Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

"David Paulowich wrote on 2023-02-18 UTC [1] Adding "Nightrider" and "Modern Elephant" Tags to your games, as appropriate, will help to attract more readers.

[2] My Elephant (AmD) in Shatranj Kamil (64) is one-half of a Champion (WAD), moving to eight empty Squares and attacking four of them. But you probably want a piece that reaches more than 25 percent of the board.

[3] I had no idea how rarely my King's Leap Rule appears in chess variants. I authored a Zillions of Games file called King's Leap Chess that was never "zipped" - contains readable text. I notice Contemporary Random Chess using both a strange form of castling and the (sideways only) King's Bunker Leap, which cannot move over a square that is either occupied or under attack by an enemy piece. That page also has a link to the King to Bunker Leap page, by Charles Daniel in 2009."

I've added tags extensively to my rules pages (sometimes even preset pages), as well as to many of other people's games (particularly those I know I like). There seems to be very few folks tagging pages anymore otherwise, at this point in time. A future issue might be, if everyone tags practically everything in the Alphabetical Index, we're almost right back where we started (if you see what I mean). :)

The King's Leap rule was used historically, but somehow got abandoned - maybe people were glad to connect the rooks while bringing the K to safety, while still giving the other side a sporting chance vs. the K before it might castle the modern FIDE way (or other mild deviations from it, in the case of CVs), it seems. However, in FIDE chess at elite level, even, Black cannot always take getting castled for granted, while White can pretty much, due to White's birthright initiative (I read a Grandmaster wrote such, somewhere).

In the case of my own Fast Castling rule (first used in my 12x8 Wide Chess), the CV inventions I've used it in so far have largely remained little (or un-) played - Wide Nightrider Chess has been played the most so far, yet I suspect it's mostly because a lot of people like to try playing with Nightriders. Otherwise, some sort of a King's Leap rule (like Fast Castling) is especially useful for wide board CVs (another solution is to move the rooks closer to the middle, but people are conservative about that too, besides not using conventional castling, it seems to me).

edit: link to Wide Chess rules page:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/wide-chess

edit: list of logs for finished Wide Nightrider Chess games:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/logs.php?age=0&stat=any&gamewcp=Wide+Nightrider+Chess

There were precedents for my Fast Castling rule. One CV had K's leap-castling in spite of pieces in-between, say on the 1st rank, while another had castling as usual, except castling through an attacked cell was allowed. Neither CV was much played so far, though. Did people balk? Maybe the CVs had other things people didn't like about them.

edit: added in 2 links re: CVs I mentioned:

https://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/quinquereme.html

https://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/21st-century-chess.html

I have a high number of CV ideas on the drawing board, but almost all use Fast Castling rules, so I'm afraid to eventually submit them all unless a few games that use that rule become more popular first.

A 12x10 board can be a lot of fun - and short range pieces are still reasonably effective. Also, placing the pawns on the 3rd and 8th ranks leaves room to set up the "nonpawn" pieces of any army you are trying out on the Diagram testing thread, including your latest (24x8) variant Bureau-Spiel.

Note that a Ferz starting on (a1) can reach any square of the same color on an 8x8 board in seven moves or less. But a Knight on (a1) requires seven moves to reach (o8). While Bishops will be making moves like a3-f8-m1-p4. I fear that, at best, late middle game and endgame values on a 16x8 board will look something like:

Pawn = 1, Woody Rook (WD) = 2, Knight = 2, Elephant (FA) = 2.25, Man (FW) = 2.50, Bishop = 3, Rook = 6, (RN) = 9 and Queen = 10 points. Also, even assigning a generous 4.5 points to the Crowned Bishop and 7.5 points to the Crowned Rook, together these fine pieces are only worth a pair of Rooks. The Raven (RNN) might be worth trying on a 16x8 board.

