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Ultima. Game where each type of piece has a different capturing ability. Also called Baroque. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Matthew Montchalin wrote on Wed, Jul 13, 2005 08:15 AM EDT:

I;m currently working on an Atari ST implementation of the game of
'Baroque' - at least the way it was when I learned it back in 1968
(although we adopted the name 'Baroque' we declined to adopt Professor
Abbot's 1968 Amendments).  If you have a PC compatible running Windows
(?) you might be able to boot up an ST emulator so you can play it
against
itself.  From what rumors I have heard, you can use Windows to boot up a
lot of ST emulators, and run a different emulation in each window.  I
guess wonders will never cease!  To keep things interesting, I've got
flags for the multi-leaping 'Long' Leaper (default is single-leaping),
and the Suicide Rule (suicide is prohibited by default), which not
everybody necessarily agrees on.  Also, flags for center-counter symmetry
(whether the Kings are both on the E file) and corner-counter symmetry
(whether or not the Immobilizer is on A1 or H1).  And then there are some
people who prefer to use their first move to decide which Rook to turn
upside down, so another flag for that option too.

As for tournament play, I don't know exactly how to implement an
Email/Webmail option, so I guess I'll have to leave that for the future.

Direct dialing sounds like it is easier to implement, but who wants to
eat
the phone bills?  In any case, 5 minutes per move appears to be fair, but
how many minutes should we allow the 'operator attendant' to consume in
typing out each move?  One or two minutes?  I think that the early radio
chess matches of the 1940s and 1950s were mostly a matter of gentlemanly
agreement, so that ought to serve as a guide for any similar
Baroque/Ultima tournaments.