Comments by GerdDegens

@ editors: I would like to set my suggestion 'Toggle Chess' to 'Private'. Unfortunately the selection menu 'Edit this Page', 'Edit Metadata for this Page' etc. is missing. Is it possible to restore the selection menu?

I would like my game ideas to be playable on other platforms as well. Is it possible to realize ideas on github/jocly as well? My visits there leave me perplexed and wondering how to get there.
Could someone please tell me what needs to be done?

@H.G.

A quick note: When trying to add the variant to Game Courier, I noticed that the PTA (old/new) did not convert the pawns in the GAME code - see 'set morphers' and 'set morphs assoc'. This was easy to fix, but it seems that the automatic conversion can still be improved.

I have added the Game Courier solution to the description.

Pawns that reach the a- or i-file are promoted as follows:

On the squares
a2, a8, i2, i8 they become a chancellor,
a3, a7, i3, i7 they become an archbishop and on
a4, a6, i4, i6 they become a queen.

If a pawn reaches the squares a1, a9, i1, i9, it becomes an amazon.

The king also promotes on the a- or i-file, maintaining its royal position and royal appearance as follows: from

a1, a9, i1, i9 the king is moving as an amazon, on
a2, a8, i2, i8 as a chancellor, on
a3, a7, i3, i7 as an archbishop and on
a4, a6, i4, i6 as a queen.

On the 5th rank, all pieces take on the function of a pawn, with the rook, knight, bishop, queen, archbishop, chancellor and amazon also mutating into pawns in appearance, while the king retains its function and royal presence.

The rook, knight, bishop and queen pieces are not upgraded during the game; they are downgraded on the 5th rank as described, but can be upgraded as pawns in the manner described above.

A king that has been given the move possibilities of a pawn on the 5th rank retains them for the rest of the game.

I am not sure what you mean here. A 'transfer' is something you do, so how can it be 'missing'?

Of course, it is me who transfers the script from the piece table to the preset to create a custom piece set. But the point is that it doesn't work - at least not for me. I still get the error message 'Your Custom Set description failed to decode properly. Make sure it has no errors in it.'

The piece table and the automatically generated piece description for presenting the variant is a nice feature. A very useful tool for a quick approach. In my opinion, however, move diagrams provide a more rapid overview, both for the description of the variation and for the presentation of the rules in Game Courier. After all, you want to play a variant in Game Courier and that's where move diagrams pay off in my opinion. Perhaps also a matter of taste.

The solution to the highlighting problem in the preset is also great.

If I see it correctly, the correct transfer of the piece table when creating a custom piece set in the preset is still missing. Or have I overlooked something. Anyway, I am grateful  for your doing.

I don't understand anything at the moment.

HTML according to 'custom sets (only needed for non-standard piece set)' which shows the old PTA under GAME code okay. But what does this HTML sequence have to do with the Pieces section of my description of the variant? Does it fit together? When I enter the HTML sequence in the pieces section and save it, the output only shows the HTML sequence.

I must have misunderstood this completely, right?

When a Diagram is pasted in the (old) PTA, and you generate GAME code from it, piece types that are not on the board won't be mentioned in the custom set that is generated.

If I see it correctly, this seems to be the case. Here is an excerpt of the generated code, which concerns the part of the pieces that are not on the board (royal pieces - markings in the text are mine):

<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal pawn</td><td>slides orthogonally, slides to the 2nd square straight ahead for capturing only, or steps one square straight ahead</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal amazon</td><td>slides in all 8 directions, slides in all 8 directions, or makes a knight's jump</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal chancellor</td><td>steps one square in all 8 directions, castles by stepping 2 squares towards the king (fast castle), makes a knight's jump, or slides orthogonally</td></tr>
<tr><td width="35"><img src="/graphics.dir/alfaeriePNG/wking.png"></td><td>royal archbishop</td><td>steps one square in all 8 directions, castles by stepping 6 squares towards the king (fast castle), makes a knight's jump, or slides diagonally</td></tr>

The suggested lines [set wroyal (K J L M O);
set broyal (k j l m o);] I have tried several times before - and just now again. The following happens: as soon as a white piece is clicked, the game stops immediately and the message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' appears.

It appears I have now solved this.

