Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Can you clarify the rule regarding making up to five suggestions please?

Can an entrant make his or her suggestions in more than one email at
various times or must an entrant make all of his or her suggestions in one
email such that if that email contains less than five suggestions then
nevertheless that is all the suggestions that that entrant may make in
this contest?

Is there any possibility that the rules of this contest might be changed
so as to state 'a total of up to five suggestions, sent in one or more
emails, in each calendar month during the running time of the contest'
please?

Could you clarify the rule about suggestions concerning pieces please?

Where pieces are colourbound, is it permissible to have a suggestion about
changing a piece where the change depends upon the colour of the square
upon which the piece starts?  This would mean that pieces with more than
one item of that type on the board could be split into two types of
pieces: however that would only work if the pieces for which they become
changed are colourbound.

For example, suppose that someone wished to suggest that a knight upon its
own colour becomes swapped for a (2,2) leaper and that a knight upon its
countercolour becomes swapped for a (3,1) leaper.  Would that suggestion
be permissible under the rules?

Please note that I am not wishing to make that suggestion, I am just using
it as a way of illustrating the question which I am asking about the rules
so that, if it is permissible, further thought may be given to the matter
of what substitutions to suggest.

The minor tweaks I added should answer your questions.  (Yes, you can
spread out your official suggestions.  Yes, you can make a split
nomination for a piece.)

Thanks for asking!

The way I'll organize the polling...

On January 1, I'll mail to each entrant the list in one of the categories,
determined at random.  Each entrant has till the end of the month to
return a list of votes *in order of preference* in that category, voting
for as many or as few as desired.  At the end of the month, or when all
eligible entrants have voted, a Condorcet preferential voting method will
be used to pick a winner, which is then posted to the main page.

Entries close for a category when voting starts.  (In the case of the
first rules vote, they re-open after the ballot because there's still one
more rule to pick.)

If you have entered in any category, you may vote in every category, at
the proper time.

On February 1, the process repeats, for a different category.  Rules will
be voted on twice, each piece-type only once, during the first seven
months.  After seven votes, we have a variant.

Thank you for clarifying the rules.

This, however, leads to another matter.

> A suggestion to replace a type of piece with two pieces (like the
Immobilizer replacing one rook and the Coordinator the other rook in
Ultima) may be made.

I was thinking in terms of colourbound replacements, this seems to go much
wider.

I think that my question really hinges on whether it is expected that
Camel Chess will be playable with a conventional set of ordinary chess
pieces, just by applying different meanings to the pieces of wood or
plastic and having different rules for how they interact.  It would seem
that inverting one of the two rooks could be used to make two types of
pieces, yet this would not work for bishops and knights.

So, is it part of the design rules that Camel Chess will be playable with
a conventional set of ordinary chess pieces please?

Luotuoqi is intended to be playable with an ordinary board and pieces.  I
don't see a big deal with entries that differentiate one
rook/knight/bishop from the other.  It will be up to the polling to see if
others have issues.

A similar situation applies with rules like proposal 3, The Cube.  It
introduces something other than the basic 32 pieces and a board.  Only the
voting will tell if this places the rule beyond the pale.

> Luotuoqi is intended to be playable with an ordinary board and pieces.

Thank you for this clarification.

> I don't see a big deal with entries that differentiate one
rook/knight/bishop from the other.

Well, it is not a big deal if and only if end users can easily distinguish
the meanings of the pieces on the board.  There appear to be three
possibilities.

1. Reorient one of the two pieces of one type.  For example, invert a
rook.  I find that ugly and undesirable.  It might however work for a rook
but would not work for a knight or a bishop.  Piece inversion would not be
nice however and would not work for play with, say, an Isle of Lewis style
chess set.

2. Distinguish the two pieces of one type by the Luotuoqi rules having
colourbound pieces and different rules for a piece depending upon the
colour of the square upon which it stands, either expressed as colour of
square or as to whether the piece and the square have the same colour or
are of different colours.  This would work and would, to my mind, be
stylish and elegant, using information content to distinguish pieces
without adding anything onto the board.

3. Distinguish the two pieces of one type by having something such as a
draughts piece under one or both of the two pieces of one type: if under
both, then the two draughts pieces are of different colours.  However,
that would then mean that the Luotuoqi game could not be played with just
an ordinary chess set.

> It will be up to the polling to see if others have issues.

This does not follow.  I am asking about the rules of the metagame, not
the results of the voting on the rules for the Camel Chess game.

> A similar situation applies with rules like proposal 3, The Cube.  It
introduces something other than the basic 32 pieces and a board.

Well, it is a similar situation in some ways, yet is qualitatively
different.  For example, the cube could be a button, an empty herb jar, a
piece of cardboard, a book, anything handy, as it is just a physical
representation of a Boolean variable.  Distinguishing pieces on the board
with a marker would need suitable markers, which might cause problems in
finding something suitable or in using them with a travelling chess set.

It would, I feel, be quite in order to have more than one item off the
board, so that there were more than one Boolean variable associated with
the game.  Maybe 'small valued integer' could also be an off the board
type of item.  That is part of the fun of the design process.  However, my
own view is that there should be nothing added on the board.

