Comments by MichaelNelson

Rules question: How do moves across the mid-line of the board work? Can a knight on f6 capture on g8 or must it enter the other half of the board as a non-capturing knightrider? If the latter, can it move as far forward as as empty squares allow, or can it only take a single knight leap?

I'm assuming cross the mid-line as a non-capturing knightrider and go as far as you can, but I'm not certain that's correct. Clarification appreciated.

Zipfile containing revised zrf, images and ten sample games included has been uploaded.

I notice Zillions is rather fond of the "Four Camels" opening. Indeed it once played an "Eight Leapers" opening. Getting and keeping a compound piece when the enemy doesn't is normally a winning advantage.

But how do I link to the individual piece images? I don't want to show the whole set.

Board image .gif created and uploaded, working on the piece images. Where are the existing piece graphic files? If necessary, I can convert all my .bmp files to transparent.gif files, but if chessvariants.com already has the correct piece graphics, I'd prefer to use them.

After a large amount of editing, I think the game and this page are really ready for publication. I believe I have a playable game and a reasonable page now. I have to make a few edits to the help text in the Zillions file, and then that page should be ready as well. The Zillions page will probably be ready later today.

Are any further edits necessary or desirable?

Fergus, I know what I was told, I'm glad the rule is nonexistent, it must have been someone else's opinion. I will try the suggestions for better tools and see what works best. If none of those tools give satisfaction, I will upload a Zillions screenshot (trimmed to show just the board) as I wanted to originally.

Bob's suggestion of a piece on the blank space improves the game considerably. I chose the Guard (non-royal King) as the best fit. It provides better King protection and if it persists to the endgame K + G versus K can force mate. The Guard should be a Pawn promotion option as well. In certain positions, it may be the best choice. Thanks to all for the suggestions that improved the game considerably. I should be able to upload the revised .zrf this afternoon or tomorrow.

(Deleted replied to the wrong person.)

A modified Queen doesn't fit the theme, but perhaps a Mann or Commoner (non-royal King) would work well. I'll try that out later today.

H.G. the Diagram Designer is the tool provided by Chessvariants.com and is the preferred tool. The site discourages uploading images--I had originally uploaded a Zillions screenshot which has a proper Harvestman graphic, but the site maintainers strongly suggested I use the Diagram designer instead. Diagram Designer has already defined 26 pieces that don't include the Harvestman so the Rook is the least bad alternative to represent it, as the piece is the game's Rook analog.

Even if I had access to another tool (free, I can't afford to buy one), that would still involve uploading files.

Please tell me how it is possible to add a new piece to the DD piece set, or get the site maintainers not to complain about uploading screenshots.

I can already tell that the new version is much more balanced. The Grand Chess-like setup with Camels on the corners of the board alone on the first rank is much more balanced. I have also extended the osmosis rules. Now when a basic piece captures anything but a Pawn or a corresponding piece, a compound piece is created. The promotion by capturing is reminiscent of Maka Dai Dai Shogi and possibly other large Shogi variants.

Bob's Zebras don't fit the theme, but I'm now inspired to create a leaper-heavy game with Knights, Camels, Zebras, and all their compounds with such other pieces as may be needed for adequate mating power.

Some thoughts on the "can mate" property of pieces. Apparently, since K + NW vs. King can force mate, King + X can force mate if X is any of the Harvestman compounds, or presumably where X is the Harvestman itself, though I'm not familiar with mating with NW's and Zillions is not good at it. We know mate can be forced if X is a Cardinal. As has been pointed out, when X is a Gnu, the game is drawn. If X is a Caliph (BC), I assume it is also a draw, as the Caliph is colorbound.

In Chess, a major piece (Queen, Rook) can mate, while a minor piece (Bishop, Knight) can't and this is the definition of major and minor pieces. In Chess, the majors are stronger in terms of overall power as well. This is not necessarily true of variants. It is quite possible for a minor piece to have more overall power than a major piece. Can mate is only a significant part of piece value (the proportion is unknown and may vary).

A thought for research: how much less valuable is a Queen which can't capture a King than a normal Queen? The possibility of King capture is the basis for check and mate, though in Chess and variants using the checkmate rules, the capture is never actually carried out.

For Colorful Osmosis, if my assumptions are correct, the major pieces are Harvestman, Evangelist, Imam, Battlemaster, and Cardinal; while the minor pieces are Bishop, Knight, Camel, Gnu, and Caliph.

Please let me know if any of my assumptions are incorrect.

I've found a flaw in this design--the opening Camel move to the fourth rank is too disruptive to the enemy development, so as White, Zillions always chooses it. This seems to result in an excess of White wins. A recent series of ten test games yielded 8 wins for White, 1 win for Black, and 1 lack of forces draw. This is not acceptable.

I'm experimenting with a fix: play on a 10x10 board, ten pawns on the third rank, pieces (except Camels) on the second rank as in Grand Chess (with the square next to the King empty), and Camels in the corners.

Initial testing looks good. If more tests show more balanced outcomes, I will update these pages accordingly; if not, I will withdraw the game.