@ David

For Wide Nightrider Chess I wanted the Nightriders to start on the back ranks of the setup, plus not that many pieces added, so I didn't have the pawns on the 3rd ranks of each side in the setup - here's a later CV of mine that did do so, with a bigger army for each side (it was not based on TenCubed Chess, but might have been):

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/wide-soho-chess

edit: Here's another 12x10 CV, this one by J-L Cazaux:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/very-heavy-chess

edit2: Yet another 12x10 CV (maybe the most popular one!?), by E Greenwood:

https://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/renaiss.html

This (Wide Nightrider Chess) variant of mine was a bit popular for a time, but I suspect at least some/many/most GC players may have wanted a rules-enforcement preset for it. The Play-Test Applet apparently (still) can be used to generate an Interactive Diagram for it, if someone successfully attempts to make one, as the Applet handles all the piece-types in its piece type table, and allows a 12x10 board, as well as accommodating my Fast Castling (or Omega Chess Pawn) rules.

Not sure I could then generate a preset from an Interactive Diagram for it the way I did for Butterfly Chess (after H.G.'s recent changes to the Applet), i.e. in a way that Fergus recommended against (for good reasons I'm sure), but that way was simple enough at least for me...

Fergus and I just replaced the method he recommended against by something that doesn't have the problems you observed when not actually playing. For you the only difference is that the custom piece assignment the Applet proposes should not be pasted at the end of the Pre-Game section in the preset, but in a (new) text entry there  called Custom Set. (What has to be pasted is also different, but the Applet takes care of that, so it should not concern you.

I don't understand why you would be dependent on someone else to make an Interactive Diagram first. You apparently already went through the piece table to conclude the required pieces are there. Is it really to hard for you to move these pieces from the table to the board, is it just laziness, or is it a matter of principle that you want others to work for you?

Hi H.G.

Just glancing at your tutorial for the Applet (which I seem to recall is necessary to read, to make an Interactive diagram from scratch), it seems it's not just a matter of moving the pieces - it seems all sorts of special steps/reading is needed besides, unless I'm not getting my head around the instructions (which are lengthy and, for me anyway, a non-techie and non-betza-code-familiar-type, hard to see how they are carried out on a step-by-step basis). Maybe I did not try hard enough to comprehend the tutorial, though.

If no one provides code for an Interactive Diagram after some time I may just take a stab at it myself though, and if necessary ask for your assistance. However, at the moment Wide Nightrider Chess is the only CV (at least with a rules page) that I have left that I think may be worth having a rules enforcing preset for, in the near future anyway. Haru has just done an Interactive Diagram for it, showing it is indeed possible to do (and fairly quickly!), at least for some adept folks who may have a less foggy brain than I. As an aside, I'd rather be thinking about making more submissions (easier but more work perhaps) than making just one or two rules enforcing presets, but not one of ten submissions I have in the pipeline has been approved or commented on by editor(s), who are in short supply.

@ Haru:

If you could post the 'code' for the Interactive Diagram you just made for Wide Nightrider Chess, I'd be grateful.

Regards to you both, Kevin

Just glancing at your tutorial for the Applet (which I seem to recall is necessary to read, to make an Interactive diagram from scratch), it seems it's not just a matter of moving the pieces - it seems all sorts of special steps/reading is needed besides, unless I'm not getting my head around the instructions

I wonder where you got that idea. It literally did not require anything other than typing the number 12 and 10 for the board size, pressing 'Apply', set up the position on the (now) 12x10 board by moving the desired pieces from the table there, pressing 'Initial position', and then 'GAME code'. Because (like would be the case for most variants) all the pieces you need are already in the table with the move you want them to have, all with acceptable 1-letter IDs too.

I am sorry if it seems I am badgering you, but there is a reason: if glancing at the instructions causes such a gross misconception, the description is obviously inadequat, and should be improved. I just want to get a better fis on what is wrong with it.

I see that your variant uses fast castling, though; I don't think the the GAME code supports that, even though the Interactive Diagram does. But this would be a show stopper anyway, no matter who creates the Diagram. That it is currently not completely trivial to select fast castling in the Applet is just an oversight: just like the piece table contains multiple Pawns for use in Shatranj/FIDE/Omega/Wildebeest it could also display two Kings with different moves, one for fast castling, the other for normal. It is undoable to put versions of all pieces in the table with every move each could conceivably have, but Pawns, Kings and castling are needed very frequently, so for those it woould make sense. If no one points out the problem, though, it will never be cured...

