Comments by graeme
It might be quite interesting to design a hexagonal intersection-based equivalent applying Rule 50 - though I think the hexagons would need to be divided into triangles by joining opposite corners, thus giving 6 directions from each intersection.
I must admit that checkers had not been in my thoughts when considering chess-type games and you may be right about the weird outcome. Again though, I think it would be interesting to attempt the design applying Rule 50.
Thanks for your interest and for taking the time to examine the figures.
I've rechecked the figures and they look OK - though I might still have missed something.
I think the problem might be in the way I've calculated the 10% and 20% ranges, where the percentage amounts were rounded to the next higher integer and then added/subtracted to/from the match-target. I've extended the table to show the ranges.
I usually use 3 different methods of assessing piece values and then take an average. Here though I must admit to merely rounding the values calculated by Zillions of Games.
Rules file updated to improve play. Thanks to M. Winther whose method of tweaking the piece values was adapted.
Also a new piece-set has been added using images based on graphics by Fergus Duniho.
Mats, thanks for the improvement suggestion - I've added the 'move-priorities' directive, updated the version to 2.1, and revised the zip file. Thanks again
--
Graeme
Thanks for the comments. On reflection I think your interpretation of 'forward' is closer to the spirit of XiangQi than mine. You are also right about the ability of the rook to cross the river.
As with pawn-movment I think I may have over-complicated matters and made 'crossing the river' too restrictive. I'll be making modifications to this variant shortly so as to include both the one-way only meaning of 'forward' and a less restrictive river crossing.
-- Graeme
Rules file updated to version 3.0.
This now includes the new default Star Palace variant.
Thanks for your comment, David. I had my own younger son partly in mind when designing this game. He graduated last year with a degree in Biological Sciences and has always been crazy about Penguins.
I'd be really interested in seeing your playing board in action.
---
Graeme
The literal translation would be staircase chess, but like the phrase on which it is patterned esprit de l'escalier the literal translation does not convey the full meaning of the phrase.
A more apt translation might be 'Should really have been thought of before Chess'
I've been following the development of Fortress Chess with great interest and eagerly await it being played. It seems to me that this variant is actually going someway to bridging the divide between Chess and Wargaming.
Wargaming rules usually include elements governing missiles, movement, melee, morale and command. Fortress Chess can at a stretch be said to incorporate 4 of these: command through its hierarchy of leader pieces; movement through its short-, mid-, and long-range pieces which can be seen as cognates for (ancient)wargaming's troop types of infantry/cavalry with light/medium/heavy armour; melee through the usual replacement capture; amd morale by the ladder of promotion with pieces getting stronger as they achieve success in battle.
In fact I think Fortress Chess may well mark the start of a new gaming genre - not merely another Big-board CV, but the first example of 'Warfare-Chess'.
I'm looking forward to future developments
Hi Joe - Warchess is already taken I think! ;O)
What about Chessgaming?
I am wondering how far Chess can be pushed towards Wargaming without losing the essential Chess features you list. The wargaming areas where Fortress seems a bit light are melee and missiles. I'm currently exploring the possibility in my own designs of replacing the chess 'replacement capture' with a Diplomacy like melee phase where captures result from non-random assessment of a pieces attack/support. Such a system would also enable the introduction of missile pieces that can attack/support from a distance (possibly needing a screen as with the Cannon?).
As for the initial set-up I think mimicking a traditional ancient wargame battle array with a line of skirmishers backed by central infantry and cavalry wings might be worth exploring. And maybe a central fortress?
Another, as yet totally undeveloped idea, is the introduction of 'terrain' via offboard multi-cell static pieces dropped prior to the first proper movement phase.
And I just couldn't resist the invite - even though I'm a pretty poor chess player and an even worse ancient wargamer.
Scrabblization is surely the fate of any game that is deterministic with the players having complete information - given that it is played and studied long enough and widely enough.
If so, and if it is a problem, the only long-term solutions are to either restrict player information or remove the determinism. But is the game we are left with still chess?
I agree, at least in part. Removing either or both is probably necessary to prevent Scrabblization, but may not be sufficient.
I would guess, though, that their removal would prove sufficient as I suspect the causes of Scrabble's Scrabblization are not to be found in Chess.
...The donkey *is* actually stronger than a knight, and therefore the name is proper, I think...
Sorry for being slightly off-topic, and I may be missing the point entirely (I often do), but I fail to see why the term donkey would be suitable for a piece stronger than a knight. The term carries overtones of stupidity, and the actual animal is surely weaker than a knight's war-horse?
From an ancient warfare standpoint a better name might be Cataphract; or from a modern military standpoint perhaps Tank?
