H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 4, 2020 07:20 AM UTC:
Some remarks:
'Castle' in Xiangqi is really unusual; in almost every description in English I have seen, the 3x3 area is called 'Palace'.
Shogi does not have a castling move, but almost every text on Shogi strategy will tell you that the first thing you have to do in the game is 'castling', and then describe a large number of castle formations, usually with the King in or near a corner. I am not sure if we should refer to this different meaning of 'castling' in Shogi. Perhaps we could add a sentence that a 'castle' is a defensive constellation of pieces around the King near a corner (e.g. after you mentioned that the increased piece power made a centralized King unsafe). And that in Chess moving your King there (either through a special leap or the slow way) would trap the Rook, so that a single move has been provided to get the King in the corner without trapping the Rook in Chess. (In Shogi the corner piece of course is a Lance, which is trapped on the edge file by its own move, and it is usually integrated in the castle.
Fergus already remarked this: in some variants castling with pieces other than Rooks is possible. This should certainly be mentioned.
In the description of Fast Castling you don't mention whether it is allowed if any of the squares the King leaps over is under attack.
Perhaps we should mention something about notation for flexible/free castling (recommend one)?
Since you mention the terminology used in the ChessV option, you could perhaps also mention the XBetza notation for these types: O = castling, jO = close-rook castling, (usually prefixed with 'is' to stress that it is a sideways virgin-only move), the range indicator specifies the number of King steps, for flexible castling all possible castlings are mentioned separately. (XBetza does not support free or fast castling yet. I assume this would have to be done as a different atom, say S, because it is sort of a King-Rook swap. Where free castling would be nS (non-jumping), and fast castling S.)
ChessV's designation 'long' for Janus-Chess castling conflicts with the more common use of "long" for Q-side castling. I usually say 'asymmetric castling' when I refer to Janus Chess, although writing this makes me realize that I might as well call it 'symmetric castling', as the end result is the same K-side and Q-side. Perhaps 'symmetrized castling' would describe it best. In XBetza notation I have to define castling to the left and to the right as separate moves in Janus Chess (irO3 and ilO4). And because the setup is mirror-symmetric, left and right are swapped for black, meaning that the white and black King have different moves. Very annoying! In the Interactive Diagram I added an option castleFlip for this that automatically swaps the meaning of l and r on black castling specifications, so that the Kings can still be considered the same piece type. (Perhaps the meaning of l and r should always be swapped for black pieces in games with mirror-symmetric setups???)
Some remarks:
'Castle' in Xiangqi is really unusual; in almost every description in English I have seen, the 3x3 area is called 'Palace'.
Shogi does not have a castling move, but almost every text on Shogi strategy will tell you that the first thing you have to do in the game is 'castling', and then describe a large number of castle formations, usually with the King in or near a corner. I am not sure if we should refer to this different meaning of 'castling' in Shogi. Perhaps we could add a sentence that a 'castle' is a defensive constellation of pieces around the King near a corner (e.g. after you mentioned that the increased piece power made a centralized King unsafe). And that in Chess moving your King there (either through a special leap or the slow way) would trap the Rook, so that a single move has been provided to get the King in the corner without trapping the Rook in Chess. (In Shogi the corner piece of course is a Lance, which is trapped on the edge file by its own move, and it is usually integrated in the castle.
Fergus already remarked this: in some variants castling with pieces other than Rooks is possible. This should certainly be mentioned.
In the description of Fast Castling you don't mention whether it is allowed if any of the squares the King leaps over is under attack.
Perhaps we should mention something about notation for flexible/free castling (recommend one)?
Since you mention the terminology used in the ChessV option, you could perhaps also mention the XBetza notation for these types: O = castling, jO = close-rook castling, (usually prefixed with 'is' to stress that it is a sideways virgin-only move), the range indicator specifies the number of King steps, for flexible castling all possible castlings are mentioned separately. (XBetza does not support free or fast castling yet. I assume this would have to be done as a different atom, say S, because it is sort of a King-Rook swap. Where free castling would be nS (non-jumping), and fast castling S.)
ChessV's designation 'long' for Janus-Chess castling conflicts with the more common use of "long" for Q-side castling. I usually say 'asymmetric castling' when I refer to Janus Chess, although writing this makes me realize that I might as well call it 'symmetric castling', as the end result is the same K-side and Q-side. Perhaps 'symmetrized castling' would describe it best. In XBetza notation I have to define castling to the left and to the right as separate moves in Janus Chess (irO3 and ilO4). And because the setup is mirror-symmetric, left and right are swapped for black, meaning that the white and black King have different moves. Very annoying! In the Interactive Diagram I added an option castleFlip for this that automatically swaps the meaning of l and r on black castling specifications, so that the Kings can still be considered the same piece type. (Perhaps the meaning of l and r should always be swapped for black pieces in games with mirror-symmetric setups???)