I have just tested this with the following result:
When the king enters the morph zone, the previous error message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' no longer appears. Instead, the king is shown in the table of captured pieces, which was the case before. The game can be continued, whereby the new king appears to be recognized as such and the king also receives the upgraded or downgraded move options. The only strange thing is that whenever the new king comes into check, this is not shown as a 'check'. The move options displayed for the new king also include those that put him back in check, which should not actually happen. If he makes such a move, an error message 'GameEnd This exposes your royal piece to capture' appears. Moves that free the king from check are possible.

Did you move the King to a5 through an illegal move? 

Yes, I did. To test it, I moved the king from e1 to a5. I understood that it can't work like that.

As should be expected, as otherwise only the last piece in the table is royal.

You are certainly right, in the piece table only the king is marked as the last in the table with 'c00'.

I just wonder how it can be that the game ends with 'I win' when a king on a5 is captured with a move from a9. Consequently, the king on a5 must have been recognized as royal. The same applies to any other square in the morph zone.
 

@H.G.

Select a Set Group 'Custom', and then a Set 'Completely Custom' in the preset Edit page, and paste the text the PTA suggests for this section.

I have tried it, both with the old PTA (.../MSplay-test-applet-for-chess-variants) and with the new PTA (.../playtest.html). 

The result is the same in both cases and the error message appears 'Your Custom Set description failed to decode properly. Make sure it has no errors in it'. 

A very nice feature and would help a lot.

So the I.D. doesn't understand these morphed Kings are royal, and as a consequence also has not passed that info to the GAME code.

That seems to be the case, because the I.D. works as intended. I.e. the morphed kings are recognized, they get new moves (pawn, archbishop, chancellor, amazon) and the game is over when they are captured. So in the I.D. everything works as expected.
 

The suggested lines [set wroyal (K J L M O);
set broyal (k j l m o);] I have tried several times before - and just now again. The following happens: as soon as a white piece is clicked, the game stops immediately and the message 'White lost by absence of royalty!' appears.

The matter with the custom set is new to me - I'll have a look at it. Many thanks in the meantime.

@H.G.

I have been trying for days to transfer a working interactive diagram to Game Courier - without success.
I have transferred the HTML code of the interactive diagram to the PTA via editor (including the IDs of the royal pieces) and then transferred the GAME code to the preset for Game Courier. It does not work. (Interactive diagram see here, preset see here.)

Another problem I see is that the piece labels/IDs used in the PTA are only partially compatible with the piece labels/IDs in the Diagram Designer for Game Courier. For some pieces this can be adjusted (archbishop, chancellor, amazon). But the royal pieces needed for my idea can apparently not be realized with the options of the Diagram Designer (each piece has a unique label). At least that is what I know. Can't get any further without help.

Apparently I was able to get the PTA running. The upgrade of the pawns does not seem to work with the GAME code. I had to make some adjustments here, i.e. I added the missing IDs for the pawn to the 'set morphers' (P p ...........). For 'set morphs assoc' I added the missing P (0 0 0 0 (P P A C Z C A P P)) and p (0 0 0 0 (p p a c z c a p p)).

Furthermore, when converting the HTML code into the GAME code, the upgrading or downgrading of the king does not work, which works with the PTA. The royal figure is not accessed, but the non-royal figure appears with the result of 'White lost by absence of royalty!

Click here for the PTA and here for the preset.

Sorry if I'm making work, but maybe it's not just me.

This works very well with the newer version of the PTA when converted to Game Courier. Many thanks for that.

To make it work as you described, you should define a royal and a non-royal version of each piece type, and let the King morph to the royal types.

That sounds very plausible - but how should I do that? I'm currently at a loss, so please give me a brief explanation. Thank you.

@H.G.

Could you please take a look at my new idea, which you can find here.
I was able to implement it for the PTA, but I'm stuck with the preset for Game Courier.
I would be glad for help.

Thank you very much. Could you take another look at the game where I changed the moves for the knight and bishop again.

AI now seems to be selectively accessing opportunities when it comes to promotions. Can you live with that?

Click here for the preset.

First of all, thank you for the help. I hope I implemented it correctly; it works in Game Courier - with one exception: the first pawn (white and no matter which one) is not converted and appears as a white pawn on the baseline. All other pawns (white/black) are transformed correctly. Below is the GAME code.

