Ratings & Comments
Metamachy. Large game with a variety of regular fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ideally, I want to treat Metamachy as a game in which White has the first move of the first turn but Black has a special setup move before White moves. The trouble is that the more complicated Game Courier has gotten, the more difficult it has become to change how it behaves. I have some ideas for what to do, but I also worry about breaking things to get it done. It also takes a lot of inspection of the code to figure out how it works and what can be changed. Some of my ideas might also be useful for supporting multi-player games, but that's another thing I have not added yet because of the difficulty in doing so.
Hectochess. 10x10 variant that can be played with 2 mismatched Chess sets.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Feb 7, 2019 10:27 PM UTC:Ah, sorry, I had forgotten all about that. I read back on it now, and it definitely seems a variant that deserves an article here.
To H. G. We talked about it in the Elven Chess comments and there is an unpublished preset under the name Grand Chu Shogi and a record of my play test with Joe.
To Ben, thank you . I have trouble finding free time between work and family. I have 8 unpublished presets, but Grand Courier and Grand Chu Shogi are the main ones.
To Adam. My long-term project is to make a basic set for beginners (a 10x10 board, peiclopeidia and a collection of games) and this is a good addition , but calling the Leo a Cannon isn't the only issue. In your rules for pawn promotion, you give the option to promote to a Vao, but not to a Pao. This might be another reason to avoid confusion and change the name of the Cannon to Leo and give the option to promote to Pao and Vao.
Metamachy. Large game with a variety of regular fairy pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]📝H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Feb 6, 2019 09:37 AM UTC:Well, I guess black logically is the first player in Metamachy. Don't you have the same problem in Shogi?
I have made good progress toward making a rule-enforcing preset for Metamachy. The last thing to do is to enable Black to place pieces before White moves. Game Courier is not currently set up to allow anyone to do anything before the first player moves. One way to handle this would be to give the first move to Black, but this would involve inverting the board, switching the sections coding for each side, and listing White as the second player in the movelist. I would rather avoid all that, but that means working out a way to allow the second player a pre-game move.
8-Piece Chess. (Queen's Army chess, all 8 Back Rank Pieces different).[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Abecedarian Big Chess (ABChess). Buy-your-own-army variant on a big board; 26 piece types. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks for the quick and thorough response Fergus. I would've never thought to check ZRF, so it's pretty cool that you did. This totally answers my question. I hope you have a great week.
—Alex
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since a royal Queen cannot move through check, it can be checkmated in many of the same positions that would checkmate a King. For example, if a Rook or Bishop is checking it from more than one space away, it cannot capture the checking piece. If you replace it with a royal Chancellor, that piece now has up to 12 possible leaping moves, which is more than the royal Queen has. However, this is fewer than the royal piece in Cavalier Chess has, and checkmate is doable in that game. The main thing would be to design the army to complement the powers of the royal Chancellor. Extra diagonal pieces might be helpful, since it's going to be vulnerable to diagonal attacks. Maybe pieces with Camel or Zebra powers would be helpful too.
The Queen as a royal makes it harder to get it into checkmate IMO. Making the chancellor royal would make it even harder to obtain checkmate. Imagine the queen on rank 8, and 2 enemy rooks on rank 8 and 7. The queen can attack the rook on rank 8, and the rook on rank 7 is acting as a barrier so that the queen must stay on rank 8. If the rook on rank 8 is protected it is checkmate. If we replace the queen with chancellor, the chancellor can escape with a horse movement to rank 6. I think if you made the chancellor a royal, a lot of games would be drawn, due to lack of pieces to make a check, or the 50 move rule. A royal chancellor has an improved ability to escape and move out of checkmate.
Abecedarian Big Chess (ABChess). Buy-your-own-army variant on a big board; 26 piece types. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Looking at the ZRF, which was written by Glenn Overby himself, the code for the King looks like this:
; King
(piece
(name King)
(help "King: one space any direction to safe space; cannot leave fortress")
(image Black "imagesABChessBK.bmp" White "imagesABChessWK.bmp")
(moves
((free) n (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) e (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) s (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) w (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) ne (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) nw (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) se (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
((free) sw (available) (verify (in-zone? fortress)) add)
(n (while empty? n) (verify (piece? King)) add)
)
)
The free command is used to verify that a piece is not immobilized by an Immobilizer. This command is used before every type of movement except the last one. This last one is for capturing the enemy King by moving forward as a Rook. Therefore, an otherwise immobilized King can still threaten check against the enemy King, and this prevents the enemy King from checking it by moving to the same file with nothing in between them. Therefore, the rule against Kings being in the same file with nothing in between them is absolute, and there is no exception for checking an immobilized King with the other King.
