Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Instead of the win-conditon being the presence of the King within a
particular zone, make the win-conditon also the absence of the King on the
rest of the field.

This is your current condition:

  (win-condition (White Black) (absolute-config King (promotion-zone)))

Make it:

(win-condition (White Black) 
(and
(absolute-config King (promotion-zone))
(absolute-config (not King) (not-promotion-zone))
)
)

You will have to define the not-promotion-zone, which will be all the
cells that are not part of the normal promotion-zone.

The Zillions engine will now have the 'urge' to move that King into the
promotion-zone.

Thanks, Peter. It finds and defends against these wins much better now.
The
macro I used, wtih comments:


(define King-forward (
$1
(verify not-friend?)
(if (in-zone? promotion-zone) 
	(verify not-attacked?) ; to prevent moving into check
	(if (in-zone? promotion-zone a1)
		(capture White-throne) ; dummy position with a white King
	else
		(capture Black-throne) ; dummy position with a Black King
	)
	add
else
   	(add-create) ; another macro to make the move and create a piece
; if appropriate. Your normal move goes here.
)
))

Larry's suggestion also improves play and the code is elegant. I'm going
to
do some testing and see which approach seems to do better.

I have a more elegant macro for Peter's method which will allow the
final
move to be made:

(define King-win (
(verify (in-zone? promotion-zone))
(if (in-zone? promotion-zone a1)
	White-throne ; dummy position with a White King
else
	Black-throne ; dummy position with a Black King
)
add
))