Comments by catugo

I have feared them being game breaking. Otherwise said, it feels like having a random effect.

Done!

I have pasted that at the end of the pregame section.

I have done it and it seems to be working fine!

Did not knew that! Still in the evening, but thanks!

Oh, that seems a lot of work. But I'll do it in the evening!

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Megalomachy&settings=default

Now I get this:

Please report any bugs or errors to H.G. Muller

I probably mismatched something.

But neither &showcode=true (I got this from the developer guide) or &edit=true work

I get this error:

Cannot make a diagram with 0 pieces on an 8x8 board!

I don't think it works. I keep getting orthodox chess. Can it be that the description is too long. I have tried an Grand Apothecary game it it works fine. This is how I know I have followed the proper steps.

Thank for refreshing my memory, HG!

I did not figured out what to copy and paste into the wizard. On my variants I start with this line:

script type="text/javascript" src="../membergraphics/MSinteractive-diagrams/betza.js?nocache=true"

as far as I remember.

But a similar line seems to end the Megalomachy diagram.

I'll do it today!

Forget about running the games on ChessV even without the Joker. ChessV does not do riders bent after the second step either. It seems y it is not supported.

This Thread is about games that contain the joker(imitator, jester, fool) piece. The joker piece is here a piece that does not have a move of it's own but borrows the last move of the opponent. It has no other abilities (unlike the one in omega chess), not even double pawn move, en passant or promotion, ability to castle etc. .

The main problem I am facing is that with increased number of piece types (which comes naturally on larger boards) it becomes increasingly powerful. I fear it becomes game breaking. I'm stuck in designing my new games as this piece is also difficult to program (more on this later). Each of the games I am designing has a heavy cavalry piece pair and a light cavalry piece (leapers- their exact abilities are not important now), a bishop pair, a rook pair, a war wagon (as I have renamed the well known falcon), a bent rider, a leaper+slider compound, a queen and of course the royal king. What I have observed by playing against the interactive diagram is that after some pawns and minors are exchanged the joker finds rather easily a central or near central position where it seems almighty. True that the opponent has a joker, too, but it is quite often when one joker paralyzes more pieces than the other. So to me it seems that the joker inserts in the game more a random thing than a good strategy reward. I have to mention that in orthodox chess I have a 1500 rating after the recent increase. Probably stronger players will feel differently. I though of having instead of one all imitating joker to have one that has it's power updated when the enemy moves a light piece and one that has it's power updated when the opponent moves a heavy piece. But this makes a game that already has a steep learning curve into something with an even greater learning curve. I'm writing this in hope for new opinions about including joker in increasingly large games.

On the programming side of things, games that have jokers are more difficult to program. And not because it's move power is difficult to program. I was able to go myself as far, but not further. It is a piece extremely difficult to evaluate. It has been proposed here to aproximate the piece value with the average strength of the enemy pieces. But this does not do it justice. The number of enemy piece types should play a role especially in games where there are many types of piece types like in those I'm designing as mentioned above (riders, leapers, pathers, leapers+riders, bent riders etc.). Moreover chessV does not accept a joker imitating a war wagon (falcon). Some I'm stock only with the interactive diagram which is a poorer AI. I know HG works on something cooler in C++ if I'm not mistaking but this could take many months maybe years.

More I'm thinking of a 10x10 CWDA with jokers. But imitating an opponent's move does not seem like CWDA to me. So I'd go for a transferrer that trasfers the move of a fibnif to a waffle for example. All of these are reasons for why I'm contemplating to take out the joker and replace it with a more normal piece.

But I have reserves to doing that also. First as I have said above I am a merely 1500 chess player. What if introducing the joker is brilliant but I just can't see it. What I find random it is actually strategic for a better player. A NNUE program for example. Also the joker is fun and it offers many tactical possibilities.

For now the best course of action seems to me to make simulations with ChessV without a joker, say jokerless varaints of the variant. That to find out the real piece values when the joker is not involved. An then when HG's more sofisticated program becomes available, try to look at games with joker (never jokers, as many jokers also make each joker more powerful) and see if having a joker makes the games more strategic and tactical, or it makes the game feel more random.

I don't know why the Picture does not work! It works for me!

I though at warlock for ZW because it is related to the wizard CF.

