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Makruk (Thai chess). Rules and information. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 02:00 PM UTC:
OK, I will use S and M for Silver and Med. One more question. I saw in the playok link you gave a Thai Chess diagrams using non-standard pictograms (similar to the actual piece shape) for all pieces except Knight. In WinBoard / XBoard this can always be done by supplying external piece fonts or bitmaps, and for the built-in bitmaps i would definitely want to stick to the standard representation. E.g. a Thai 'Boat' would use the symbol of a Rook from western Chess, because it is the same pieces. The same applies to Pawn and King.

Unfortunately, WinBoard has no separate symbol for the Shogi Silver General, and uses the same symbol for it in Shogi as the Ferz (which is also used in Shatranj and Courier for Queen, and in Xiangqi for Advisor). After all, it is an augmented Ferz, like the Gold General is an augmented Wazir.

But this poses a problem in Makruk, where the Ferz and Silver both participate. I'd rather not make new bitmaps; WinBoard has so many already, and they would have to be made for each size separately, etc. So I wanted to represent the Med by the standard symbol in WinBoard for Ferz, and find an alternative for the Silver.

My first thought was to use the Elephant, (the WinBoard symbol used in Xiangqi and also for the Shatranj and Courier Alfil), although it moves nothing like the Afil. The only reason is that Shatranj uses Alfils in those locations of the array. So I wonder if this is the optimal choice. Alternatives would be to use the Lance symbol. But this is currently used in WinBoard as a wild-card piece, that can move in any way you want, and I would like to keep it that way. And I had rather only have pieces that WinBoard knows the moves of in not-so-well-known variants, so that people can use the -showTargetSquares option to be reminded of how the piece moves. (Which does not work for the wild-cards).

Yet another possibility is to use the WinBoard Commoner symbol, a 'german helmet' with a spike on top. Perhaps this would be best? The standard move of the Commoner is like a King, and the Thai Bishop is a subset of this. And the over-all shape of the helmet with a spike on top is not unlike the shape of the Thai pieces for Bishop, Ferz and King.

What do you think?