Comments by ChessShogi

I'm guessing that's what happens when you use the drop rule with a game that wasn't designed for it. I'm attempting to solve this in Dai Seireigi by using the same forward bias found in regular Shogi.

Here's a prototype of what I have so far (You may need to view this comment by itself for the diagram to show, and some of the mnemonics are close approximations of the actual piece). Only the eight most valuable pieces are not subject to this forward bias, and the Falcon and Eagle (promoted Horse and Dragon) will be subject to it as well.

The promotions are not included, as I haven't sorted that out yet, except that the King, Lion, and Queen do not promote, pieces found in normal Seireigi promote as they do in that game, and that I plan on adding Korean-style hopping move (without restrictions on what it can do) for a few of these promotions.

I am thinking about doing something similar with a game called Dai Seireigi, which is basically Chu Shogi, but with drops and an altered piece/moveset roster to account for the drop rule. This includes replacing the Lion power with a "hit-and-run" ability that allows a piece to move or capture on a square and then move without capturing to a square adjacent to . This allows pieces with the ability to capture a piece in a certain direction and then maneuver into place to check the enemy King, while also not being too overpowered for the drop rule.

The Dai Seireigi Lion would have the hit-and-run ability in all directions, and a two-step area move, similar to that of the Tenjiku Shogi TSA Lion Hawk, but without the ability to return to its starting square (KmcamKaK).

However, I have an important question regarding anti-trading rules. Since in a game with drops no piece ever goes entirely out of play, would you need an anti-trading rule in such a game?

Thanks.

I also noticed another bug where the King seems to be deleting Pawns to its bottom-right (from white's perspective) after moving to its destination when navigating through the game. For example, in the previous comment's diagram, 1. Ke9e8 will delete the Pawn on f7, and 1. Ke1e4 will delete the pawn on f3 after clicking < and then >|.

I noticed a bug affecting drops in betzaNew.js. If you use the navigation bar to go through the game, dropped pieces will turn into empty spaces.

Here's an example from Seireigi: 1. c4 g6 2. Bxh8+ Sxh8 3. B@c3

Click '<' and then '>|'. The captured Bishop will be dropped on c3 and then turn into an empty space.

I've been thinking about the way the game has changed since H. G. Muller's comments. Now that all promotions are unique, it makes less sense to boost the Knight and Lance. Thanks to the changes I made to the promoted Silver and Gold Generals, Seireigi's new identity now revolves around the new promotions, so it doesn't make sense to include new moves that would heighten the learning curve for an already difficult game. Plus, I've come to realize that limitation breeds creativity, and since the drop rule is already in force, I can afford to pop off the extra steps for the Knight and Lance, as their standard Shogi selves already work.

I will need to update this page's description (which requires temporarily deleting this submission and resubmitting it) and update everything else, but it's not like I'm agonizingly experimenting with moves for a single power piece like I did with Suzumu Shogi. This is a good problem to have.

Update coming soon.

Edit: I have updated this page and its PBM counterpart.

Seireigi is ready.

Edit: Slight change of rules. I have changed the Lance so that it steps diagonally forward in addition to its regular moves. As such, its normal drop restrictions apply. This move seems to fit the piece better, as its Japanese name literally means "incence chariot" and chariots don't really have a way to move backwards besides turning around. This change also has another benefit regarding a future four player variant of Seireigi. Everything has been updated accordingly.

Edit: Disregard my previous edit. I was able to find a more elegant solution to the problem I faced with four-player Seireigi without resorting to manipulating piece moves in this game (and also avoiding very costly headaches in the process :) ). Update coming soon.

I suppose I could change the names. But then I would also have to change them in the Ludii file as well. While Ludii does have an enormous collection of LSV pieces (it implements Taikyoku Shogi, crazy enough), there aren't that many elephant or wolf pieces in said collection.

I could use Great Elephant for the promoted Gold. That would make a lot more sense, and since sometimes it is disputed whether it appears or not in the historical LSVs, this version could stand out. But for the wolf piece, I want each promoted form to use unique characters so it stands out, and the running character is already used for the promoted Lance. I suppose I can use the Venomous Wolf here for the same reason.

Edit: I changed the names of the promoted Silver and promoted Gold to Venomous Wolf and Great Elephant, respectively.

Seireigi is ready.

It would give the variant much less 'Shogi feel' when you introduce such an exotic move. I am also not sure whether in Shogi Soaring-Eagle-like Lion capture would do really much more than a two-square jump (or even slide). The locust capture is mainly dangerous because it can eliminate protected pieces. But in Shogi the main factor that determines the value of a piece is how effective it is in checking a King. And there you don't care whether it was protected or not. Starting to hunt for other material by dropping, promoting, capturing takes too long, and you would probably be checkmated before you get the opportunity to drop the piece you gained by it.

Good points.

Although I think that in Shogi the promotion Silver to Gold was mainly motivated by uniformity, it is not an entirely useless promotion. When dropping a Silver in front of the King to check the latter, the King can evade by stepping next to the Silver. The latter can then pull backwards to renew the check, and by promoting to Gold in the process it can make sure the King now has to retreat.

The same could be said for the Drunk Elephant (or non-royal King). While it may take too long to actually move it, it can still do things that the other pieces might struggle with, such as checkmating a King from the side. That being said, I don't think the double step options will work. For now, I am just going to make the style changes you recommended.

Edit: I've made the changes, and I've decided to give the Violent Wolf and Drunk Elephant sliding moves in the directions I tried giving them double step options on.

I'm currently experimenting with adding linear Lion moves to the Violent Wolf and Drunk Elephant. Surely, those will have an impact. They would have the same limitations as their current iterations, but would be able to tear through defenses easier, while still being short range.

Edit: For now, in my experiments on piece moves, I have given the Violent Wolf and Drunk Elephant the ability to step twice in a straight line, or jump two squares, along the forward orthogonal and forward diagonals, respectively.

I removed all the old pieces. That said, I can make Mnemonic pieces pretty easily. It's just a matter of forming the templates, and then making pieces from those templates.

Also, the checkered board is an intentional design choice, in case you were wondering.

Edit: I've uploaded enlarged Mnemonic images for Seireigi and the ability to switch between the Mnemonic and Kanji sets (refresh browser cache).