Ratings & Comments

Hey!  I rather like the Chess++ idea.  And it even fits my game concept
thematically.  Dibs again!  ;)  So here's a coding question for Peter or
the other top ZRF experts.  I'd like to set up a game where pieces are 'in
the queue' off the board behind specific pieces that start in the array. 
For example, let's say that a 'general' starts in the queue behind the
'cardinal.'  When the cardinal moves away from its array square, the
general appears there.  This only happens once, though, and additional
moves by the cardinal do not create more generals.  This idea might allow
me to incorporate unorthodox pieces on the standard chessboard without
clogging up the array and therefore bogging down the opening.  And who
wants clogging and bogging, anyway?  But I need to playtest it.  Any hints
on the best way to code this in Zillions?  I could probably come up with
something, but I have the feeling it would take me ten times as long to
reason it out as it will take Peter et.al.  Thanks!

Well, as usual with Zillions, there are a number of ways to do what you
want.  The approach I'd be inclined to try is use a first move attribute
for the piece, and on the first move use an add-copy instead of an add,
and then go back and do a change type on the starting square.

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testing one two.

I absolutely agree.  But I note several practical difficulties.

1) Which variants?  This also invites subquestions...how is a variant
recognized for official play, how is the list determined for a
championship series, how do we develop laws which cover the wide realm of
variants...
2) Should games such as shogi and xiangqi (or Western chess!), with their
own firmly established organizations, be considered as variants?
3) Should tournaments utilizing only one variant be counted, or only
events involving two or more?
4) How does one balance the variants in issuing ratings, given that player
proficiency is certain to vary across the spectrum of games?
5) Is there enough of an audience of variantists (who play more than one
or two games with some proficiency) to be credible or worthwhile?

Certainly as the contest guy here, I'm keenly interested in the idea you
raise.  But we'd have quite a road in front of us...

Glenn Overby

Look at:

http://www.schoenberg.at/6_archiv/designs/designs_chess_e.htm

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/schoenberg/painting/gamehtms/noritter10.htm

hey, thanks.  the rules are horribly written, i can't tell if this because
it's not a good translation, or cause schoenberg's original rules were
written badly also.  it's not clear to me if the plane can only capture at
the end of the second move, or if it can capture on the first and then
make a second knight move (chushogi lion-style), but it's more likely that
he meant the former, in which case his claim that the plane is the most
powerful piece is false, considering that the sub is equivalent to the
amazon.  anyway, i'll add it to my (long) cv to-do list to submit a page
to the editors for linking to these pages.

mmm... looks good. But you must tell what happens with an arrow that points
directly at a board corner (vg a northeast arrow at h8)

Here is a piece of code which works for another pair of drops (plus a third
one on a phony square). The macro drops a pair of halfling long-leapers on
b1 and g1, or b8 and g8, by clicking on g1 or g8, after veryfing that
shooters, coordinators, advancers or withdrawers haven't been dropped by
either player(only one pair of halflings will be dropped -- the same type
for each player, but the first player chooses where -- and which kind --
to drop), and that the two squares to receive the halfling long leapers
are empty . (It also drops a third one on DroppedLongLeapers, to prevent
the drop of shooters, coordinators, advancers or withdrawers.)

(define drop-halfling-long-leapers-on-g (
	(verify (and (neutral? WhiteKingMoved) (neutral? BlackKingMoved)))
	(verify (empty? DroppedShooters))
	(verify (empty? DroppedCoordinators))
	(verify (empty? DroppedAdvancers))
	(verify (empty? DroppedWithdrawers))
	(if (am-white) b1 else b8)
	(verify empty?)
	(if (am-white) g1 else g8)
	(verify empty?)
	cascade
	(if (am-white) b1 else b8)
	cascade
	DroppedLongLeapers
	add
))

The procedure is called in the drops part of the piece. So something like

(if (am-white) 'this square' else 'that square'
(verify empty?)
cascade
(if am-white) 'that square' else 'this square'
(verify empty?)
change-owner
add


should work, at least if the rotational or reflectional squares are known
-and empty?