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Comments by GaryK.Gifford
The article reminds me of my college days... well done. It also reminds me of Taikyoku Shogi, which has many short range pieces... lots of piece movement possibilities. Joe and Christine are correct in pointing out that evolution has been towards long range pieces... at least in Fide Chess. Xianqi still has the relatively short range elephants and palace guards. Shogi has the short range set of generals (gold, silver, emarald (which we now call the King). The following link to Wikipedia's Taikyoku Shogi page is likely a good tie-in to '' The Short Range Project.'' Lots of pieces are discussed there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi#Step_movers Here is an example of movement for one piece, uncommon today: The Mountain stag Step: The mountain stag can move one square orthogonally forward. Limited range: It can move one or two squares orthogonally sideways. Limited range: It can move one to three squares diagonally forward. Limited range: It can move one to four squares orthogonally backward. This and many other interesting movements can be found at the linked site.
Sam is absolutely correct. I used this concept in Shatranj of Troy, Shatranjian Shogi, and Cannons of Chesstonia [to a mild degree]. Traditional Shogi with drops of the short-range generals and pawns supports this view.
Yes Peter, you are correct. And thanks for pointing that out as many who are new to chess variants may not be aware of non-royal kings. This non-Royal King is also the Joe Joyce General (from his Modern Shatranj), and the piece undoubtably lives in many games by many names (as you point out). Joe Joyce recently told me, 'It [the Fighting King] is exactly the same piece as the one in your recently-posted 6 Fortresses game, ...the one in 6 F has a feather, and the new one doesn't...' Please do not think I was trying to invent a new piece in these games... I was only trying to create a chess variant that had a very slight modification which would greatly alter the play of the game. In regard to Royal-Pawns; I was not familiar with them from other games... However, as I was writing this comment Joe Joyce told me of Jeremy Goods' 'Royal Pawns Chess.' So I just looked that game up, and felt a bit awkward at what I saw because my variant, though created independently and later, is very similar to Jeremy's. Had I been aware of Royal Pawn Chess I would not have posted 'Fighting Kings.' As a later comment: I just now looked at Bruce Zimov's Knightmate - this game has 2 non-royal kings and a royal knight. Very Interesting.
Thanks Jeremy. Somehow I missed (or overlooked) the arrival of your Royal Pawns Chess. Sorry about that. Joe Joyce and I chat a good bit and if it were not for him I'd still be unaware of your creation. You and I certainly had similar ideas here. I feel like I was involved in one of those ESP experiments where person 'A' goes to a location and person 'B' tries drawing the scene. There is a case in which 2 chess problem composers created nearly identical problems at about the same time... each unaware of the other's composition.
Bruce Zimov created this interesting game back in 1972. I only became aware of it today through Peter's comment. I believe Mr. Zimov's game deserves a pre-set, so I just made one. It is located at this link. The pre-set has a link to the rules. http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DKnightmate%26settings%3DJPG-km
No... in chess you never regain lost pieces. However, pawns promote to Rook, Knight, Bishop, or Queen upon reaching the 8th rank.
Fairly good rules for Feudal can be found here, at Wikepedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_%28game%29 In the intro they state that the 4 pieces of the plastic peg-board can be placed differently for each game setup. My game of Feudal has the board pieces hinged together... they unfold in the same manner each for each game. But you can rotate the complete board and thus experience 4 possible terrain options for your army's setup.
Yes, Joe, I realize I can cut the hinges... but I like them. 3M could have saved money on the tape... but they wanted the board to flip out neatly and have the sections stay close together... without large gaps. My son's Feudal board has no hinges... apparently someone cut them.
Alison: No. The first capture ends the move. Your question could also be asked of Queens, Bishops, and Rooks for non-diagonal (orthogonal) captures)... and even Kings. In all cases, the single-capture ends the move.
I agree with Sam that it would be good to archive the rules to Feudal; including the board layout. The 3M Company is still in business (though not the gaming division)and perhaps 3M could grant permission for CV to post them [to keep any copyright issues from surfacing]. In addition to Feudal, 3M had a very original vector-changing / movement-based game called PLOY. It is a futuristic chess variant that can be played by 2 players or 4 players. It would be good to see PLOY documented as well. I'd love to play PLOY on-line.