@ Haru:

If you could post the 'code' for the Interactive Diagram you just made for Wide Nightrider Chess, I'd be grateful.

Note you can always let your browser display the 'Page Source' of the comment (preverably first  viewed in isolation through the View link, so that there is less on the page), and copying the Diagram description from there.

Hi again H.G.

Well, I had thought making the Interactive Diagram aware of the castling rules in use, alone, would require reading the tutorial, perhaps. I wasn't sure about the Omega Pawns, but maybe they can indeed go straight from the table to the 'manufacturing' diagram (for making the final ID, however steps are made to do so). Looking at the tutorial, don't you think there are a lot of special cases and Betza code knowledge expected to be known, at least for some CVs, though? At least that's the impression I got at a glance. Maybe a caveat somewhere that generating a ID is often very easy would be good to put somewhere.

Anyway, it's unfortunate fast castling is apparently not supported yet by Game Code. Any number of my latest CV ideas use fast castling, as I have been using boards for them that are often quite wide.

@ Haru:

Sorry, please ignore my request in my previous post, as fast castling for use in a rules enforcing preset is not in the cards at this time.

Regards again to you both, Kevin

@ H.G.:

My brain is less foggy right now. It seems the tutorial starts with a general statement to the effect that making an ID is not too complex usually (i.e. if the CV at hand is not so exotic).

Also, somehow in my mind I earlier conflated the instructions near the middle/bottom of the tutorial, concerning Game Code for special cases (for a given CV), with the instructions purely meant for making the ID (i.e. near the top of the tutorial). Perhaps instructions for each can be keep more separate or clearly demarcated from each other - others who are completely uninitiated (or impaired like myself, at times) may conflate the two instruction sets otherwise, at least at a glance, or if careless.

K

Well, I had thought making the Interactive Diagram aware of the castling rules in use, alone, would require reading the tutorial, perhaps. I wasn't sure about the Omega Pawns, but maybe they can indeed go straight from the table to the 'manufacturing' diagram (for making the final ID, however steps are made to do so). Looking at the tutorial, don't you think there are a lot of special cases and Betza code knowledge expected to be known, at least for some CVs, though? At least that's the impression I got at a glance. Maybe a caveat somewhere that generating a ID is often very easy would be good to put somewhere.

I am not sure what you mean by 'tutorial'. On the Play-test Applet's page there isn't much text by my standards, and most of it would be only relevant to people that want to use the Move-Definition Aid because they know zilch about Betza notation, and have a very exotic piece in their variant that is not in the table.

Note that we were talking about your ability to create an Interactive Diagram, so the paragraphs about GAME code are not relevant either. So basically just 3 short paragraphs remain at the top of the page.

But if the attention you give to the page is at the level where you still have to ask if it supports Omega Pawns, while the part of the piece table that is visible on opening the page is:

there seems to be little hope that you would ever discover that a fast-castling King would also be in the table (if it had been there). Without even making such an attempt the speculation that it must be impossibly difficult to select it is nothing but prejudice. And it is very hard to provide documentation for people that are bent on not understanding something, and therefore categorically refuse to read anything that might elucidate them.

Even as it is, without the fast-castling King in the table, it would only have required you to ask "what is fast castling in Betza notation?", and we could have told you that you only had to replace isO4 in the King's move by ispO5.

And no, I don't think that you would need to know anything about special cases and Betza notation for the kind of variants that you usually make. Only if you want to create Diagrams for games like Ultima you would have to deal with that. For 90% of all chess variants you would just select pieces from the table, and for 99% you could get by with just the table and the move-definition aid on the Applet page.

Also, somehow in my mind I earlier conflated the instructions near the middle/bottom of the tutorial, concerning Game Code for special cases (for a given CV), with the instructions purely meant for making the ID (i.e. near the top of the tutorial). Perhaps instructions for each can be keep more separate or clearly demarcated from each other - others who are completely uninitiated (or impaired like myself, at times) may conflate the two instruction sets otherwise, at least at a glance, or if careless.

Sorry, our latest messages crossed. I still have the feeling that you are talking about an entirely different text than the Applet. The only place where GAME code is mentioned on this Applet page is in two short paragraphs, and these are at the very end, and basically only instruct you to press the button.