A note about the game: rook, bishop and queen now each have 16 unblockable targets, which equalizes the playing strengths. Which choice the AI makes is one side, players in Game Courier can decide differently. Maybe that will level it out a little.
______________________________

include /membergraphics/MSgame-code-generation/betza.txt;

set legdefs
(0
1  1  0 -2     1 // pawn(1)
0
1  1  0  2     1 // pawn(7)
0
1  2  1  2     3 // knight(13)
1  2  2  1     3
1  2  2 -1     3
1  2  1 -2     3
1  2 -1 -2     3
1  2 -2 -1     3
1  2 -2  1     3
1  2 -1  2     3
0
1  1  1  1     3 // bishop(54)
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  1     3
1  1  2  2     3
1  1  2 -2     3
1  1 -2 -2     3
1  1 -2  2     3
1  1  3  3     3
1  1  3 -3     3
1  1 -3 -3     3
1  1 -3  3     3
1  1  4  4     3
1  1  4 -4     3
1  1 -4 -4     3
1  1 -4  4     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // rook(135)
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1  0  2     3
1  1  2  0     3
1  1  0 -2     3
1  1 -2  0     3
1  1  0  3     3
1  1  3  0     3
1  1  0 -3     3
1  1 -3  0     3
1  1  0  4     3
1  1  4  0     3
1  1  0 -4     3
1  1 -4  0     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // queen(216)
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1  1  1     3
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  1     3
1  1  0  2     3
1  1  2  0     3
1  1  0 -2     3
1  1 -2  0     3
1  1  2  2     3
1  1  2 -2     3
1  1 -2 -2     3
1  1 -2  2     3
0
1  1  0  1     3 // king(297)
1  1  1  1     3
1  1  1  0     3
1  1  1 -1     3
1  1  0 -1     3
1  1 -1 -1     3
1  1 -1  0     3
1  1 -1  1     3
0);

def P cond #0 1 0;
def p cond #0 7 0;
def N cond #0 13 0;
def n cond #0 13 0;
def B cond #0 54 0;
def b cond #0 54 0;
def R cond #0 135 0;
def r cond #0 135 0;
def Q cond #0 216 0;
def q cond #0 216 0;
def K cond #0 297 0;
def k cond #0 297 0;

set staledraw 0;  // stalemate is a win
set extinction 1; // must capture all royals to win
set baring 1;     // bare king loses
set promotables (P p); // pieces that can promote
set supply (N n B b R r Q q); // in infinite supply
set promotab (         // allowed choices per rank
  (N B R Q)
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  0
  (n b r q)
);

...also because I don't know what exactly you want.

The idea is to let the player decide which additional pieces (NBRQ) they want to play with. I would like to do this using a row of pawns that move against the usual direction of movement to their own base line and promote there.

This works in PTA, but not yet in GC. I inserted the morph as described (it worked), and inserted the script back into the PTA as a finished diagram using an editor. Unfortunately the morph does not appear in the HTML - nor in the GAME code. I also wouldn't know where and how to insert the morph into the GAME code.

For the idea see here.

@ H.G.

How do you manage to define your own baseline as the promotion zone? In the PTA it works if the promotion zone is set to 9, for example - I tried it.

On this basis, the PTA leads to a GAME code that apparently does not work in Game Courier, i.e. the own baseline is not recognized as the promotion zone.
How to do this, do you have any advice? Or is this a question for Fergus? Thanks.

...then the Diagram should work

It doesn't either

The interactive diagram does not really want to work.

I had already seen the terms, but not yet with the attribute 'lame'. They are certainly common, but not very self-speaking; I thought I was doing something to improve understanding with my terms. But perhaps we shouldn't want to change the tried and tested.

How do you come to that conclusion if you've never played the game?

Queens without the conquer rule has been played many times on Game Courier and has always come to checkmate or one side has resigned. Queens with the conquer rule will be no different.

As I explained in the page, the interactive diagram is only partially compatible with the conquer rule, the AI breaks off after a number of moves due to repetitions. Perhaps the problem can be solved at some point. Then it will be possible to simulate the game throughout.

Are you sure that your game 'SPQR' will come to an end with 72 pieces? That looks more like an endless game to me.

The site is ready for review.

(Which can go on forever, and then crashes the program.)

That's it; whenever I try to apply the conquer mechanism to other variants, the programme aborts after a few moves and the possibility of testing the variant is lost.

...unless the rules really are such that repeats are forbidden.