I grant you that the donkey may have certain strengths when compared to a horse: sure-footedness; endurance; intelligence; but not swiftness. However, I find it impossible to imagine a donkey being capable of standing, let alone moving, if asked to carry a fully armoured knight weighing 200 pounds or more.
Even the horse was unequal to the task, leading to the breeding of the great horse or destrier for use by knights in battle or tourney.
Have you applied 'Rule 50' to any of the shogis or western large-board variants yet?
Not yet. I have, however, applied it to XiangQi. See TriMac HexChess
Might I suggest the following system for classifying the size of a variant?
Min Cells | Max Cells | Size Category | Description |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 9 | 0 | tiny |
10 | 19 | 1 | very small |
20 | 39 | 2 | small |
40 | 79 | 3 | standard |
80 | 159 | 4 | large |
160 | 319 | 5 | very large |
320 | 639 | 6 | super large |
640 | 1279 | 7 | huge |
1280 | 2559 | 8 | extra huge |
2560 | 5119 | 9 | super huge |
5120 | 10239 | 10 | enormous |
10240 | 20479 | 11 | extra enormous |
20480 | 40959 | 12 | super enormous |
Where the upper limits are based on the simple formula
(10 x 2(size category)) -1
This system can only be applied to 2D square games.
You are quite correct, this formula applies only to 2D-square boards. I have tried to generalize it here
I would argue that an 8x8 in 2D is also a small board, ...
A result of this suggested classifcation is an assignment of an objective size-category or size-index number. The descriptions, on the other hand are subjective. Thus an 8x8-2d-squared-cell board is classified as a category-3 sized board - whether you want to describe category-3 boards as small, standard, or maybe even glè mhòr1 is entirely a matter of persional preference.
1. very big
I agree - it certainly looks very interesting. I must admit though that it took me some time to understand the bishop moves. I finally resorted to recasting the board using hexes (see here) before realizing that the bishops were moving through the edges of the prisms.
'The only thing I don't like about it is the Elephant. It probably would be better to have the Alibaba instead. (So that the Courier can be a combination of the Guard and the Alibaba as well.)'
Absolutely agree with you, the Elephant had been nagging at me as being slightly out of kilter - extending it to an Alibaba seems so obvious. Thanks, as always, for your comments and insight.
And 'no', the rule is that a Pawn's initial move may be 1,2 or 3 steps, thereafter it is restricted to just the 1 step.
The Camel+Bishop confluence puts me in mind of the Biblical Wise Men, which leads me to suggest Magi as a possible name for this piece.
'Mage - Since Magi is plural, it doesn't seem quite appropriate. But I like the name Mage quite a bit.'
My mistake - of course the name should be singular - and I also like Mage a fair bit, certinly preferring it to the other possible singular of Magus. The soft 'g' sounds so much better.
Please, please, please try to avoid the use of judgemental terms such as better or inferior. Descriptive terms such as sedate or aggressive are objective and helpful, but to equate sedate with worse, or aggressive with better is purely subjective and unhelpful.
Again let me ask for the avoidance of judgemental terms. I am happy for variant A to be described as 'more drawish' than variant B, but feel that the jump from such a statement to the judgement 'variant A is inferior to variant B' is unsupported. The most that can be said is that 'variant B is to be preferred to variant A if you dislike drawn games'
My apologies, I should learn not to post during a sleepless night. I reacted (over-reacted?) to your statement 'Should one really waste energy studying an inferior variant?', without paying due attention to the context.
While finding the calculation of RPVs a fascinating theoretical challenge, from a practical, playing, perspective the RPV or quantative piece value is only part of the story. In play the qualative value of a piece has also to be considered. This being so it might be said that assigning RPVs to accuracies beyond 0.5 is spurious. It is enough to know that a Rook in FIDE chess is worth 'about 5 pawns'.
I'd like to suggest a multiple-board theme, either a set number (2,3,4 etc.) or perhaps just any number more than 1.
I also opt for a voting method of judging, that way no-one need be excluded from entering. I would suggest each entrant should pick 3 games ordered 1st,2nd,3rd - 1st gets 3 points, 2nd 2, 3rd 1.
Additional theme suggestions:
- incomplete knowledge
- no FIDE pieces (including King)
- winning condition other than mate
I also support Abdul-Rahman Sibahi's suggestion of having a confined King (or other Royal piece)
Might I alsso suggest a contest with more than one theme? Say have 3 themes e.g. one Piece based (no FIDE pieces say), another special Criteria/Rule based (restricted King, say), and the third Conceptual (sci-fi/fantasy)
Each contestant could then enter any or all themes with the same or different games and have a vote in each theme entered. The theme winners would then be voted on by all contestants other than the theme winners to decide the overall winner.
I'll try...
