Comments by MichaelNelson

The example David gives is indeed potent, but can be beaten by a stronger
force even without a Swapper (an if the enemy is weaker, why settle for an
unbeatable defense when you should be winning?)

The problem will all such formations is that they cannot be
maintained--the opponent arranges his moves so that you must either break
the formation or lose by triple repetition.

David is quite correct that the Swapper is highly valuable in breaking up
formations of this type. I fact, I suspect that this factor makes the
Swapper considerably more valuable than its Rococo counterpart.

I eliminated the suicide rule because after playtesting it both ways I
liked the feel of the game better without it. I feel suicide is less
necessary in Fugue (and for that matter Rococo) than in Ultima becase the
Cannon Pawn is such an excellent Immobilizer-killer--it can capture the
Immobilizer by using an immobilized piece as a mount. The Archer can also
pick off an Immobilizer from a distance if there is any open line--the
immobilized pieces spot.

Another reason for this and also for having Immobilzers immune to each
other and Swappers unable to swap with each other is that I wanted to
increase the third-thing aspect of Fugue: to intentionally be different
from both Ultima and Rococo.

Making the Withdrawer immune to the Immobilizer would certainly make it
very valuble for its special ability but losing value rapidly after thew
enemy Immobilizer is gone, suddenly regaing value if the enemy protes a
Pawn to Immobilizer.

Three critieria come to mind to distinguish an Ultima variant from a Chess
variant with some Ultima elements (this might also be a useful thing to
index):

1.  More capturing move types than non-capturing move types.

2.  Majority of capturing move types are non-replacement.

3.  At least one piece with an important special power (e.g.
Immobilizer).

#3 is not a strict criteria but is indicative in borderline cases.

Chess On A Longer Board . . . is clearly a Chess variant with Ultima
elements by these criteria.

I will be building the webpage for Fugue over the next few days. The final
ZRF is ready if anyone wants it before then. (I'm already sending updates
to R. Laveri and M. Howe.)

Some guesses at Rococo piece 'beginner values':

Immobilizer=4
Long Leaper=3
Advancer=3
Swapper=2
Cameleon=2
Withdrawer=1
Cannon Pawn=1
Archer=2
Pushme-Pullyu=5

Some scary exotics:
LL/PP (can caputure as either or both)=9 
Archer/Advancer=6 
Cameleon/Swapper=5 

Rococo With Different Armies, anyone?

Larry's suggestion also improves play and the code is elegant. I'm going
to
do some testing and see which approach seems to do better.

I have a more elegant macro for Peter's method which will allow the
final
move to be made:

(define King-win (
(verify (in-zone? promotion-zone))
(if (in-zone? promotion-zone a1)
	White-throne ; dummy position with a White King
else
	Black-throne ; dummy position with a Black King
)
add
))

There are two advantages provided by castling:

1. The King is safer near the corner behind a wall of pawns.

2. Brings the Rook towards the center where it can get into the action
more easily.

King and Rook move normally on subequent turns. 

There is no such move as 'uncastle', but some people use this term to
describe a series of Rook and King moves that restore the position of Rook
and King before castling.

Peter, 

Sorry about that typo--I know the correct name of your fine game, but my
fingers don't work so well sometimes.

As for no draws by agreement, the rest of the rules by design make it
impossible for a game played to a conclusion to be drawn. My feeling is
that the players cannot agree on an impossible result, any more than two
players of FIDE Chess are able to agree to split the point 3/4 - 1/4.

My reason for a drawless game is personal one: playtesting and analysis
indicate draws would be extremely rare using checkmate and King to the
eighth rank as win conditions. I simply dislike the idea of a draw rate of
say 1/2%. 

The fifty move rule is arbitrary, but will never be invoked by skilled
players: the player with the won position can win quicker than that.

I'd love a preview copy of Nova Chess.

The web page states that the Chameleon can check the King from an adjacent
square and this is correct per Abbott's rules for Ultima in 'Abbott's
New Card Games'.  He states that a Chameleon may capture a piece if it
mimics it's move in direction and distance. So a pawn can only be
captured by a Rook move and a King can only be checked from an adjacent
square.

Leaping a Long Leaper does not invalidate the mimic of another piece. This
seems illogical at first glance but really is logical.  The idea is that
making a capture of one piece does not prevent the capture of others. If
the Chameleon had made a Rook move away from a Withdrawer that sandwiched
a Pawn, both captures would be allowed.  Abbott believed that leaping a
Long Leaper should not preclude other captures.