Sam - thanks for the Ploy information. I checked the link in your last comment and ended up at, 'Tournoy [Download instructions] ... Tournoy is a Zillions-of-Games file. It is categorized as: Two dimensional, Large board, In a category all its own. By Jean-Louis Cazaux.' Tournoy does appear to be very similar to Ploy.
In regard to the pre-set for Gess, I think the White Stones are a bit hard to see. I think, keeping the board as is, that if the white stones were replaced by blue, red or green stones, then the pieces would stand out much better. Greater contrast.
Hi Jeremy: I think the board is good as is. As an opption to changing stone color, if the white pieces had a black outline I think the visual clarity would be greatly enhanced. As you pointed out, certain monitors might provide better images. I noticed that the java applet version uses white and black stones and somewhat of a spinach-green board. The white stones do show up well on that board. But I actually like your board better.
Donald, great to see your comments as I had lost contact with you sometime after losing my fourth game of Conquest to that lady genius. My daughter still loves Conquest (calls it 'The Elephant-Ship Game'). Your new game at www.Grand-Conquest.de with Camels and Seige Engines looks very nice, but that page is in German. Do you have an English page? Best of luck to you ... I miss our e-mail chats. I look forward to hearing more about this new game of yours. Take care, Gary
The Rules for Korean Chess, Draft by Roleigh Martin (c)1994,1995 is the most thorough of Korean Chess Rules I have seen. I quote from them regarding 'Passing.' Rule 7c Unlike Chinese Chess, if you have no other move to make, except to put your King in check or checkmate, you can 'pass.' In other words, your King can stand still, if it stays in safety and there are no other pieces it can move at all (regardless if those other pieces would be captured or not) and if it would otherwise (if a move had to be made) cause the king to move into check or checkmate. Gollon states that one declares his pass by turning his King over, upside down, on the same spot. Link: http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/afi/koreanch.htm In regard to programs that play by correct rules, it is not always the case. I played a Chinese Battle Chess that incorrectly allowed kings to face each other.
I thank Mats for bringing the very important PASS issue into view. It seems 3 different Pass rules have been unearthed. The first 2 of the pass rules are to prevent the King from moving into check: 1) Stewart Culin's - Requires King only piece on board before pass is allowed. 2) Roleigh Martin's - Other pieces allowed on board, but if they can move legally, you still can't pass 3)Other Rule - you can pass anytime Personally, # 2 above, seems the most logical to me.
I used a computer to translate the German text below (from preceding comment), regarding passing being always allowed. Original Text: Im koreanischen Schach gibt es keinen Zugzwang. Sollte es für einen Spieler taktisch ungünstig sein, irgendeinen Stein, insbesondere seinen König, zu bewegen, dreht er ihn einfach um. Dies gilt als Zug, denn alle Figuren sind ja beidseitig beschriftet. Translation: In Korean chess there is no course obligation. If it should be tactically unfavorable for a player, any stone [piece], in particular its king to move it turns it simply [flips it over]. This is considered as course, because all figures are reciprocally marked. ----------------------------------------------------------- Should we play Korean Chess in a tournament, rated game, or even a fun game - it will be good to know which of the 3 passing rules should be implemented.
James Spratt wrote [in the last DragonChess comment] that you can make heat-free rubber molds ...out of simple clear silicon window-caulking (see his complete comment for details). Another method is to use Sculpy which is a registered trademark name for an elastic polymer (like clay) which you can add great detail to exacting shapes. Sculpy comes in various colors and can be bought in stone textures (great if you want pieces to look like stone). After you make a piece (one of each type you need) bake them iin a standard kitchen oven per instructions. Once cooled, the hardened pieces can be pressed into sculpy to make molds. The 2 mold halves must be baked for hardening. Once you have all your molds it is easy to make uniform sets of pieces. You can read a lot about Sculpy on the internet. I have made quite a few things from it myself... some of which people didn't even belive that I made (they appear to be of store quality). Note: you can also paint Sculpy, but I prefer to use the exisiting colors so I can avoid painting.