I think you are confusing the tutorial on how to write GAME code for cases that the Applet would not support itself. Which has nothing to do with creating Interactive Diagrams in the first place.

Hi H.G.

On the Applet page there is still a link 'tutorial' near the bottom of the page. It actually is a link to a Wizard page of yours, in the 'Tools' menu as well (I thought it had some advice on ID generation, too, at the top of the Wizard page):

https://www.chessvariants.com/invention/game-code-generation

Regarding the piece table on the Applet page (for generating IDs), I only discovered recently that I cannot see much of it unless I use [cnrl -] to reduce my view to 90% from 100%. Then I see the sidebar, to scroll down. My fault I didn't realize the very Betza displayed (assuming I can see that at 90% level - I need to check again -edit: yes, I can see the whole Betza at 90%) goes into a box on the Applet page by cut and paste (I guess).

edit2: my brain fog issue is real enough, perhaps affecting whether I can work even part-time - see what my doctor says at the end of the month.

edit3: without any pasting of the Betza code for the Omega pawn into a 'box' (which I think I'd do only if I wished to slightly change the pawn's Betza code, anyway), I dragged an Omega pawn from the table in front of each K on the 8x8 diagram for the Applet and pressed 'start', then 'play it'. For some reason the Applet assumed I was playing chess, and would only allow a one or two step advance by the White pawn as my first move once I clicked on the pawn. Maybe Omega Pawns work for the Applet only on non-8x8 boards(?)

On the Applet page there is still a link 'tutorial' near the bottom of the page. It actually is a link to a Wizard page of yours, in the 'Tools' menu as well (I thought it had some advice on ID generation, too, at the top of the Wizard page):

Well that is a link in the paragraph about generating GAME code. So when your only problem is how to create an Interactive Diagram, you would not even read that paragraph.

What would your advice be to someone that came to you saying "I have given up taking driving lessons, driving is way too hard for me. The math used for those orbital mechanics is way over my head, and I can never learn to recognize these hundred different sizes of bolts"? I would tell him to stop reading the "Space-Shuttle Maintenance manual for Engineers", and focus on the text "Car driving in three easy steps"...

The GAME-code tutorial explains how to program in GAME code, in an easier way than doing it from scratch. It has nothing to do with creating Interactive Diagrams; it contains zero information on how to do that.

That you cannot see the scroll bar is a serious problem; it means the page has to be formatted differently. Is there also no horizontal scroll bar on the table? I remember I once had that problem too, but it disappeared when I replaced some of the very long move strings (which could be shortened due to improvements on XBetza notation). There is something fishy here, as the table is displayed in a window that is supposed to automatically provide scroll bars when what is in it gets too large (style overflow:auto). I usually scroll the window by means of the mouse wheel, though. That works even if you cannot see the scroll bar.

I edited my previous post, before you posted I guess H.G.

You're right, I must not be too good at reading instructions. Unless my brain fog and/or schizophrenia are getting in the way. Which is why I asked for help earlier (I try not to overdo that though, in case people get tired of it).

edit3: without any pasting of the Betza code for the Omega pawn into a 'box' (which I think I'd do only if I wished to slightly change the pawn's Betza code, anyway), I dragged an Omega pawn from the table in front of each K on the 8x8 diagram for the Applet and pressed 'start', then 'play it'. For some reason the Applet assumed I was playing chess, and would only allow a one or two step advance by the White pawn as my first move once I clicked on the pawn. Maybe Omega Pawns work for the Applet only on non-8x8 boards(?)

I interpreted Omega Pawns as pawns being able to move up to half-way the board. It appears you have been trying this on 8x8, where this makes no difference with the usual Pawn. You need a board with 10 ranks or more for Omega Pawns to be better than FIDE Pawns. On 12-rank board they could even be pushed 4 steps, when starting on 2nd rank.

The difference with Wildebeest Pawns is that the latter are always allowed to be pushed up to half-way the board, not only on their initial move.

I have never seen a variant where you are allowed to push a Pawn into the opponent half, other than with a single step. So I saw no need to support that in the table.