Cool!

Hello HG, A few weeks ago I noticed you contemplated writing a C++ code for the AI of the interactive diagram. Anything from this contemplation?

Here is the latest installer version: http://www.chessv.org/. But there are some much newer versions. I'll search tomorrow!

And by the way, has anyone news on Greg?

Once, when writing code for CwDA, Greg Strong has asked the community for an alternative named to fibnif, as he did not like it. I have proposed lancer and donkey while favoriting lancer. He has chosen lancer for chessV2!

Nasty little Bob, I see what you've done there!

I think HG, does not refer to games that fit a "collection" of sort, but when an author promotes most of his article that, way. For example my just published games inspired by Kevin could find a their place in such a collection and therefore link to each other. But I mention nothing about my apothecary games there. That would make no sense. This is the position I'm taking and I am against the practice mentioned by HG! And I'd really like this clarified as most of my games are coming in collections!

Kevin,

You have probably did not noticed my games, I have mentioned earlier!

Hello Lev,

You cannot put more interactive diagrams on one page. That makes making more pages necessary!

To me the diagram appears bellow still.

Ok, Fergus! I'll do it later today!

Actually, many of us here like math. If I remember correctly Fergus has a PhD in logic. I have a PhD in applied mathematics. And HG has just been invited to participate in the Physics Nobel prize decertation ceremony, I'm sure he is quite good, and that, leaving aside his programming skills. Here, we are maybe 100 people dealing with thousands of chess variants, many of them very good. There is so much we can play. To be honest I had not read well your article. It is a difficult Idea to grasp at a glance. I have published weird games too, and I have had even crazier ones. There are 8 people here who have favorited my two main games. And that is a lot here. So I'm not sure what your expectations are. But while you are here, as I see you have a Romanian name and I think you can help me a bit. I can't access these two sites: http://jocly.com/ https://talkchess.com/ I was told by a friend that probably they are not accessible from Romania. May you check if you can access them? Maybe I have a problem.

I have replaced six with P and it worked. What I am baffled by is that 0 is working too. It seems to me that the promochoice is actually numbered from 0 to 5.

I have replaced this:

  pawn:P:mfWfceFimfnnD:Pawn:a3-j3,,a8-j8
  value=95
  morph=2/1/0/././././././.

with that:

  intialpawn:I:mfWfceFmfnnD:Pawn:a3-j3,,a8-j8
  value=95
  morph=6/6/6/6/6/6/6/././.
  pawn:P:mfWfceF:Pawn:
  value=95
  morph=2/1/0/././././././.

I think the AI has trouble putting together pawns structures or something.

But it seems this thing makes the AI really slow. It probably does not worth it. I expected slower, but not that much.

Oh, I have discovered another feature given by the usage of morph rather than i for games that include an imitator. The imitator does not get the initial double move in the morph way. This is how I want them. This is a really, really small issue but it helps!

Ok, thanks!

Is N normalized to 1 pawns?

Oh, I have forgotten about that! Thanks!

This solution has a small inconvenience. I named spearman the mfWmfeFmfnnD starting on rank 2 and footman the mfWmfeF after having left rank 2. The AI is inclined to not promote to a "weaker" piece, but the general idea is that pawns need to be pushed. This is just a small inconvenience. I'm just saying the solution is not perfect. But this is to much to handle for such a general program.

I don't understand what you guys are talking about! But I think I would if I 'd would!

No, it can move laterally and keep the ability to move twice ahead!

@ Jean-Louis,

It is just that the D move should work only from rank 2. The rest is indeed what I am searching for.

I need a piece that moves like the mfsWcfF. But if and only if on rank 2 it can move twice ahead if not blocked (like an orthodox pawn). The ii modifier does not apply here as there are other pieces on the rank. I have tried morph, and I think I can get it to work, but this has the inconvinience of naming the piece differently after it has moved from the second rank. Is there a better solution? Maybe an offset promotion?

I'm using Utrecht. That does it!

Is it possible to use different colours for the black pieces?

@ any editor It seems no editor has caught this thread ! Please any of you take a look!

Well, so the NC doesn't mate, unless very particular situations. The falcon probably even less. That was what I was going for! Thanks!

Oh! My bad!