> Only the voting will tell if this places the rule beyond the pale.

Well, it won't.  If proposal 3 is not accepted, then that could be for
various possible reasons, one of which might be a feeling that the idea of
having the cube is 'beyond the pale'.  Any such non-acceptance might be
only that some other rule is regarded as more important within the
constraints of having two new rules.

----

I find a certain amusement in the possibility that an industrial
psychologist might be quite fascinated by this discussion of the rules
within a committee structure!  Does if often (always?) happen with
committees? :-)

Robert's idea makes sense.  As each rule/piece is adopted, it supersedes
any previously adopted proposal to the extent of any conflict.

When it's all over I expect to edit the whole as a consistent rule set in
any case (standardizing description formats, clarifying conflicts, etc.).

I am waiting for ROOK definition to play-test the game (I don't know the
winner proposal for Rook, but I think  it will be Crowned Rook (8) or
Rookers (11).)
My first impression is that the game is, as expected, a Camel. As Horse
design, a Camel is not so bad, but it is a camel, undoubtely. If the Tower
of Hanoi survives as a complete piece to the end,
strategy would be extremely deep, because the optimal strategy should be
to split it in eight parts, mantained joined and advancing as an amoeba
against the enemy king -the subjective value of eight joined GUARDS in an
end of game is much more than the value of a Queen-, if there is not
another tower
in enemy band, the possesor of the tower must win the game. If there is
too a  full Tower (splitted) in the enemy pieces, strategy must be very
complex, and the end in a good game may last many moves. These are
speculations,
I'm going to wait for the Rook, and then, I'm going to evaluate the
Camel extensively. Good luck for the designers by committee. That is
needed, a bit of luck.

Thanks for the heads-up, Doug.  As a result I'm editing the whole page to
transform it from a contest announcement to a not-quite-finished set of
rules.  Later tonight.  :)

I like the idea of Luotuoqi II (excuse the accent absence in writing) for
Xiang Qi, and Luotuoqi III, for Shogi.
But it is the need of clarify first some things: Board size, number of
pieces of each type and initial setup for the new pieces, it is not
absolutely necessary that this characteristics are going to be the same as
in original game, only changing a piece by its substitute by consense.
Fortress in Xiang Qi may be defined by commitee, too. why it must be the 9
squares from the initial game?. May be re-defined the River?. In Shogi,
the designers by consense must decide where and when drops are allowed,
the same with promotions. All details must be considered in the design, I
think.
The problem with a design by committee is that the game is not thought as
a whole with an unified systemic idea, there are bits of locally good
ideas that are assembled sequentially, and assembling sequence do not need
to be the best, neither related to an armonious global conception of the
game, so ever there is the need of a little of luck in the final
results...

I expect to modify several features of the Luotuoqi process in Luotuoqi II,
although the basic concept is still people making suggestions and voting
on what gets in.  :)

If the Luotuoqi games wind up only being marginally playable, that's not
necessarily all bad.  Then they live up to their name, and the original
inspiring quotation.  But it's fascinating to see what ideas people have,
and what ideas people like.  And it lets some folks participate in a
'contest' who might not take part in a contest to design a whole
variant.  Here, if you have just one cool idea you want to throw in, you
can do it.

I've been playtesting this and I find two flaws:

The Diagonal Bypasser is too weak on a board of this size--since it must
move at least three squares to capture, it has few opportunities.

The Tower of Hanoi is much too powerful. Potentially you can make eight
single stones which equals 8 commoners (non-royal Kings). This is on the
high side of 16 Betza atoms (Queen=5, Amazonrider=8) just considering that
the commoner is the strongest 2-atom piece. Then there must be an unknown
addition for the value of the right to recombine.

The endgame is entirely dominated by the tower.

I've been experimenting with two revisions to address these issues:

The Diagonal Bypasser can capture on any square orthogonally adjectent to
its path, even though the square is also adjacent to the starting or
ending square.  DBb2-d4 can now capture b3, c2, c4, or d3 (but not a2, b1,
d5, or e4). Thius makes it a more useful in the middlegame and fairly
stong in the endgame.

Te Tower's maximum move is reduced to one less than its height: a full
tower can move 7 squares, a three-stone tower can move 2, a one-stone
tower is immobile.  You cannot split off a single stone, but can leave a
single stone behind when splitting. The potential value of the tower is
more like 8 atoms and considerable plus values, still dominating, but its
dominance is much less absolute. Preliminary playtesting indicates that
these two rules make for a more balanced game.

Both Eaglet promotion and The Cube seem quite workable.  Early promotion,
(especially to Mules) is quite easy unless the enemy works to prevent it,
but the opponent can adopt a symmetric strategy and stand pretty well.  

With players who use the cube sparingly (only for a large
material/positional gain or to prevent a large material/positional loss),
The Cube shifts the advantage to Black--making it about the same size as
White's advantage in FIDE, I'd guess. If players use the cube liberally
(to get small gains or prevent small losses), the game is nearer even.

I suspect that a player using the cube sparingly will beat an equally
skilled opponent using the cube more liberally unless the conservative
player's standard's are too high (for example only to give or prevent
immediate mate).