Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Bob, the Musketeer Board Painter Tool is indeed quite useful: I used it to make all the diagrams on my latest book. The way you use it is not illogical, I don't think that you will gain clarity if you add another symbol.

Also note that there is a forum there where you can suggest additions, propose new icons, etc. I have done it often and Zied Haddad, the owner of the site, and Jérôme Choain, the designer (who was also designing for Jocly), have been very kind to answer my request.

There are already many symbols. You use the bended arrow, the circle, and the X-cross. For the Lancer, where you use the X-cross for a D and H move, are they really D and H? I mean, is it possible to go on the 2nd square if the 1st is not empty? And to the 3rd if the 1st and 2nd are not empty? I suggest you give the Betza's notation for each piece.

Well, it surely misled me on the move of the Lioneer. And you can always ask an editor to do it.

I decided to go ahead and upgrade to the triple-capturing Berserker. When I make the graphic, I'll only put the circles in the outermost ring; and then, yes, if you would be so kind as to fill the two inner rings with stars so the diagram is clear, I would appreciate it.

With the inclusion of the Interactive Diagram (which I, and hopefully other visitors, will use to test things out), I've not only included the Berserker, but also simplified the Falconer so it leaps to its destination. I might return the Falconer to its previous "alphabet soup" movement pattern, but this will do for now.

There; the Lioneer is now the Berserker (which I think makes more sense in "game-world" terms) and the Falconer is simplified.

The Helepolis in the ID is WDHWX, so I may change it to that in the description too, or take the WX out of the program, depending on how well it goes over. (It basically turns it into a leaping Half-Rook.)

H.G. wrote: ... "Anyway, I think it is 'blindingly obvious' that (1) the relative values of sliders and leapers depends on board size, (2) values are not simple additions of individual move comtributions, but involve synergy (i.e. Q > R + B), and (3) moves that can be blocked contribute progressively less as it gets more easy to block those."...

I'd agree with all this H.G., except I'm sure you might wish to qualify it (in your own view anyway), in view of your own finding from your computer studies that Amazon only = Q+N in value, which would seem to be an exception to your point (2) above.

Indeed, the value of the Amazon is  still something that deserves more study. The point, however, is that it has been well established (from classical values of orthodox pieces) that there can be synergies. So that any theoretical calculation that excludes those must in general be in error, even though occasionally it can be lucky. Even a broken clock gives the correct time twice a day.

Maybe the best way to resolve that for you is to say that for the Amazon piece type at least, the synergy would happen to = 0. I personally feel it should be greater, but have no sort of study to back that, just gut feeling.

P.S.: For 8x8 (under Piece Articles here) ZoG rates an Amazon about the same as Q+N in value too. Maybe lucky!?

https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html

Well, I don't know how ZoG determines piece values. If it also values Q=R+B because it does not take synergy into account, it would obviously be wrong in that case, and lucky for the Amazon. But I only tested the Amazon in a direct confrontation with Q + N on 8x8 (which then gave a 50% score). To be sure this is not a fluke I should also do indirect tests, comparing the performance of Q+N against various combinations of material (including pieces with strength between Q and Amazon, and even some stronger than Amazon) with that of an Amazon against that same material combination.

Bizarrely ZoG in the article values Q about the same as R+B (maybe even signif. less so). Just wrong, like many ZoG values seem to be.

After playing a couple of rounds, I can see two things:

1. The Berserker may be too powerful; it can Mate the King by itself, even with a bunch of other pieces nearby. Compound leapers would be needed to defend (maybe replacing one Archer on each side?), so it may go back to being a Lion, but just a straightforward Chu Shogi Lion.

I may still use the Berserker somewhere, but with plenty of compound leapers like the Bison, Auroch, Impala, Wyvern, Zebu, Jackalope (Antelope/Hare), etc. to defend against it.

2. Putting the Generals in the same column as the King and Queen may be a mistake; moving the King's Sergeant puts the King in Check. I may move those Generals to the outside, and line all the Archers up in a row.

I've returned the Berserker to the Cho Shugi Lion moves, but retained the Berserker name because it fits this army so much better. (The move diagram still needs those stars, please, Mr. Editor!)

There was no need to move the Generals; I'd absentmindedly had them programmed as leapers instead of sliders. That's fixed now.

I also gave the Knights a bit of extra range, both to help deal with the larger board and to help deal with the Berserkers.

And while I haven't changed the text description yet, I've also restored the Wizard's leaping, and given it the ability to swap with a friendly piece.

Depending on how well these things go over, I'll update the Wizard's text (or its moves on the IG) and the Helepolis's moves (to reflect the added (0,4) leap) tomorrow.

I've edited the Wizard and Helepolis, as promised. I also figured out a better way to represent the Archer's rifle captures, and a semi-decent symbol for the Berserker's intermediate stops.

