Lavieri [another independent designer of Hypermodern] for inspiration and encouragement and most of all, fascinating conversations. This game does break one of Fergus Duniho's design rules. The queen analog can checkmate the king analog by itself, even though the king can not only step to the adjacent 8 squares, but leap directly over those squares to the 8 directly beyond them. The ZigZag General is far and away the most powerful piece I've ever designed. It moves 4 squares at most, but can reach most squares within 4 and all within 3 squares when it moves, attacking 64 squares. It steps 1 or leaps 2 in any direction, then may step 1 or leap 2 in any direction again. Its restrictions are that it must stop upon capture and that it may not make a null move. The ZZG is a combination of the moves of the Twisted and fleXible kNights, the bishop and rook analogs. Interestingly, while each of these latter pieces reaches 32 squares, the ZZG reaches 12 squares more than either other piece could reach by starting on the same square because the TN and the XN overlap squares within 2 of start. This makes it more than the queen, which is just the combination of the squares the bishop and rook reach. On an 8x8, from one of the 4 center squares, the ZZG can reach 56 squares, missing only every other square along the 2 farthest board edges. Now the queen gets an extra pawn value for combining the powers of rook and bishop in the same piece, even though it takes no more than either piece could from the same square. What does the ZZG get for the combination and picking up ~21% more squares?
Zigzag General, with optional second leg, becomes related to some of the interpretations of Jetan pieces, but different from all of them. It is one- or two- or four- or five-path varying according to the arrival square. I am not sure if there is a three-way set of squares or six-way without relooking. Actually it becomes the best new piece I have seen this year, preoccupied with other multi-path questions and chatter. Next I should look whether ABS is really a best embodiment for ZZG. It is good that excluded are Knight components.
This game does break one of Fergus Duniho's design rules. The queen analog can checkmate the king analog by itself
I assume you mean this design principle: Avoid any piece that can force checkmate by itself, such as the Amazon or the Cavalry Chess Knight. I haven't analyzed your game and don't know whether it violates this principle, but I will point out that the key word in the principle is force not checkmate. For example, this principle does not rule out using the Paladin (or Cardinal or Archbishop), which is able to checkmate a King without any assistance from other pieces but is still unable to force checkmate without assistance.
💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 05:59 AM UTC:George, Fergus, your comments are interrelated, so I'll answer them together. First, there are [at least] 4 squares that are 3-path. The squares 4 away orthogonally are reached in 2 jumps orthogonally, for 1 path, and in jumping diagonally 'forward' but right or left of the path, the twisted knight moves, you have 2 more paths. If you choose a square 2 away orthogonally, there are the same 3 paths as above in miniature - that is, there are 3 '1-square + 1 square' moves -1 set of wazir moves, and 2 sets of ferz moves. There are also 3 2-square paths. The first is the straight 2-square dabbabah jump. The other 2 paths are alfil then dabbabah jumps. This is 6, but it could be considered only 5, because the 2 wazir steps are over the same squares as the dabbabah jump. As a total technicality, the dabbabah jump doesn't touch the intervening square [it can be occupied], and the 2 wazir moves do, so they are different paths. The 'jumping king' can reach 16 squares at a range of 1 or 2, but it can't reach the knight's destination squares in 1 turn. It would need 2 turns to 'make a knight's move'. But the ZigZag General moves twice in a turn, so it can get to knight squares, as long as there is an intermediate empty square to land on during the move. It moves as the jumping king, then may do so again, changing directions. The king, jumping or otherwise, has no chance I can see. The minimum board size for this piece should be 10x10; it should do well on larger boards. I suspect the Twisted and fleXible kNights and the ZigZag General are new pieces. But all of them are amazingly powerful. In attempting to tame that power a little bit, I cut the pieces in half, 'literally', and designed Lemurian Shatranj. The Shaman and Hero are half of the Twisted and fleXible kNight. I believe those 2 pieces might also be new.
If second leg is optional, ZZG to Dabbabah square is only one path, not six as I was thinking and Joyce describes. As they do ask all the time for Falcon, have you thought of eliminating the leap component and making a change to two square orthogonal darter plus King? (That would still be Joe Joyce's piece to my simple standards, a serial ''orthogonal'' two-step plus/''both-or-twice'' one-component in either order and any direction.) Then six paths have significance sometimes to (0,2). Either way it is nice new piece after Jetan, that influenced me for 15-year-old Falcon and 12-year-old Scorpion and Dragon.
Suppose going from c4 to c5 and both legs mandatory. Pathways are c4-c6-c5, c4-d5-c5, c4-d4-c5, c4-c3-c5, c4-b4-c5, c4-d5-c5, six-way. If both legs mandatory, then all six ways have significance. For all the different squares reachable, both mandatory and darter maximize the significance of multiple pathways, I think.
I hate to be saying this so quickly on top of my Shatranjian Shooters suggestions, but the one step pawns seem a bit onerous for this particular game, out of keeping with the vivacious dynamics of strong pieces on a 10x10 board. I think I've mentioned this to you privately, Joe, but I want to recommend a version of this game with 'normal' pawns, i.e, having the initial double step option with en passant.
Or if not 'normal' pawns, how about Patient Pawns, which Gilman invented and Rahman-Sibahi used in Queen of the Night Chess.
25 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.