Comments by GregoryStrong

Ok, I found the issue. For some reason, it put "N n B b R r Q q e e w w" as the options (the E and W were both lower-case for some reason.)

It says KisO4 in the list, which is correct, but I didn't update that one. I had guessed that it defaulted to that based on the board size. But I didn't put the king on the board either - it starts there (if that matters.)

I updated those values and now castling works correctly too.

This is VERY impressive. It is now possible to make presets for typical variants with no writing of GAME code at all. Thank you for making this!

There should be a link that says Edit This Page. Or you can post the introduction and I will update it.

The pawns are also can move backwards

How do they move backwards? One space backwards? Can they capture a king when moving backwards? Straight back or diagonally?

You miss the part where you can make the aggrements if both sides feel if they can make the other side do something that would make them more advateges then before you can betray the other one also this action tooks one turn and the other need to execute the action in their turn and then you do the same what he wants to also you can betray him this up to you if you feel that you can trust him next time.

This could be placed in the notes, but this is not really a rule.  All you are really saying is that players can talk.  They could do this in Chess too.  But they do not have to do what they say they will do.

nyway yes this how i would have been able to do it more sorted out about the question, you cannot make a space backwards 2 tiles only one though im not so sure if its such a bug diffrents on the field though if you feel like that playing the game it can make a diffrance then im sure we can change it though i never played my self with that rule included

My question was not about moving two spaces backwards.  My question is when can you move two spaces forwards?  In chess, any pawn on the second rank can move two spaces.  But in this game, since they can go backwards, they can leave the second rank and still come back.

I dont quiet understand the second question though what do you mean by first rank? Sorry for my lack of knowladge.

Rank means row.  Squares a1, b1, c1, ... f1 are the first rank.  A pawn moves backwards on its first move - pawn on e2 moves to e1.  It is now on the first rank.  Can it move two spaces?  Personally, I would make the rule like this: "any pawn on the first or second rank can move two spaces."  Otherwise, players must remember which pawns have moved and which have not.

Ok I went back and checked on the castling using only the ChessV engine with default settings with me as white. I've been playing mostly standard, gothic, and omega. Of three quick openings/midgames, Omega alone castled. What seems to happen is that the engine will push pawns away from a potential castle position before it gets the chance to castle into it.

Yes, I did some testing and I see what you mean.  It has no particularly strong desire to castle, so I'm increasing the castling bonus.  I'm also increasing the length of the opening phase.  The development evaluation bonuses/penalties "fade out" as the game progresses.  (By the endgame, it doesn't matter if you've castled or not.)  So some games it just doesn't get around to castling before the bonus is no longer applied.  And maybe this is right - maybe sometimes there are more urgent things going on.

On a different note, I tried to get P2P.exe (http://hgm.nubati.net/p2p.html) to work with this to play over the internet, but through no fault of either programmer, it won't work. This is because when you bring up the engine settings there should be a specialized window, but in ChessV there is always the same variation, weakening, etc. I only bring this up bcs there might be an easy fix ;)

Interesting.  I'm not surprised this doesn't work, although I don't know of any specific reason why it shouldn't.  The ChessV GUI doesn't support everything in the xboard protocol and there could be bugs with that which is implemented.  I may dig into this at some point, but there are other things needing attention more urgently.  At some point, ChessV should just have the ability to play matches across the internet on its own.

I found the following search scheme to work quite well in games with drops: you distingush check-drops from other drops, and make a special move generator to selectively generate those (by generating retro moves for all piece types, starting from the King). At d=1 the only drops searched are the check drops; at d>=2 LMR reduces non-captures by 1 ply, and (non-check) drops by 2 ply.

Well, that sounds pretty easy.  What about QSearch?  I assume it just doesn't consider drops at all?

In CrazyWa I used a King Safety evaluation that seemed to work quite well generically across many drop variants. It was kind of unusual by being asymmetric. It awardeds a bonus to the side to move which is the product of the hand value and the number of squares attacked next to the enemy King (the possible drop locations). The latter could be cheaply calculated as side effect of the move generation, while the hand value can be kept track of incrementally. The idea was that in games with drops 'initiative' is all important, and the side that has the initiative typically checks the opponent all the time (mostly through drops, and captures with the slider it just dropped when evasion was an interposition). The side that is in check will never evaluate, but extend for the evasion even at d=0. So the leaves typically have the side on move that has the initiative, and this player usually doesn't have to worry much about his own King Safety.

This also makes sense.  I'll make a note of this.

Xiangqi chasing rules indeed are very annoying; especially the fact that they are based on legal attacks and protects means that you have to search 3 ply ahead to judge them: one to play the attacks that are  chase candidates as a capture, then the possible pseudo-legal recaptures, and finally the potential King captures resulting from these. And you have to do that for every position in the repeat loop. Always for both sides, because they could be mutually chasing, and then it is a draw again.

That is really painful.  I wonder if it is possible to collect this information incrementally during the search rather than searching deeper to determine?