I like Charles' thinking on this game also.  Whatever the inventor's
intent, I like the idea of the third thru sixth ranks all being water so
that you can't get to the enemy back ranks without using rafts.

Moves from one land square to another must be legal, as otherwise the King
is immobile.

It should be legal to give or avoid check, mate, or stalemate by moving a
raft.

Any kind of multi-variant tournament or single-variant tournament would be
of interest to me. More than one could feasibly be in play at once. Game
courrier tends to encourage fast play, so this opens more options.


For scoring, there is no way to determine a fair score differential for
Black.  FIDE is the only variant where a deecnt guess of the size of
White's advantage is available, and even that no doubt varies by rating.

Not all variants even favor the player who moves first--my own Pocket
Mutation Chess slightly favors Black under the current rules.

I believe that mate with King, Bishop and Knight vs lone King can take up
to 49 moves, which is the reason for the 50-move rule. IIRC, computer
studies of more complex positions have shown  mates requiring over 200
moves--which might or might not transgress the fifty move rule, as any
capture or pawn move resets the clock.  But in any case, the line has to
be drawn somewhere and some wins (if arbitrary length games are allowed)
will be draws under an x-move rule.

I believe the 50-move limit should be increased for a larger board, but
reduced for more powerful pieces (for the board size).  The technical way
would be to calculate the average crowded board mobitity of each piece
(using Betza's method), then add up these values to get an approximation
of the power on the board. Compare the ratio of this power to the number
of squares to the ratio of the FIDE army (about 64, depending on the magic
number) to 64 squares = about 1.  

The formula is movelimit = 50 times board size divided by total army
mobility.  For FIDE Chess this is 50 * 64 / 64 = 50.

To examples for your duodecimal game:

1. Total army mobility = 90   50 * 144 / 90 = 80
2. Total army mobility = 200  50 * 144 / 200 = 36

You can probably guesstimate accurately enough without actually doing the
calculations.

I hav submitted the corrections to the editors. It is a good change in that
reducing White's opening advantage is always a good thing.

However, the original rules do not give White a win.  Black can maintain
equality by symmetrical play. The early loss of one Rook on each side is a
bit of a flaw, though.

In the revised rules, White is safe from the Nightrider attack if he opens
Pawn d2-d4 or Pawn e2-e4. This covers one fork point and he has the tempo
to cover the other if Black mutates a Rook to Nightrider.  Since these are
reasonable opening moves anyway, diffusing the Nightrider threat costs
White little or nothing--this makes for a very balanced game.

Antoine raises a good point.  Consider it done. Rule 2 is amended to read:
'If a player's pocket is empty, the player may remove any of his pieces
(except his King) from the board and put it in his pocket as a move. White
may not use the pocket for the first move.'

I will also submit a corrected ZRF when I am able.

I've submitted a revised ZRF which adds another variant: Mike's Camel
Chess II.  This allows Eaglets to promote on the eighth rank (as well as
by flanking) but prohibits promotion to Tower of Hanoi.

I've submitted a ZRF for Mike's Camel Chess--a variant with the enhanced
Diagonal Bypasser and more limited Tower of Hanoi as defined in my
previous comments.  It seems to be considerably more playable, but
preserves the essential flavor of Lùotuoqí.

The biggest difference between Lùotuoqí and FIDE Chess (IMO) is not the
Tower, the Bypasser, or the Cube but the Eaglet promotion rule--promotion
is possible early and will normally occur on the player's own side of the
board.

Actually, the change to rule 1 is the one I feel least strongly about--you
make a good case and your way is simpler.

My contribution is not great enough to have a variant named for me--I'd
be comfortable with a thank you on the game page, if you insist.

On the no checkmate by Pawn drops, you may well be right also -- but this
may be less necessary with no drops in zone 4.

Personally, the one Shogi rule I have never liked or understood is why it
is legal to check the King with a Pawn drop, but not to mate. To me,
prohibiting both or neither would seem more logical.

I had never been happy with the 150-move limit, but I just wasn't able to
write an an adequate 50-move rule in time for the contest deadline. In
fact, I have several me vs Z and Z vs Z games in my library that were in
doubt on move 150 but won by move 170, where a draw would have been
declared even though progress was being made.

By the way, games of this length are extraordinary--the most recent
involved me making a very long comeback from being within a hairbreath of
lost at move 75.  On the other hand, I have seen games that were pretty
dea by move 100 or so that the new rule will stop before move 150.

The new 50-move rule is complex, but is an accurate adaptation of the FIDE
50-move rule to the radically different conditions of Wizard's War. In
actaul play, the irreplacablity of a piece will be more obvious than it
seems from reading the rule.