The rule is borrowed from Xiangqi, but since that game doesn't include the Immobilizer, appealing to it alone cannot resolve this question. I think the usual rule in Xiangqi is that Generals may not occupy the same file with nothing in between them. But when it comes to programming Xiangqi, the simplest way to code for this is to give each General the power to capture the enemy General as a forward-moving Rook. Since they cannot move into check, this never actually results in one capturing the other, and it functions the same as a ban on occupying the same file with nothing in between.
Since the Immobilizer comes from Ultima, we might look to that game to resolve this question. Can a King occupy a space adjacent to an immobilized King in Ultima? More generally, does an Immobilizer eliminate the checking power of a piece or simply its powers of movement? Our page on Ultima does not address this issue, but Pritchard does in Popular Chess Variants. He writes, "An immobilized king can be mated by its rival moving next to it." Using this as a precedent, it looks like the Immobilizer does eliminate the checking power of a piece, and this would allow an immobilized king to be checked by the enemy King.
However, the one thing that could be said against this interpretation is that Glenn Overby writes in the "Rules of Play":
The King may never be on the same file/column as the enemy King, if there are no pieces of either color in between them.
My point here is that it is being described as a rule of the game, not simply as a description of how the King moves. This rule might be understood to override the ability of the Immobilizer to rob a piece of its checking powers. Ultimately, this may be something for Glenn Overby to rule on.
With regards to rule 4: is this a blanket prohibition on kings occupying the same column, or is it based on the "flying general" move from Xiangqi? In Xiangqi if kings are occupying the same column they may capture each other. If one player's king were immobilized could the other player move such that the kings were on the same column without any pieces in between (giving check) or would this be forbidden?
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I wonder if German chess (with chancellor as the royal piece) would be a viable game
CHECK 11 ~ Original Vision ~. 11 different original factions, chosen secretly, each with extra powers when few pieces remain.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hi,
I have updated the rulebook to add the factions Lilit and Cyborg (last ones tested as much as I could).
@ Anthony Viens
The problem you rise is not a real one when one remembers that reaching the opponent backline with the king is a win condition. So, with the Hologram faction, if one can move its queen to an unprotected space on the opponent backline, since the king could take its queen place on the next turn, the situation is the same as a checkmate. I hope you can see how powerful that can be.
Thanks for the encouragements!
Hex Shogi. A new family of hexagonal Shogi variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Dekle's hex Shogi seems to define Knight's movement somewhat differently (through that maybe also due to the different tiling) and the hexes are turned differently
It's not an earlier version of the same game. Dekle's Hexshogi is an earlier game with a very similar name and concept, but since I was unaware of it when I created this game, it had no influence on its creation, and I didn't think to choose a more distinctive name. Unfortunately, the description in Pritchard's Encyclopedia is too incomplete to tell how it was played.
Masonic Chess. Game played on a Masonic tile board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Ben Reiniger wrote on Tue, Jan 29, 2019 09:51 PM UTC:Inventor changed.
I've unhidden, but the movements need to be made clearer. At first, I thought this was just a different visualization of hexagonal chess; but the game is included in the Classified Encyclopedia, apparently with different bishop and knight movements.
Can someone change the page so it displays the true inventor
Hex Shogi. A new family of hexagonal Shogi variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]There also exists a earlier version of Hex Shogi bij George R. Dekle
Chaturanga for four players.. Oldest multiplayer chess variant. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Thanks for the response, that is kind of what I thought but wasn't sure.
Greg
My guess would be to 'win a stake' means to win the cash value (if any) for 'winning a single game' against a given player, who then pays up on the spot. Also, if e.g. a player 'wins a double stake' by having the only king left on the board after taking all the other kings with his, all three of the other players at that point pay him twice the value of 'losing a single game' to him.
In the case that the players are not playing this [basic] 4 player Chaturanga variant for money, they could write down each time any of the players wins one or more stakes, so that at the end of the play of the variant, an overall winner (if any), plus 2nd and 3rd place finishers could be determined.
Pardon my ignorance, but what does it mean to "win a stake" in this game? Thanks.
Futashikana Shogi. Expanded version of Shosu Shogi played on an 11x11 board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]💡📝A. M. DeWitt wrote on Fri, Jan 18, 2019 01:47 AM UTC:Note to editors: The site name for this page is incorrect. It should be https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/futashikana-shogi instead of https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/dacimal-chess. As this page hasn't been approved yet, the change can be made without any trouble.
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To H G, thank you for your efforts, but one small mistake, the Stags should start on the second rank next to the Rooks. This thread is not the appropriate place to carry on. Would you please post the interactive diagram of Grand Chu Shogi as a comment on my Grand Tamerlane page and post the link to the jocly Scirocco on the Scirocco comment page. I will post my thoughts on Scirocco on it's comments page.