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Apothecary Chess-Classic. Large board variant obtained through tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 01:13 PM UTC:

@Fergus

A few weeks ago I have figured out that the joker imitates the pawn in all things which causes the joker moves to not be allowed.

To tackle this issue I have decided to write a Barren_Pawn function that the joker will use when imitating a pawn instead of imitating the regular pawn function. Otherwise things are unchanged. The Barren_Pawn functions are:

def White_Barren_Pawn checkaleap #0 #1 1 0 and empty #1 islower space #1 and or checkaleap #0 #1 1 -1 checkaleap #0 #1 1 1;

def White_Barren_Pawn-Range merge leaps #0 1 0 leaps #0 1 1;

def Black_Barren_Pawn checkaleap #0 #1 -1 0 and empty #1 isupper space #1 and or checkaleap #0 #1 -1 -1 checkaleap #0 #1 -1 1;

def Black_Barren_Pawn-Range merge leaps #0 1 0 leaps #0 1 1;

The piece of code involving the joker imitation is:

if != const alias $moved White_Joker:
  if != const alias $moved Pawn:
    set last_type_moved const alias $moved;
  else:
    set last_type_moved White_Barren_Pawn;
  endif;
endif;

and for black:

if != const alias $moved Black_Joker:
  if != const alias $moved Pawn:
    set last_type_moved const alias $moved;
  else:
    set last_type_moved Black_Barren_Pawn;
  endif;
endif;

I thought it should easily work. Unfortunately it does not. Any idea why that is?


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Jul 6, 2020 01:41 PM UTC:

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I'll try to think at something else.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jul 6, 2020 01:28 PM UTC:

I wouldn't recommend that. That doesn't sound like the correct solution to your problem.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Jul 6, 2020 12:29 PM UTC:

@Fergus

The way I had thought the game, the joker should, when imitating a pawn, get only the regular power and not promotion rights or double move privileges. And that works best with moving some of the lines in the pawn function to the pawn subroutine. It should be rather easy.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jul 3, 2020 05:02 PM UTC:

Since it works for displaying legal moves, it's probably because the Pawn functions are only for potential moves, and the Joker is trying to use one of the Pawn functions when making an actual move. Specifically, I think it fails on the line "and empty #1" in the Pawn function, because that space is occupied for an actual move. Some options include changing your rules, rewriting the Pawn functions to handle both potential and actual moves, or using a Joker subroutine for actual moves, which would let you undo the Joker's move before testing it with a function, then redoing it if it is legal.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Fri, Jul 3, 2020 11:38 AM UTC:

@Fergus,

I have unfortunately uncovered another bug on the preset for this game.

The joker can't move when imitating a pawn, although the moves are properly displayed. Any idea why?

 


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Thu, Jul 2, 2020 08:51 AM UTC:

@ Fergus,

I have found the mistake. 
This piece of code was missing and adding it has solved the problem.

if == moved K: 
unsetflag f2;
set Kpos $dest;
endif;


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Wed, Jul 1, 2020 04:56 PM UTC:

It still gives the error:  "you may not move into check".


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jul 1, 2020 04:40 PM UTC:

I didn't say to get rid of the else clause. I said to get rid of the else. Just the else. A single line of code.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Wed, Jul 1, 2020 04:40 AM UTC:

The new sub looks like this:

sub Apothecary_King from to:
if checkleap #from #to 1 1 or checkleap #from #to 1 0: 
return true;
endif;
move #to #from;
     if checkleap #from #to 1 3
     or checkleap #from #to 1 2
     and match rankname #to 1 10
     and flag #from :
         if not sub checked #from:
         move #from #to;
         return true;
         else die You may not perform the special moves out of check.;
         endif;
      endif;    
     return false;
endsub;

When trying to use regular moves out of check, I get the error "you cannot move into check.". This happens with or without the else part.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jun 30, 2020 11:54 PM UTC:

Also, add "return false;" to the very end of the subroutine.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jun 30, 2020 11:50 PM UTC:

