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Bede notes: Eric Greenwood's Archabbott is a BWD, a piece which I once called the 'Grand Bishop'. Never managed to find a use for the Grand Bishop or the Grand Rook (RFA).

This is a test to see if the Interactive Diagram handles brouhaha squares well.

It does not seem to work all the time!

Oh!.... That was the point of the diagram!!! Silly me!

Ah, stupid! The diagram makes brouhaha squares by first defining 'holes' (i.e. placing a piece with name 'hole' on all squares youwant to be blacked out), and then later put a piece on that square. But the specification of the holes was not subject to the position symmetry. This was by design, but I still forgot to specify the 10th rank should be holes. Now I did, and it seems to work also for black now.

HG, 

I'm trying to see the code for the diagram bellow but I cannot. May you help me?

I have 2 questions about the brouhaha squares:

1) What is the advantage of allowing a capture on a brouhaha square? Spontaneously, I find this strange: I understood that such a square hosts a piece until it is activated and enter into play, then the square disapears. Then, this square is not part of the play area really. So, I wouldn't have allowed a capture on it at all. Maybe there is something I don't see.

2) Why this name of "brouhaha" square? At least in French a brouhaha is a surrounding noise. Those squares are more like a fog, brouillard in French. Brouhaha/brouillard, is there a linguistic confusion there? 

1) What is the advantage of allowing a capture on a brouhaha square? Spontaneously, I find this strange: I understood that such a square hosts a piece until it is activated and enter into play, then the square disapears. Then, this square is not part of the play area really. So, I wouldn't have allowed a capture on it at all. Maybe there is something I don't see.

Good question.  The thought was that if we do not allow a capture on those squares, a piece can stay safe there potentially forever.  I do not like the idea of a piece that cannot be attacked but can still "spring into action" at any time.  The idea of this game is to add another knight-value piece and another rook-value piece to the normal 8x8 board.  The launch squares are just a new way to give some flexibility about how to develop them.

2) Why this name of "brouhaha" square? At least in French a brouhaha is a surrounding noise. Those squares are more like a fog, brouillard in French. Brouhaha/brouillard, is there a linguistic confusion there? 

In English, Brouhaha means a chaotic fight with lots of participants.  It was only the name of the game.  The squares just came to be called Brouhaha squares because of their origin, but it was not intentional.  I think Aurelian is the one who started calling them that when he used the idea in his Apothecary games.

They could just be called disappearing squares or vanishing squares or something along the same lines. They're nothing new. In Chesire Cat Chess and Wormhole Chess, all the squares of the board are like that. What's novel about this game is using them for only some of the squares. This use of them could be termed launch squares.

Indeed it is I who has started using this name. It seemed apropiate to me, but at the time I have not put much though into it!

Fine with "brouhaha", it's a funny name, sounding nice. I understand the reluctance of having a piece standing there as a threat and that would be unvulnerable. 
When the piece enters on the real board, is there any limitation? Can it capture, check or hinder a check? 
Maybe a good practice would be to forbid their capture as long as they stay "in the brouhaha" but also to forbid their first entering move to be a capture, a check or hinder a check?

What do you think? Would it work?

I don't have any restriction, Brouhaha (the game) even have special powers that allow easier deployment in the beginning.

What do you think? Would it work?

Usually, the fewer rules the better, and the simpler the rules the better. Pretty much anything can be made to work, when you take away all the reasons why they would not work by additional rules. Most choices in CVs are arbitrary. Which is why there are so many. As I see it the 'brouhaha squares' are just one such arbitrary choice that work through very simple rules. To implement them in the Diagram's AI was also trivial.

I think that (in Brouhaha, at least) capture on a brouhaha square is mostly hypothetical; in practice players would develop their pieces long before these squares could come under attack, being sheltered by two fully occupied ranks. This would be different when you added brouhaha squares at the side edges near the middle; then this would become a real issue. But the simplest remedy to that is not do it. Why would you? Plenty of room near the back rank.

I agree HG, the simplest the rules, the better. It is a principle that I always try to apply in the games I invent (not only chess related) and that we apply in the circle of games inventors (MALT) we have in my region. Always we start from a set of rules and after testing and testing, we remove rules. :=) Good practice!

As it is (in Brouhaha chess and Apothecary chess), actually there is the need of an extra rule to specify that it is forbidden to enter the waiting square except to capture the piece which stands on it. 

This is exactly to simplify that point that I started thinking about it. I found this exception strange. The simplest rule would be to forbid any incoming on that square no? 