This is exactly the case with the conquer rule - repeats are forbidden.  That's precisely the crucial question of how this can be implemented in the programme. If I understand or interpret you correctly, this seems to be impossible or only possible with disproportionate effort and you don't really want to deal with it.

As for the conquer problem; I believe I solved that by not considering a move that came from the same square as two ply earlier a recapture that should always be searched, but rather as a draw indication. But code for that seems no longer to be there either.

@H.G.
It's a pity that the code is no longer available. On the other hand, such perpetual recaptures occur more frequently and earlier in the conquer rule, so that a draw decision would come too early. 

Wouldn't it be better if, instead of a draw announcement, a move that was already made two moves earlier was treated as no longer executable? If nothing other than a repetition is possible, this would mean a draw. Otherwise the game could continue normally without perpetual recapture.

Well, you can wish for something without knowing what effort is involved. I apologise for that. And you can certainly argue about whether the conquer rule is an enrichment. In any case, it leads to differentiated strategic considerations and that is at least something.

That's why I'd like to ask you whether you'd like to deal with this topic again? It would certainly enrich the diagram script. :)

The site is ready for review.

Hello dear Kevin,
Thank you for your detailed response.
It's not about criticizing. But authors would like to keep going - and unfortunately they are constantly being held back. I don't find that very conducive.

@Lev und also Kevin:
How do you actually do that? You publish a series of suggestions. Do you have an unlimited number of them? 
I'm crawling here with 6 of them, waiting for an editor to release one of my suggestions so that I can add more variants to the queue for publication.
It's kind of frustrating!

As far as I know, at least H.G. is not an editor.

Since there are several editors and everyone seems to have their own queue, I would like to suggest creating a standardized queue that is processed by the editors. This makes sense in order to equalize differences. The uniform queue could then also be viewed by the inventors and provide an overview of when a publication is due.

I can only conclude that there are serious differences between the submission of proposals and their publication.

Edit: The 'Man and Beast 09' has already been released! Kind of weird.

I wouldn't worry too much about delays in this area. The editors have a lot on their plates. I have four variants and a five-part Icon Clearinghouse that have been ready for a while now, waiting for either publication or review. At least one or two have been waiting for more than a month.

I'm a bit confused. The 'Man and Beast 07/08' variants have just been presented and have already been published. Good for the author. But not so nice for the queue. Some adjustments could be made here.

@ Editors

Could you please publish my variants 'Conquer II' and 'Corossfire'.

If something is missing please let me know.

As I have not received a response, I would like to follow up again and ask about the current status. Do my suggestions have any disadvantages compared to other publications or open ends? I would be happy to help.

That sounds promising. If something has gone missing, it doesn't mean that it can no longer be found. Perhaps you can shed some light on the black box. It would certainly help others, not just me.

Perhaps one more note:
The playability of Conquer does not depend on the AI, which reaches its limits in terms of programming, but on how players deal with perpetual recaptures, if they still occur in Conquer II. The games on GC have not shown any problems so far.

In this respect, it would be nice if there were an interactive diagram for Conquer II. This would show whether the AI copes better with this version.

There's another caveat as well - the function's current form doesn't work very well with the AI. As soon as the AI gets to around 6 moves it just stops functioning.

H.G. has created an Interactive Diagram for the basic version 'Conquer the opponent's army'. For this diagram it is known that the AI cannot handle perpetual recaptures because there is no counter for such recaptures in the diagram.

With 'Conquer II' I tried to minimize the perpetual recaptures by changing the pawn move. As far as I know, there is no interactive diagram for Conquer II. It is possible that even such a diagram will reach its limits at some point, as perpetual recaptures cannot be excluded. However, this only happens if the AI is playing against itself. With a little human skill, constant repetitions can be avoided.

It is very much possible. You just don't know how to do so (see this page for details). The Conquer II Pawn can be described as fWncD or fWfafcW.

Thanks for the tip, I am familiar with the page. It is also clear that the u modifier must be used here. The problem is that the captured piece should take on the colour of the capturing party and, according to H.G., this is not possible without additional programming. That's my hurdle. The Betza notation for the pawn is not the problem.

Can anyone tell me how to update the 'Whats New Text' in the 'Index Information'? It seems that the old text cannot be changed even though the new text is included in the text line. Or can only an editor change this?