Ratings & Comments
I have moved this discussion to the Vao page.
I assume JL means this one?
Okay, I missed that, because I was looking for an illustration of the piece itself and didn't realize he meant the illustration of the board. The piece in the Bishops's position has four legs and the general shape of a crocodile. So, crocodile may be a fair translation. But my other point still stands. Since the piece that could be translated as crocodile was a Bishop and not a Vao, it doesn't set any precedent or provide a good enough reason for using that name for the Vao.
yes Fergus. Take it easy, don't be so bad with me. Let me play with my Crocodile, it is not a crime. It is not so stupid either with the diagonal move. Bow, Arrow are also good choices, maybe better and I don't pretend to force anybody to use Crocodile. At least I hope Crocodile was not used for something else. Naming pieces is difficult because it may create confusion. For example Champion in Omega Chess. They were different Champions before in history of CV. Or the numerous Hawks and Falcons, all different. Before Crocodile I was using Bow. I stopped using Bow because I discovered the Hunter of Hunter/Falcon chess where the Hunter was represented by a Bow. That's it. Later I've made my own set in wood and my Crocodile is cute! http://history.chess.free.fr/zanzibar.htm I can't throw it away, I have to use it now
Yes this one. As I said it is the only representation we have of Grant Acedrex. When you see on a good definition, it can be seen that Aanca, Unicornio and Cocatriz are not represented as chimeras, compound monsters of different parts of different animals as it was the tradition in Middle Ages for gryphons, sphinx, etc. They are depicted as very simple silhouettes. A big fat bird with a curved beak, a horned big animal on its legs, a flat sort of lizard. Sonja Musser sees them as a giant prey bird, a rhinoceros and a crocodile. For me, it is the best interpretation.
@Jean-Louis, those carved pieces look great! Would you mind sometime adding an article including the images? (You can start it as a Game page, but we'd change the type over to Craft before publishing.)
@Ben: yes, the simplest I could do is to edit this page in the CVP format: http://history.chess.free.fr/cv-set.htm
This page has the old template, it is even not possible to the see the up bar with the menu. Is it possible to change that? Thank you
Fixed.
<This> seems to work in WYSIWYG, and also in markdown if you do <this\>
It seems like you can also use < and >
OK, thank you very much!
I implemented the piece icon, how to install, and more!
HG, Are you here?
May I ask few questions:
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why is the board checkered with 4 colors instead of 2?
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is the Betza's notation for the Dragon correct? According to the textual description I would say t[FR] and not FyafsF. (I understood the Dragon is a Murray's Gryphon)
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Why is the Vulture so complex? Why not a mere compound jumper Giraffe + Zebra?
It is a matter of taste of course, but to my taste I wonder why making more complex several piece which are basically simple such as Knight (N is not enough?), Elephant (FA not enough?). Thurderbird and Firebird are very complex. I would like to play this game but with simpler rules.
Tressau does not explicitly mention how many spaces the rook goes, but the landing square for R in the Sultan's game is obvious enough from the provided illustrative games: see mating position in game 1 (p. 87) and move 28 in game 4 (p. 89). [On move 20, White castles "to the right"; move 28 is Ri1-f1, or 119 to 116 in the original notation; that's the first R move after castling].
The dragon is indeed a t[FR], in Betza's original notation. However, that part of it was never documented on the Betza Notation page (instead languishing on the Chess on a Really Big Board page, though it turns up elsewhere too), and is arguably a little underspecified, so H. G.'s XBetza (which is what the interactive diagram uses) specifies such multiāleg moves in its own way. In this extension, FyafsF is indeed equivalent to the original t[FR]
The vulture afaict is mainly a longerārange relative of George Duke's (and more recently Uli Schwekendiek's) Falcon, whose advantage over the bison (from a game design perspective) is its blockabilityāāāpresumably the same is sought here. Unfortunately, due to the multiple paths to a given destination, it is quite complex to describe. Idk about the extra knight move though, that's perhaps a little gratuitous (presumably to make up for the basic vutlre's lack of maneuverability?)
I agree the birds are quite complex, if potentially interesting to play with? And whether the knight/elephant enhancements are truly necessary may be worth a playtest as well
What if there was a two player version? Or I could just make one myself...