But there is the point mentionned by Greg, which is true, that the waiting piece would be in the same time threatening and immune. So, I was wondering if forbidding an entering move which is a capture, a check or a blocking check could mitigate this issue. Blocking a check is a restriction used in Seirawan chess for example. Also the entering on the board could be seen similar to a drop. In shogi, one can't capture by droping. One can check though. 

Maybe, this is not a good idea if it is too complex. 

I'm just sharing my thoughts. I'm designing a new variant of my own, this is why I'm asking you guys, experts in CVs. Thanks

I guess it depends on how one formulates the rules. I saw the special rule that defines these squares as "turns into inaccessible when abandoned, rather than empty". And I also implemented it that way, by replacing board[fromSquare] = 0; in the MakeMove() routine by board[fromSquare] = background[fromSquare], where the background array then could be initialized with empty and inaccessible squares as desired. (Inaccessible squares were already implemented, for the purpose of simulating non-rectangular boards.)

So the rule that you can capture the piece on the brouhaha square was not really an extra rule, as it is normal that you can always capture any piece. It would have required quite some extra code in various places to forbid pieces to enter it (or hop over it) even when a piece was occupying it; every move would have to test the background under the piece as well as the board itself. And it would become even more complex when you had to make exceptions for what the piece on the brouhaha square is forbidden to do compared to its normal capabilities. Especially if this included blocking check.

Not sure. What you say depends on the way you write your code. Moreover people are not computers. If I explain that it is forbidden to any piece to enter on a square, it needs an extra sentence to explain that a capture is an exception. The shortest way of writing a code is not obviously the more natural or simpler for a real human. And vice-versa.

But you could also have said: "that square disappears when it gets empty".

From the description of Cheshire Cat Chess:

Every time a square is vacated, because a piece moves away from it, the square disappears.

They don't bother to mention that you can capture pieces while they are still on the square. They do mention pieces can move over such disappeared squares, though. (Which is indeed worth mentioning, as I would not expect that. And I don't think that would apply to brouhaha squares, e.g. by a bent slider.)

You don't have to imagine bent sliders. If a Rook captured a Scout on its starting space, I presume it would not be able to capture a Cleric still on its starting space. Since Chesire Cat Chess removes spaces from the regular playing area and still includes sliders, it makes sense that it would allow moving over non-existing spaces. But I think that the rule in Chesire Cat Chess is going to be the exception, not the default behavior. Game Courier, for example, would not allow movement across non-existing spaces, and for a game like Chesire Cat Chess, an exception would have to be programmed in. In this game, there are non-existing spaces only between spaces whose only purpose is to provide a launching area for extra pieces to enter the main playing area.

Right, although one could argue that in Brouhaha not all the squares between the Scouts and the Clerics are 'brouhaha squares'. But in Aurelian's game, which has 5 adjacent brouhaha squares, A rook should not be allowed to capture from one to the other once the intermediate pieces have left their launch square.

The Interactive Diagram I also does not allow sliders to move over the blacked-out squares; they are considered 'off board'. This because their original purpose was for implementing irregularly shaped boards, like Omega Chess. Leapers can jump over them, though. Actually I am not sure what hoppers would do, or even what they should do. One interpretation of inaccessible squares is that they are occupied by uncapturable unmovable pieces, and in that case hoppers might want to use them as mounts!

I guess it would be easy to distinguish several different types of 'terrain' for use as 'background' to which an evacuated square reverts. It would all be inaccessible, but one flavor could be blocking to anything, while another flavor could allow sliders to fly over it, and another could allow hoppers to use it as mount, and these could even be combined as independent properties.

The starting squares of the Scout and Cleric are not Brouhaha squares in the interactive diagram you included. They are not defined as holes, and consequently, when the piece leaves them, they become empty squares, which can be entered again.

Also, is it really the intention that the initial moves of Scout and Cleric can also capture?

The starting squares of the Scout and Cleric are not Brouhaha squares in the interactive diagram you included. They are not defined as holes, and consequently, when the piece leaves them, they become empty squares, which can be entered again.

Thanks for pointing this out.  They now function correctly.

Also, is it really the intention that the initial moves of Scout and Cleric can also capture?

That was my intention.  Do you think this is a bad option?

That was my intention. Do you think this is a bad option?

No, just unusual.

A three wheeled War Machine graphic is available for your Scout piece. See my Rose Chess XII page. I plan to use this piece in yet another 10x10 variant next month.

Also Peter S. Hatch's Fantasy Grand Chess (2000) contains the Druid Army, with twenty different units. There is no duplication, even for the pawn-equivalent units. One of these pieces, the Stag [WH], is identical to your Scout. EDIT (next day) Digging deeper into the past, in Mark E Hedden's Ganymede Chess (1999), a Bishop can promote to a Cardinal [BWH].