The function looks fine. In the subroutine, you should remove the else.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jun 30, 2020 06:45 PM UTC:

I have made the distinction between the function and the subroutine. But I still could not make work as expected.

def Apothecary_King
checkleap #0 #1 1 3
or checkleap #0 #1 1 2
and not sub checked #0
and match rankname #1 1 10
and flag #0
or checkleap #0 #1 1 0 
or checkleap #0 #1 1 1;

 

sub Apothecary_King from to:
if checkleap #from #to 1 1 or checkleap #from #to 1 0: 
return true;
endif;
move #to #from;
     if checkleap #from #to 1 3
     or checkleap #from #to 1 2
     and match rankname #to 1 10
     and flag #from :
         if sub checked #from:
         die You may not perform the special moves out of check.;
          endif;
     else:
     move #from #to;
     return true;
     endif;
endsub;


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jun 30, 2020 02:03 PM UTC:

$origin should not be included in the function definition. It may be used as an argument when calling a function or subroutine, but it should not be included in the definition of one. You should check the flag before calling the checked subroutine, because that will minimize the use of the subroutine. The same goes for checking the rank of the destination. Always do less expensive operations before more expensive operations, because that will minimize the need to do the most expensive operations.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jun 30, 2020 08:18 AM UTC:

You are saying the the checked subroutine must be used inside the function?

Like that:

def Apothecary_King
checkleap #0 #1 1 3
or checkleap #0 #1 1 2
and match rankname #1 1 10
and flag #0
and not sub checked $origin
or checkleap #0 #1 1 0 
or checkleap #0 #1 1 1;

because this does not work.


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2020 07:15 PM UTC:

The subroutine should undo the King's move before checking whether it is in check. If the move is legal, then it should redo it. The function does not need to undo and redo the King's move, but it should make sure the King is not in check before allowing the special moves. Also, each should handle the regular moves before checking whether the King is in check. Your current subroutine is very wasteful, because it will check whether the King is in check every single time.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2020 05:19 PM UTC:

I have separated the 2 codes but never are the special moves availeble. I'm not sure about what to do!


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2020 03:38 PM UTC:

This should be handled in the Apothecary_King function and in the Apothecary_King subroutine, not externally. Furthermore, the subroutine should not call the function. Each one should handle this independently from the other.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Mon, Jun 29, 2020 02:07 PM UTC:

@Fergus

I have tried to implement the ban on special moves while the virgin king is in check. I'm far from the result.

Could you take a look at the link below?

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Apothecary+Chess+2&settings=Apothecary2working&submit=Edit


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 01:52 PM UTC:

HG,

I'm not sure what placement chess is.

I was wondering if the placement of the pieces may be done automatically. Can a javascript be written to do this. and after each restart another legitimate initial position can be generated.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 01:30 PM UTC:

1. I still have not figured out how to make the squares, brouhaha

Just define a first piece with name 'hole' (the ID, move and image fields will be ignored), and a list of 'starting squares' where you want the holes to be. Then you also specify a piece to start at one of those squares. All holes act as brouhaha squares, also during the game: you can place pieces on them, and when you then move them away they revert to black.

2. It may be a nice feature to display the brouhaha squares in a different colour

I will think about it. Perhaps dark grey.

3.I don't think the shuffling works in this particular case (please read the article) but probably a javascript code is possible to do. Unfortuneatly I don't know Java script so if you can help me here I'd really apreciate it.