Ok, having actually gone to find a copy online, I agree that Tressau specifies the Kb/jāRc/i castle; in principle one could still object that the example games may not be played by the original rules (while he says they're real, rather than constructed, games, it could still be under the influence of a misunderstanding), but it seems upon a cursory reading that for the Sultan's Game in particular his book may in fact be the original source? The Emperors Game is cited in the Spielarchiv, but Tressau explicitly notes (p.80) that a game with a Marshal had been suggested there but not described, rather being rejected due to the necessary odd number of files being unwieldy (in particular due to either sameācolour bishops or transposition of one bishop but not the other with its adjacent knight).
Unfortunately a quick search for the Archiv der Spiele online appears entirely fruitless so I can't confirm thatā¦
Tressau modified the rules for the Kaiserspiel (e.g. castling rule is different in the Archiv der Spiele description) and practically developed the rules for the Sultanspiel himself based on Peguilhen's initial - but never fully developed - idea. Later sources are ultimately based on Tressau, with errors. Thus it's Tressau's rules that should be taken as definitive, the illustrative games were played by Tressau himself and after his own rules, so there is hardly any chance for a misunderstanding. There's a discussion of all that in my paper in press, I'll provide a link when it's published.
I have difficulties to see FyafsF. OK for the 1st F, then yafsF is therefore describing the "rook" sliding part of the move? I understand "fs" in the case of a N. In the case of a F, I don't see what "fs" mean.
And this can really code when the Gryphon is sliding backward?
Finally, I don't know what the modifiers y and a are. I don't see the explanation on our page on CVP. I see on WP, I understand "a" as again, but it is quite difficult what "y" means.
All this is really too complex
The extended betza notation is explained here. The "fs" is understood as specifying a direction relative to the initial step, so it indicates that the gryphon moves, after the first step, forward and sideways relative to the direction it first moves. It is a more complex notation, but it allows for more possibilities.
I notice here that the knight's move in the rules is different from that in the interactive diagram. Which one is correct?
Apparently I forgot to add the link to the XBetza page in my previous comment; I've now added it there.
yafsF
is indeed the sliding part. a
is as you've found, āagainā; fs
for w
's and F
's is interpreted as for a king, so for an F
it changes to a W
directionāāāand āforwardā for anything but the first part of the move is interpreted as āoutwardā (like Alfonso about the rhinoceros); y
is a ārange toggleā i.e. it switches from being a leaper/stepper to being a slider. Thus, yafsF
is one step diagonally followed by a 45Ā° turn and sliding orthogonally.
Complexity is in the eye of the beholder. It's not immediately obvious (especially compared to t[FR]
) but it's apperntly easier to describe to a computer (and easier to generalise), which for the interactive diagrams is a definite plus
@Aurelian: I haven't had time to visit CVP since it came back on line. I will have a look at the shuffling problem you mentioned.
@Jean-Louis: there is an explanation of y and a here. Indeed a means 'again', and y can be used only in combinaton with it, where ya then means 'again with range toggle', i.e. when the move started as a leaper (as is the case with F) the next leg will move as a rider of the same stride. fs means 'forward sideways', but the convention is that this should be interpreted in an orientation where the previous leg defines the forward direction (think of the controversy for the move of the Grant Acedrex Unicorn!). So fs deflects the path by 45 degrees, pure s would deflect by 90 degrees, bs would deflect by 135 degrees. So the ya would turn the F into B (range toggle), but a 45-degree rotated B is an R. So yafsF is an F step followed by an outward R. Without the y (i.e. afsF) there would be no range toggle, and the second leg would be an outward W step. Which would give you a Moa.
Indeed, that was my impression from his book as well; I'd initially missed the detail of how recent this variant was and had assumed it significantly older (and I don't trust people to count like we do today(!)).
I enjoyed the other papers you posted here and look forward to reading this one too
Indeed, it seems that either the knight's verbal description or its XBetza move has been exchanged with the one in the Modern game.
@Aurelian?
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Originally posted on Pemba, where this piece is called a Crocodile.
I assume JL means this one? His page includes it thrice: that ācloseāupā at the beginning of the Rules section, the full page featuring it after the list of volumes in Alfonso's book, and a reproduction on a commemorative stamp at the end of the page