To get a good mold line-up - do this, assume we are making a pawn mold for this example. 1) Have 2 slabs of soft Sculpy ready (for 2 mold halves). 2) Use some type of post (such as 4 nails) to act as line-up pins (Push these through bottom of mold slab) one at each corner 3) Add talcum powder to lower mold to minimize piece sticking. 4) Push pawn half-way into lower mold 5) put wax-paper around non-piece area of mold 6) add talcum powder to top of piece 7) press top slab down, then remove (you may need to practice with wax-paper and talcum powder)to prevent halves from sticking 8) Remove pawn and wax-paper. Leave the guide posts(nails) in place 9) bake mold halfs (apart) per sculpy instructions the nails and molds will be hot, so allow sufficient cool down. 10) Later: when you use the molds, apply talcum powder (light dusting) to both mold halves; then add the soft sculpy. The alignment nails should give you a good alignment. 11) when you remove the pawn, trim away flash and smooth out the mold-lines so they cannot be seen. 12) After all pawns are made-- heat them per instructions. Note: for large items I put aluminum foil at the center of the piece to a) minimize sculpy use and b) allow a better hardening In regard to photos - I have not taken any. Also note that I have mostly made characters from sculpy, also a dog, elf, strange guys, pumpkins, a cow, ghost.... I do have a box with a partial Sculpy chess set somewhere... perhaps lost in the garage.
Hi James: I will need to give your silicon method a try. Thanks for elaborating on the steps involved. In regard to Sculpy, I prefer not to use molds (i.e., use free-hand modeling) ... but if one wants nearly identical pawns, etc., then molds will save a lot of work and time.
I recently played a game of this and found it to be quite fun and very challenging. It is in the category of Switching Chess and Swap Chess; However, Rooks can only swap places with Bishops (no matter where they are on the board), Queens with Knights, and Kings with Pawns. I'm not sure if a piece pinned to the King (say a Queen) would be allowed to swap places with a Knight. I would hope not... but do not know. Anyway, a very nice game with limited swapping. The fact that Kings cannot swap while in check is an important aspect of the game. Great job, Adrian.
Frank, thanks for taking time to comment. Please note that null moves are not permitted in Odin's Rune Chess and stalemates are not possible. Kings are captured, so what would be a stalemate in Fide chess would be a situation in this game where a King would become exposed to capture and then be captured. Each player has 2 Kings, so if you lose one you are still in the game. Best regards, Gary
Thanks to both Christine and the mystery writer for your comments. For Christine, I did not notice the comment until today - yes, I belive the MSchmahl-cvgameroom-2004-77-566 Fri, Aug 27, 2004 game is very good for anyone interested in seeing a real game of this played out. Glad you enjoyed that game. In regard to the mystery writer's question: it reads like a real mind-twister (brain teaser). So I will try to disect it and take it slow... my comments preceded by ****a nd followed by -gkg. Mystery writer's comments followed by -mw 1) white has 2 kings -mw **** So we know a King went back in time 2) either side travelled backward in time again to when white only has one king. - mw **** Possible for black to do. But, as soon as white does this White will have 2 Kings, the original King plus the King that went back from the 2-King future. This gives us an alternate past with 2-Kings instead of one and will result in a new future - gkg 3)Now, white's 2nd king didn't really land in the new time variant.-mw **** He did, but in an alternate time line which was superceded by the new time line. Think of it as parallel worlds. Better yet, think of it has each time travel going to a different chess board... thus we see alternate past positions and future positions that existed... but, then due to time travel no longer exist.-gkg 4)Then, white wants to travel backward once (if the 2nd time travel was did by him) or twice (if that was did by black). Is that legal?-mw **** Good question. Each King time travel counts as a travel towards his limit. King travels are never erased 'so to speak' by other time travel events. As long as your King has a Time Travel or two remaining, he can travel (assuming the move is legal). I hope this helps. Best regards, Gary
Frank, thanks for the follow up comment. You write, 'My 'stalemate' means any other move is worse than null move. Can you prove that's impossible?' Answer: Moves can be worse than null moves - such as moving your last remaining King into a line of attack (legal in this game) and then losing your last King and the thus game. So, that a move can be worse than a null move is a fact. But, null-moves are illegal in this game, and that (and the fact that Kings are captured) is why we can't see a stalemate in Odin's Rune Chess.
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