Jared,

I would suggest eliminating rules 2, 6 and 7 and rephrasing rule 4 to
conform to the elimination of rule 6.

The bare King rule is unnecessary--if the player has only his King and
nothing in hand he can be checkmated quite easily.

I suggest rewriting rule 1 to allow drops in the fourth zone with these
provisions:

1. You may not promote as you drop (same as Shogi).
2. To promote, you must move the piece you dropped in the fourth zone
within the fourth zone (contrary to Shogi, where you can promote a piece
whose move starts in the promotion zone and ends outside it).  

I would also consider eliminating the pawn drop restrictions--definately
the file restriction and possibly the checkmate restriction as well.

Ivan Derzhanski is almost certainly right.  Ancient peoples would think of
a move of three squares as including the starting square but more modern
people with a better understanding of zero would think of a move of two
squares not including the starting square.  There may be areas of
confusion in ancient sources espaecially compilations from multiple
sources--this might be the real origin of the rule in Tamerlane that the
Bishop cannot move one square, for example.

Comparable examples in other fields: 

Julius Ceasar often sent coded messages using the alphahbetic substituion
A=D, B=E, C=F, etc. He and his contempories described this as advancing
four letters, we would say three.

According to the New Testament, Jesus died on Friday, was in the tomb
Saturday, and rose from the dead Sunday--expressed in the creeds as 'On
the third day he rose from the dead.'  No doubt we would say 'On the
second day . . .' if we hadn't heard it so many times the other way.

Timothy,

Congratulations on a well deserved win. There were so many fine games that
any number of them might have been chosen, but the judges certainly made a
very reasonable choice.  Outback gets gets better and better as you have
more exposure to it.  You know it will be a fun game by reading the
rules--play a few times and you will know it is also a very fine game. You
have created a real gem.

Roberto,

Maxima is a very fine game. 

With respect to the value of pieces, I wouldn't even attempt to calculate
the values in an Ultima Variant--the multiplicity of capture types means
that this will be far harder than the value of Chess pieces.  But I
believe it is doable in principle.

The reason I'm interested in the value of Chess pieces is for game
design. I want theoretical values so I can have an idea what an unfamiliar
piece should be worth. I particularly have an interest in Chess With
Different Armies and most especially the 'build your own army' variants.
The ideal value won't and cannot be perfect, but it should be a decent
starting place--practical values will always be empirical, and will vary
by game context. For example, play a lot of Chess using Berolina Pawns--do
the Bishop and Rook have the same values relative to each other as in FIDE
Chess?

Zillions values are about useless for pieces that are even slighty
unorthodox--even the Bishop is overvalued compared to the Knight. That's
why Zillions programmers have techniques to inflate piece values.

More thoughts on augmented Knights:

Part of the advantage of the augmented Knights over the Rook may be a
Zillions artifact--Knights are strongest in the opening, Rooks in the
endgame. Zillions sometimes has trouble getting to an endgame, where human
masters would.  If my conjecture is correct, setting Zillions to deeper
plies would show the gap reducing or increasing much more slowly than
normal for repeating a Zillions calc at higher plies.

I suspect your results are not anomalous among the augmented Knights. The
NF has yet a third advantage--it cannot be driven from an outpost square
by an undefended pawn! All other augmented Knights can (as can the Rook,
but outposts are more important for short range pieces). This factor is
also almost certainly a part of why the Ferz is stonger than the Wazir.  

I would be curious to see what the numbers are for the various augmented
Knights vs Rook and each other if Berolina Pawn are used. I predict NW the
strongest but with a smaller gap, and Rook significantly better vs
augmented Knights (easier development as well as can't be attacked by an
undefended pawn).

A very pretty game, more playable than absorbtion.


It gives me an idea a variant:

When one piece captures another, any DNA the captured piece has that the
capturer does not have is added to the capturerpiece, but any DNA that the
pieces have in common is removed form the capturer:

Rook captures Bishop = Queen
Rook captures Queen = Bishop
Rook captures Amazon = Cardinal
Cardinal captures Queen = Marshall
Knight captures Knight = nothing! (suicide capture)


I wonder how this would play?

Robert

With regard to the multi-move mobiltiy calculation, I think we can ignore
levelling effects at the M2 etc level as well--levelling effect can't be
calculated on a per piece basis at all.  For example, in FIDE Chess, the
levelling effect brings the queen's value down--but add a Queen to
Betza's Tripunch Chess and the levelling effect brings its value up! 