Well, this sounds more like placement chess with some restrictions than like shuffling. The logcal solution would be to put all the pieces in hand (except those that have fixed location, like Kings and Rooks). For easy placement just display the piece table permanently next to the board. You can do that by defining in the diagram parameters satellite=apothecary , and then somewhere on your page put a HTML element <table id="apothecaryTable"></table> . The Diagram script will then put the piece table there, rather than collapsible under the diagram, and people can directly drag the pieces to the Diagram.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 12:34 PM UTC:

HG,

1. I still have not figured out how to make the squares, brouhaha

2. It may be a nice feature to display the brouhaha squares in a different colour

3.I don't think the shuffling works in this particular case (please read the article) but probably a javascript code is possible to do. Unfortuneatly I don't know Java script so if you can help me here I'd really apreciate it.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 09:16 AM UTC:

The Diagram does have a shuffle option now. But to make that work you should first place the pieces in some 'reference position', and then indicate in a shuffle option which piece types you want to permute. (It can then see the set of squares that should be involved in the shuffle.) Depending on whether the King has a castling move defined on it, the shuffle will respect its placement between the corner pieces during the shuffle, or not. In your case you have no castling, and there would be no restriction to the King placement.

In Chess960 the reference position would be FIDE; from this it would then know that the castling partners are Rooks, and that the King must remain between the Rooks. BTW, the Diagram does not implement Fischer castling; no way has been devised yet to indicate that in XBetza; the On notation would mean something else. Perhaps OX ? But as far as the shuffling is concerned, you could say shuffle=N!BRQK, where the exclamation point before the B indicates Bishops should be equally distributed over shades. When you ask it to do impossible things the results will be undefined.

I don't know whether this shuffle option satisfies your needs. A straightforward enhancement of it could be to allow multiple 'shuffle groups' (say comma separated in the shuffle option), where it would then apply the same shuffling as it does now to each group independently. (They had better be non-overlapping groups then, or the results would get statistical bias.)

And yes, your King move seems correct. But you should be able to see that in the XBetza sandbox, when you ask for the move diagram.

To see diagram source in a comment I usually click the 'View' link at the bottom of the comment to see it in isolation (so that I don't have to look for it on a page that contains lots of other stuff), and ask my browser to show the page source. There will still be a lot of stuff before it for the menu bar, and all the adds, but you can always use the browser search function to look for 'idiagram'.


💡📝Aurelian Florea wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 08:19 AM UTC:

HG,

About the king: It does not castle bun while virgin it may leap one rank back using a knight or camel jump. I am thinking that in xbetza is : KimbsLimbsN. Is it correct?

The pieces are missing beacuse they should be added by shuffling. But for now I can;t do this. It probably should be treated as a particular case as the algorithm for placing piece from this game is rather weird, but you had said it may be done by java script.

 

Also I want to see the brouhaha code and the 960 code.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Jun 23, 2020 07:31 AM UTC:

Well, if I look at your page source, I see this:

<div class="idiagram">
files=10
ranks=12
holdingsType=1
promoZone=3
promoChoice=!P*N*B*L*E*R2*J2*Q3*C3*A3
graphicsDir=../graphics.dir/alfaerie/
whitePrefix=w
blackPrefix=b
graphicsType=gif
squareSize=54
symmetry=none
pawn:p:ifmnDfmWfceF:pawn:a4,b4,c4,d4,e4,f4,g4,h4,i4,j4,,a9,b9,c9,d9,e9,f9,g9,h9,i9,j9
rook::::,
queen::::,
bishop:b:B:bishop:,
knight:n:NmZ:knight:,:1
mamluk:l:WL:camel:,:1
siege elephant:e:FAH:elephant:,
joker:j:fI:fool:,
Chancellor:c:RN:chancellor:,
archbishop:a:BN:cardinal:,
</div>

You should also see that when you edit your comment in source-code mode. (Switching the submission editor to WYSIWYG mode and then back to source code destroys the diagram, don't do it!)

Most of it looks OK, but except for the Pawns, the lists of squares where the pieces should be placed are all empty. You should have something like a2,j2,,a11,j11 for the Rooks etc., but you just have a single comma. I also see no King amongst the pieces. And in the promoChoice string you probably intend to suffix Q, C, A with '1' rather than '3', if you only allow those on the final rank. (Since you have promoZone=3, '3' would be default anyway, and would not have to be specified.)

Also, you defined the piece IDs as lower case, but in the promoChoice string you then refer to them with upper case. There isn't really any reason to define the ID for pieces other than Knight, as by default it would take the (capitalized) first character of the name.


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