I'm now toying with the idea of restoring the Berserker's third move of terror, but also replacing two of the six Archers with Bowmen (and I'm glad Fergus never got around to deleting that page).

I'm hesitant on the first one, as it can become a true terror with a three-move range.

A few more test runs tell me that the Berserker is just fine as a renamed Lion; the computer treats it as a powerful defensive piece, which is what I'd hoped for. I'll try to figure out something for the full-on three-move Berserker at some later date (and I do have a specific idea or two).

I did decide to throw in the Bowman, though, and there's at least one good result: I'd badly screwed up the Black side of the previous Setup chart, and had to redo it anyway.

My test games since I added the Bowman have been pretty good, but I'm not sure I coded it right. I have it as NafcabN, and the illustration looks right, but it doesn't seem to behave that way in practice on the ID.

Other than that, there's only the matter of handling the royalty and (if possible) capture-promotion rules, and that part's good to go.

I'm also toying with the idea of replacing the outer remaining archers with alibabas, both for better variety and because I really love the image of an elephant with a turret. I'd probably want to add a W or F to the move so they're not limited to just 1/4 of the board, and of course the Archers would get one more space to their diagonal.

(Normally I'd code Archers as mF2caibN, but they're mF3caibN here because of the much-larger board. I'm talking about mF4caibN in exchange for reducing their numbers. I probably could also go with mF3caibNcaibZ, though I think that's probably a bit much.)

I decided against the Alibaba, because of the issue of its move limiting it to 1/4 of the board. The Archers are adequate. So, unless there's any other feedback, that's the last rule change.

I still need to figure out how to express the promotion rules for Pawns, Soldiers, and Sergeants, and make sure that the Bowman behaves properly, but otherwise I think the ID is good too.

OK, I think you'll like this, H.G.

In my test games, I noticed that the AI never brought out its Helepolises, and I got a good look at what the real deal was like. It seems to me that it should be able to move like a Rook, but with the added ability that it can do a locust capture on an enemy piece in its path -- though of course I'd limit it to just one capture per move. I'm not sure, but I think this would be coded RcamfR. If I add the ability to jump over a single piece without capturing on the initial move, I think that would make it RcamfRipfmR. (I want to confirm that before I make the change, so I have it coded right in the IG.)

Yep, that worked. I'm pretty satisfied now.

It is amazing that after so many discussions this game is still hidden. I don't know, it is true, how much work it needs to turn a game from hidden to published, but really the process is long here.

If it is too long, it will discourage people to make nice contributions. Yes yes, we are all very busy with our life, but maybe a clear process could be installed. Distinguishing the things to be corrected to meet the required standard for publication (grammar, graphics, etc.) and the things which are critics or advices on the game. The first ones must be corrected by the author prior a publication, the second ones are just in the hand of the author who can modify or not the game. If the game is poor but correctly presented, it should be published. It won't have any success, that's all. I hope someone will be able to have a look at this.

The verbal description of the Wizard does not correspond to the move it has in the Interactive Diagram, and is in fact not clear at all. (E.g. can e4-f7 be blocked at e7? The text suggests that.) The ID allows it to replace a friend on the A squares, kicking it back to the F squares.

As to the Bowman, it is not clear whether the non-leaping Knight moves over the W squares, F squares, or both. I also would not refer to a capture as 'rifle capture' when the piece moves. Technically capturing the next piece in the direction of movement is 'advancer capture', but people not familiar with Ultima/Roccoco would not know that, so it would have to be explained. (Or referred to, if it is in the summary of technical terms.)

The verbal description of the Berserker fails to mention it can jump.

The way you describe the King implies that capturing the checker, or blocking the check, are not allowed check evasions (like with the Wuss). Do I understand correctly that when you are checkamated, but have a safe Prince, it would be good strategy to capture the most valuable piece you have under attack, because the opponent cannot recapture, as he must capture the King instead?

The verbal description and move diagram say the Sergeant's sideway move is move-only, but in the ID it is capture-only.

The move diagrams use the marker symbols in a non-standard way; the jump symbol should only be used for direct leaps, not for distant rider moves (or any move that can be blocked).

About your remarks on strategy: if Pawns are such good defenders, how can you ever beat an opponent without any support from your own Pawns, if he keeps his Pawns as defenders? Seems to me you must storm the opponent camp with Pawns, to break through his defences.

BTW, most of the promotion rules can be easily added to the ID, through inserting a morph parameter after the piece definition.

@Jean-Louis: I agree with the general judgement that there is not enough editorial effort here, even if this submission might not be the best evidence for that. I have editorial stataus, but it was granted to me for the purpose of equiping existing articles with Interactive Diagrams, and I cannot even find enough time to make much progress on that. Since I seem to be the only editor that visits this site on a daily basis, involving myself with other tasks would basically mean 100% of the editorial work would be done by me. Most editors seem to only show up here once a month, if not once a year or not at all.