I think the correct way to allow for the levelling effect is to calculate
all piece values ignoring it, then correct each piece value by an equation
which compares the uncorrected value to the per piece average (or perhaps
weighed average) value of the opponent's army.  So the practical value of
a piece depends on what game it is in.

Robert,

I think you are on the right track.  I think the Bishop needs a reduction
due to colorboundness, and 10% would make it equal to the Knight. The
Amazon seems a little high. Perhaps this is because the Amazon's awesome
forking power is a bit harder to use--for example, forking the enemy King
and defended Queen is terrific if you fork with a Knight, but useless if
you fork with an Amazon.

I think that it is neccessary to take the forwardness of mobility and
forking power into account--indisputably, a piece that moves forward as a
Bishop and backwards as a Rook (fBbR) is stronger than the opposite case
(fRbB).

Nevertheless, your numbers aren't bad at all as is.  They seem to have
decent predictive value for 'normal' pieces ( a 'normal' piece moves
the same way as it captures, and its move pattern is unchanged by a
rotation of 90 degrees of any multiple). Various types of divergent pieces
will need corrections--I would assume that a WcR (moves as Wazir, captures
as Rook) is stonger than a WmR (capatures as Wazir, moves as Rook) and
that both are a bit weaker than the average of the Wazir value and the
Rook value.

The author's 'The setup in my diagram is not a mistake' asserts that the
diagram correctly reflects his design--that he really intended the
asymetircal setup, rather than the diagram-maker messing up.

Whether this is a good design decision is an interesting question. I
suspect Ralph had a good reason for his choice and I would be interested
in hearing it.

I would like to make clear that my comments about games in the 84 Spaces
Contest are absolutely in no way intended as crticism of the judges.
Having judged Group A with Glenn Overby and Michael Howe, I am well aware
of how difficult the judging task is and how diligently the judges do
their work.  No doubt some will disagree with our decisions as well. Given
the overall high quality of the entries, not all of the worthy games can
make the finals. I am also quite sure that many of the decisions were very
close ones.  

It's been a pleasure to be part of this contest, both as an entrant and a
judge.

Another idea suggests itself:  make the pieces entirely immobile on the
next move after a capture, but the piecces are self-readying: for
example, White captures a Knight with his Queen on move 28. The Queen 
may not move or capture on move 29, but the Queen may move or capture 
normally on move 30 or later.

If this game were played with thematic Kings, this could allow a King to
administer mate--if Black's King just made a capture, White's King
could move next to it and this is check and mate since Black's King 
can't move and White's king can't be captured (if it could, the 
checking move was illegal). Capturing with a bare King would mean 
stalemate, as would capturing with your only mobile piece, if the 
opponet's move did not release any other or oyur pieces.

I have already given this game a well-earned 'Excellent'.  I think Tony
is leading the way to some new, exiting Hex Chess games.  The key is
dropping the attempt to translate square geometry into hex
geometry--Heroes is designed to play well in hex from the beginning.  The
email game I have going with Tony is in the endgame--the game is holding
up very well in terms of play value.  

I believe this game is a serious contender to win the 84 Spaces Contest. 
I would be astonished if it didn't at least finish high in the rankings.

I can't help but wonder if dropping the attempt to translate 2D geometry
into 3D would lead to some fine 3D games.

I really like this game. If a King promotion is desired, perhaps a mW2F2cK
allowing more mobitity with the stipulation that the 2-square move
couldn't cross check (like castling).  This would be worth having as the
promoted King could get out of a dangerous position quicker, but most
mating positions would still be the same.

Let's take a look at promotions:

Knight is a two atom piece that promotes to a five atom piece--this is the
strongest promotion and a good thing -- the 9x9 board weakens the Kinght
vs the Bishop and the stronger promotion rebalances the eqaution.

Bishop is a two atom piece that promotes to a four atom piece, as is the
Camel; the Rook is a three atom piece that promotes to a five atom piece. 
These promotions are of appoximately equal value.

The Silver (FfW) is worth maybe 1 1/3 or so atoms and promotes to a three
atom piece, clearly a a bigger gain than Bishop, Rook, or Camel,  but a
lessar gain than Knight.

The Pawn is harder to evaluate -- it can promote in two steps vs five in
FIDE but does not promote to a decisive piece, so FIDE's 2/3 atom is
probably a good guess.  The Gold (WfF) is worth 1 2/3 atoms, so this is
the weakest promotion--but Pawn promotions collectively can add a lot of
power.