Okay, I increased the number of ranks, so that the board was 8x10. Then Omega pawns were allowed to move 3 cells forward after I started the AI and played it for a move.

@ H.G.:

Here's a CV I'm not sure if you've seen then - in it a pawn may take a single or double step at any time [edit: as is the case with Metamachy, I seem to recall]:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/colossus

I even created the Interactive Diagram that is in it! Metamachy also has such Pawns. And indeed, these are not in the table (which I suppose is why you mention them).

One doesn't encounter such Pawns very often, and with such a table one always have to strike a balance between including everything that exists under the sun (with as a result users will have great difficulty in finding what they need), and including only the most common stuff (so that people often don't find what they need directly). Because it is very easy to change the move of a piece in the table to another one (for those bothering to read those tiny 3 paragraphs that describe how to use the Applet, in particular the second), the balance often swings in the direction of not including alternative moves for an image that is already in the table. Although notation for Pawn moves is usually more complex than for other pieces, which might favor including duplicats in that case.

In this particular case I guess that the fact that Alfaerie has a special symbol for this kind of Pawn (the 'quickpawn'), but that this symbol initially was not available as PNG/SVG, swung the balance in favor of not including it. In the mean time this symbol was created, and added to the Alfaerie PNG set, though, which makes it automatically appear in the table as well. But this adds it at the end (where indeed you can find it), and the Applet cannot guess the moves of pieces it obtains that way. So it appears now without a move.

This is again an oversight: now that the symbol exists it deserves to be in the table predefined with a move, amongst the other Pawns, and then I would give it the move you referred to. But I just created the image because I needed it for some Interactive Diagram, without giving a thought to what consequence this would have in the Applet. And you should also keep in mind that for a very long period any attempt to change anything in the Applet led to its destruction; only recently I discovered that this can be prevented by switching the article type to 'Text' (even though originally it was posted as HTML). So now I could add the Quickpawn to the list of predefined pieces, and probably will do that soon.

It would be more useful to make the generated GAME code (or actually the 'include file' that interprets this code) support fast castling; as I said, it would be very easy to give the Quickpawn that is in the table this (or any other) move, and you could copy the XBetza notation for the move from the Colossus Diagram. Almost anytone here could do that. But no one but me is likely to create support for fast castling in that include file...

Lol, no I didn't realize all those ramifications, H.G., I just happened to know of a CV or two that I guessed may have escaped your attention, based on what you wrote in your post I replied to last - just trying to help you out. :)

Well, life is complex, and there are more unexpected obstacles to deflect the desired cause of events than one would like...

I want to alert other editors to this, since I consider it a very undesirable development that authors clutter their CV rule-description articles with unrelated self-promotion. If it was up to me, it would be disallowed, and editors would actively moderate against it.

CVs do not become related merely because they have the same author, so publishing extensive lists of other CVs is unrelated info, which does not belong in the article. It is also a huge duplication of information.

It is common knowledge that authors usually invented more than one CV. If anyone is interested in other CVs by that author, he can click on the author name to get an overview of his other work. No reason to put that same information in many other places, to force it down the readers throat.

If an author has many presets that are not in the index, he can make a seperate article with an overview of that, similar to my overview of variants playable with the Interactive Diagram. But that would only be useful if the references were clickable links to those presets.

I see the point but honestly I don't see why it is so very undesirable. I don't see any harm the way it is done in this page. I have myself underlined the family link that may occur between some of my CVs, for example here for Bigorra: https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/bigorra

Now, it is true that I'm not listing here ALL my CVs, only those that present some relationship. I do think that it is an information that may interest the reader, as well as when I put a link to a GC preset page.

Of course, if the policy of this website would become to forbid such practices, I will re-write all my pages to withdraw these references. But I would regret it.

I think HG, does not refer to games that fit a "collection" of sort, but when an author promotes most of his article that, way. For example my just published games inspired by Kevin could find a their place in such a collection and therefore link to each other. But I mention nothing about my apothecary games there. That would make no sense. This is the position I'm taking and I am against the practice mentioned by HG! And I'd really like this clarified as most of my games are coming in collections!