It seems we are in desperate need of more active editors. It would also help if the submission system would keep track of the status of submissions in a more detailed way then indicating whether the are hidden or not. Like 'ready for submission', 'reviewed and waiting for correction'. So that editors can quicly see which submissions beg their attention.

But I don't think we should just publish anything that satisfies our standards for presentation and clarity. We should definitely apply standards for quality and originality. If a variant is really flawed, e.g. by being a certain draw, or a trivial win for one player, that would be reason for rejecting it. A very minor variation on an existing variant (e.g. Capablanca Chess where stalemate is a win) should not be published as a separate article, but at best lead to adding a remark mentioning it as a rule variation of the variant from which it is derived. (And IMO the mentioned variant would not deserve even that, as the idea is too obvious.)

I'll get to editing most of those notes later today, H.G. (the ID edits and checkmate rule will likely take a bit longer).

What symbol should be used on the rider move spots? The conventional dot?

And I agree with you on the concern about the editing staff. I already noted on the Unpublished Submissions page that there's a bit of a backlog, but of course there's nothing to be done about it. I'd volunteer for it myself if I had a better sense of game balance, but no game exists where I have that (and I spent many years writing for the HERO Game System tabletop RPGs).

I know that this variant is still flawed enough to remain Hidden, and I'm not at all surprised by it. As for my other submissions, I'm thinking of withdrawing Aquachess, but Beast Chess and Blender Chess may be good enough. I have a couple of others that I've worked on offline as well (I've mentioned one of them -- a 5x(12x12) game -- in a couple of places).

On another note, part of the issue I have with editing right now is that, once an ID is in place, the mere act of switching editing to WYSIWIG screws up the code. I have to copy-and-paste it into a word processor, change the interface, do my edits, change it back, and then copy-and-paste back from the processor. It does make editing the ID code a little easier, but for almost anything else it's a PITA. (I know it's not your department, H.G.; I just wanted to put it out there.)

Indeed, the editor can sometimes be annoying. This is why I usually do not put much (or in fact any) text in the Setup section, just a Diagram. If there is text I edit it in HTML source mode, where I have to add the <p> tags myself. (Especially annoying if it contains boldface or italics.) The summary of the pieces I usually let create by the ID itself, as a satellite pieceList. But to get proper layout I usually have to put things in a table, which requires a fair amount of HTML tags.

Advantage is that when you have done it once, you can copy-paste that to other articles, and only have to adapt the Diagram parameters to the new variant.

Distant rider moves can use the same symbol as slider moves; only the first leap would use the jump symbol, where for sliders the adjacent square would use the same symbol as the distant targets. Also, for a hopper one would not mark the square behind the mount as a jump; the jump symbol must be reserved for direct leaps from the square of origin. That reaching the square involves a jump is already obvious from the geometry; what the symbols should convey is whether the presence of another piece not shown in the diagram between the target and the moving piece would block the move or not. Note that the amount of information that one can display in a static move diagram is rather limited, and for unusual moves can easily  be misinterpreted. (E.g. imagine a 'stuttering rider', which alternately moves outward like D and then pulls back like W; it would reach the same squares as a Rook.

Note that your XBetza description for the Bowman does block it moving close to the edge, when the capture target is off board; you would have to include o mode for that step to avoid that.

Distant rider moves can use the same symbol as slider moves; only the first leap would use the jump symbol, where for sliders the adjacent square would use the same symbol as the distant targets.

OK, so a leap arrow on the first jump, and then dots on any others. Right?

Also, for a hopper one would not mark the square behind the mount as a jump; the jump symbol must be reserved for direct leaps from the square of origin. That reaching the square involves a jump is already obvious from the geometry; what the symbols should convey is whether the presence of another piece not shown in the diagram between the target and the moving piece would block the move or not.

It may take me a while to wrap my brain around how to apply that in Musketeer's Board Painter. If I understand you right, I'd use a leap/capture symbol on the square of the captured piece, and not mark the destination square at all. (Personally I'd still want to put a line-arrow from the starting square to get the information across to newbies.) Or would I use a dot on the landing square?

Note that the amount of information that one can display in a static move diagram is rather limited, and for unusual moves can easily  be misinterpreted. (E.g. imagine a 'stuttering rider', which alternately moves outward like D and then pulls back like W; it would reach the same squares as a Rook.

Yeah, for something like that, I definitely would use line-arrows, and of different colors for forward and back, along with an explanatory text. I recently put together a diagram for a combined Rose and Nightrider, which I appropriately call the Nightmare -- it's as likely to be that for both players, in different ways, as putting together the diagram was for me.

@HG: I understand your answer. You convinced me for the control of originality. Is there any definition of the standard you mention?

An submission status system would be very useful, I agree.