This is worth an excellent because the concept's elegant simplicity is
applicable to virtually any variant (though I wouldn't want to apply it
to a game slower than FIDE Chess--Ready Shogi would be interesting but
would take forever to play).  The ready concept is particlary meritorious
in games that are faster and more tactical than FIDE Chess -- slowing them
down might give them a strategic/tactical balance like FIDE whiler hasving
a very different feel.  Examples: Ready Tripunch Chess, Ready Tutti-Fruiti
Chess, Ready Progressive Chess.

This game also works with thematic Kings, which personally I really prefer
(when playable) from an esthetic standpoint.

Daniel,

Thank you for finding the bug in the ZRF (it actaully affected the
SuperChancellorRider).  I have subbitted a corrected zrf to the CV pages.

Cincinnati-style Kriegspiel should be playable by different armies--the
rules specify that only pawn/piece is announced for a capture, not which
piece.  The CWDA promotion rule needs to be modified to allow pawn
promotion only to pieces in one's own army--otherwise you would have to
know what army the other player is using to know your promotion choices.
(This weakens the Colorbound Clobberers a bit in the endgame--the CC's
often promote a pawn to the other side's Queen piece.)

Check announcements need consideration--what does the referee say if the
player is checked by a Camel? This is a Knightish type check, but not on
the same squares as would be indicated by 'check by Knight'.  A check
from a Half-Duck three sqaures away may still be 'on the file', but the
player's legal moves are different than if the same check were by a Rook
or Queen (interposing is useless, but retreating on the file may work.)

Perhaps the best check announcement rule for KWDA is simply to announce
'check' with no directional indication.

Nicholas,

Could you please express your (often quite accurate) comments in a less
insulting fashion?  If you had actually read my comment instead of just
observing the word 'Zillions' and dismissing my idea (and me) out of
hand, you would have seen that I am equally concerned with playability by
humans.  If Zillions can't be programmed to play something legally (as
opposed to playing it well), generally there are playablity issues for
humans as well.  I can't visualize the Nebula rules on the board as you
have them now--I'm sure I am not unique in this respect.  Even if you
think my observation is entirely erroneous, you could express yourself in
less abrasive, attacking language: why don't you?

Antoine,

I agree that that such endgames are just fine -- many alternatives are
equally playable but the key thing is choosing which set of playable
alternatives suits your conception of what you want the game to be. I
might have chosen differently, but I believe your are designing an
excellent game.

This game deserves an Excellent for the concept, but a small reworking
might be nessessary.

Some limitation on hogging the pocket seems needed--perhaps the cube
variant is some help, but I would suggest that the pocketed piece be
immune from capture for only a limited time (2 or 3 turns perhaps,
playtesting would be required to determine the limit).  After the limit is
up, opponent can move to an occupied pocket and capture. 

I don't think that pawn pocketing variant is a good idea in view of the
pocket hogging issue.   

I would also suggest this variant about flipping.  A piece in the pocket
is affected by flipping, but a move to or from the pocket doesn't cause
filpping.

Actually, .zsg files are plain text and are not covered by licenses, any
more than the data files created by a word processor.  The text is mainly
the move list in full algebraic notation with a small amount of easily
ignored bookeping data.

I would urge anyone who wants to examine these saved games to download the
files even if you don't currently own Zillions--you will be able to read
them.

Very well done page!

The Rookies will almost always win the endgame between these armies, the
challenge is getting there.  Something as seemingly small as a single
advanced Pawn proved decisive in this game--just like FIDE Chess.  How
different and yet how the same.  There needs to be an evaluation well
above Excellent for CWDA.

I have changed my mind about this.  Overstepping the time limit should lose
no matter what the positon on the board is (excepting the case where the
game has actally ended by checkmate, etc. but the player didn't stop his
clock).

The reasoning is simple--the opponent of the violator observed the time
limit. If he had also violated the limit, he might well have found better
moves.  How much better, who can say?  Certainly it is possible he could
have played enough better to change a loss into a win.

Unless triple repetition or the fifty-move rule applies, White loses if he
exceeds the time limit in this position, even though for a decent player
this is a winning position.  The only case where exceeding the time limit
is a draw is if the opponent has a bare King--the case when the opponent
couldn't win no matter how badly the other player plays.  In the positon
you gave you should win but could lose if you played very, very badly--so
exceeding the time limit is a loss.

If you are in bad time trouble but haven't yet gone over the limit, it
might be a good idea to offer a draw--the opponent may well accept since
he will lose if you are able to make the winning moves quickly enough. He
might prefer to take the sure half point form a lost postion than gamble
on you going over.