For now, consider this game on hold.

BTW the new setup on the 10x10 has a much more pleasing appearance. The rather ugly Bishop Camel swap on one side of the board is no longer needed to give each player one Bishop and one Camel of each color.

I want this to display in What's New as "Inspired by the Game of Nemeroth" but it appears in the listings of my unpublished submissions as "Nemeroth Simplfied" (the original entry which I have reconsidered). How do I fix this? I am also open to suggestions about a possible better name for the game.

I have been trying to add a description but the database won't update.

This item now contains a description.

Thanks, Lev for pointing that out. I will edit the page.

I'll see what I can do with the Diagram Designer. I may need to add several images from other Alfaerie sets, Alfaerie 1 doesn't seem to include them.

I solved the Mason move by using single-step moves and add-partial.

The last piece I'm coding can push a line of pieces. This almost does what I want:

(define push ($1 (verify not-empty?) cascade (while (not-empty? $1) $1 cascade) $1 add))

But if the piece at the end of the line is at the edge of the board, I want to capture it (push it off the board). The above code disallows the move if the last piece is at the board's edge. I wonder if there is a solution using zones or dummy squares.

The piece is inspired by Nemeroth's Go Away (but it can only push one line at a time, and any effects of or on the pushed pieces are ignored).

Indeed, the whole game is inspired by Nemeroth, but on the whole, it's much simpler to code in Zillions. There is an unapproachable piece, a piece that turns the target square to stone (by a rifle-capture-like move), a piece that moves and captures as a king, a piece that lays down a line of stones, and so on. Stones do not move on their own but can be captured or pushed (a bit like ichor without the bookkeeping). Victory is by stalemate or opponent's repetition. There is no concept of compulsion or multiple-occupancy squares.

My game loses much of Nemeroth's peculiar flavor but is interesting in its own right. Pushing pieces of the board will make it complete. I will need to clean up the Zillions file and author a page.

The Zillions user forum seems dead. I registered, but can't start a new topic.

I have the following move macro:

(define Mason-step ((verify (empty? $1))(create Stone) $1 add))

How do I turn this into a slide? All my attempts are generating pares errors.

I have a name: Colorful Osmosis Chess. Colorful refers to the importance of color-bound and color-switching pieces while osmosis is a synonym of absorption. I decided to not use triple and quadruple compounds. On the right of the King, the positions of the Bishop and Camel are reversed, thus using rotational symmetry as in Shogi rather than mirror symmetry as in FIDE Chess. This provides one Bishop and one Camel on each color. The absence of castling and promotion at the Pawn line rather than the back rank is also very Shogi-like.

I like the Evangelist piece name and I will experiment with triple compounds. The Knight-Camel-Bishop-Harvester quadruple compound would be strange a more than a little frightening. It covers more squares than the Amazon (aka the Terror), but unlike the Amazon, can't mate unassisted.

My mistake. You are correct--it doesn't cover one of the wazir moves even at the edge of the board. But it does confine the King rather nicely as you bring in the King or another piece to cover that square.

I have invented a new variant and have a working .zrf. I don't have a satisfying name for it. (Rather reminiscent of my first variant Separate Realms.)

The essential idea is to use four basic pieces, two leapers, and two sliders. One of each type is color-bound, and the other is color-switching.

For the leapers, I have the Knight and Camel, and the Bishop is the obvious choice for the color-bound slider. For the color-switching slider, I'm using Jörg Knappen's Harvestman from Seenschach, which moves a wazir and then continues as a crooked bishop.

Also, simple pieces can combine with captured enemy pieces as in Assimilation Chess, but the compounds do not split, and there are no King compounds.

So Gnu, Cardinal, and Caliph can appear as well as three Harvestman combinations I've never seen before. I've named the Bishop compound the Metropolitan (a title used in Eastern Orthodoxy for a prelate ranking above an archbishop but below a patriarch). The Camel compound is the Imam, which has the property of mating a bare King on an empty board unassisted. I haven't done the endgame studies to see if mate can be forced. The Knight compound is named Battlemaster, after the Fighter subclass in D&D 5e.

The Harvestman is a good Rook substitute on the whole, though not as good at forcing mate. It does however move in a general rook-like direction with greater mobility. Intuition says this is a reasonable trade-off.

The game is played on a 9x9 board with normal Pawn movement including promotion at the enemy Pawn line rather than the back rank, allowing very FIDE-like Pawn play. Castling is forbidding, so the King is very exposed in the center of the back rank. This is rather reminiscent of Shogi.

A very playable game judged by Zillions vs. itself play. Now I need a name, and I can change some piece names if that fits the theme better.

(deleted)

By intention, the Royal Lion is hard to checkmate. The games run quite long (100+ moves) but draws are not common per Zillions vs. itself at a strong setting. This won't be to everyone's taste. If further testing indicates the game is drawish, perhaps bare Lion should be a win, but so far it doesn't seem to be.

The page should be ready for publication now. I have a working .ZRF, but it needs a bit of polishing.