Would it help if Black was placing his 4 central piece, then the situation is replicated on White's side.
It already does that.
Then Black (automatically?) pass his first move, then White plays the second move, which is actually the first as Black has just passed?
I think this would result in Black's move appearing first in a turn, and White's move appearing second in a turn, which is something I would like to avoid.
Game Courier used to have a setting for which player moved first. I got rid of it in favor of the $sides string, which is a space-separated list of the sides in the game in the order they move. But I do still have code using a variable called $first, which now gets set to the first word in $sides. I'm thinking I could bring back $first as an independent setting and use it in conjunction with $sides. When they differed, $first would be the side that actually moves first, and the first word in $sides would be the side that nominally moves first, i.e. the one that moves at the beginning of a turn. At least that is one possibility on my mind. I have to go exercise now, and I'll return to this problem later.
It already does that.
I think this would result in Black's move appearing first in a turn, and White's move appearing second in a turn, which is something I would like to avoid.
Game Courier used to have a setting for which player moved first. I got rid of it in favor of the $sides string, which is a space-separated list of the sides in the game in the order they move. But I do still have code using a variable called $first, which now gets set to the first word in $sides. I'm thinking I could bring back $first as an independent setting and use it in conjunction with $sides. When they differed, $first would be the side that actually moves first, and the first word in $sides would be the side that nominally moves first, i.e. the one that moves at the beginning of a turn. At least that is one possibility on my mind. I have to go exercise now, and I'll return to this problem later.