Suppose the contest has three themes - call them t1 t2 and t3. Each contestant may enter a game in each theme. This could be a different game for each theme (contestant designs 3 games) or a single game thst meets the conditions of all 3 themes (contestant designs 1 game that is entered into t1 t2 and t3) - or somewhere in between (designs 2 games, one for entry in t1 and t2, the other for t3). Of course a contestant does not have to enter all 3 themes - they may just design 1 game for entry in a single theme (t2 say).
Within each theme those contestants entered in that theme will vote for a theme winner (see my other comment on a suggested voting system). Of course you may NOT vote for your own design.
The theme winners will then participate in a second vote by all the contestants apart from those winning the theme, to determine an overall contest winner
3 more suggestions:
- Simultaneous moves
- Incorporate non-chess gaming element(s) - e.g. dice, cards, quiz questions, gaming chips
- Boundless boards e.g. Circular, Toroidal, Spherical
I take it that, in line with previous n-square design contests, the term square is to be interpreted as meaning cell, and is not meant to exclude, for example, hex, trig or multi-dimension based boards?
Joe, the piece values were derived using my PERK method. This is still being developed and I have not checked the calcs thoroughly yet, hence the term guesstimate.
I think the downgrading of the Bishop is due, as you said, to it being colour-bound.
As for the Tower, in comparison with the Queen it suffers on 2 counts:
- It attacks in only 6 directions (Queen attacks in 12)
- It moves more 'slowly', taking 15 steps to cross the board (Both Spire and Bishop take only 7 steps)
Joe, I've had a quick look at my calcs again -
- Q = 11.508
- T = 10.297
Cheers Graeme
Jeremy, previous contests seem to have had about a 5-month submission period. As this is a 'pre-contest' contest I would suggest a 3-month period - a deadline of 30-November.
This should give sufficient time for the 'contest' contest details to be decided, which could then have a 5-month submission period running from 01-Dec to 30-April
Jeremy, I've added a section called Child Pages to the side-bar. Hopefully this will help a little with the navigation.
'...:The most successful chess variants were invented by people who did not care if they would become rich or famous with their variant;...'
Sam, much as I would like this CV-Catch-22 to be true, I'm afraid we have no proof that it is. The fact of our present ignorance is no guide to the motives of the inventors of the past. We cannot even be sure that they were not rich and well-known in their day since wealth and fame are at best fickle and fleeting friends.
Cheeers
Graeme
Perhaps the best games aren't invented; maybe they just evolve.
Always happy to see a new hex variant. Would it infringe any patents if I produced a zrf for this?
BTW here's a not-quite-so-ugly graphic:
I'd always thought the main idea behind the pawn positioning was to have them start the game equi-distant from a promotion hex.
Now all we need is some entries. I'm happy looking after the cross-referencing and navigation if people just want to add items/pages; or if anyone prefers they can send the info to me for inclusion in the Wiki.
Cheers
Graeme
Hi James, glad you liked the board. Not sure if you had a look at the links under 'child pages', but you might be interested in Features of a trigonal board and Fide pieces for trigonal boards
There's also my trigonal version of FIDE chess Delta88 Chess
Cheers
Graeme
edit: I've used snowflakes before - see Antarctic Chess (for 2 to 7 players)
Abdul-Rahman, I have uploaded the now 2 empty boards to the graphics directory for this page.
Board1
Board2
The piece icons are also there.
The three Gyro's on a given side cover 35 trigs, the missing 11 trigs are those covered by the opponent's central Gyro.
Thank you all for taking the time to examine and comment on Penturanga.
Charles, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'despite the presentation', but I admit it to be somewhat sparse. In order to meet the competition deadline I published the basic description without a supporting Notes section. I hope to add this and publish a zrf shortly.
Also , while I agree with you that that the board is topologically equivalent to the hex-board you describe, this does not mean the pentagons are anything else other than pentagons - the number of surrounding cells is irrelevant as can be seen by the usual square board where each cell is surrounded by 8 others. Topological equivalence also does not lead to equivalence in game-mechanics. In short it is my opinion that Penturanga is indeed truly pentagonal.
Gary, the piece graphics were derived from a Chinese set published on this site. Full accreditation will be given in the Notes.
'Topological equivalence also does not lead to equivalence in game-mechanics.'
Create a piece whose move is defined as:
a series of steps away from the starting cell exiting each cell via a short side.
Such a piece can be moved on the Penturanga board but not on the topologically equivalent hex-board.
'...the fact remains that Penturanga is just a funny-looking hexagonal chess variant.'
I'm afraid that is not a fact, it is, like mine, just an opinion - so may we just agree to differ?
Cheers
Graeme
Your example piece is a red herring.
My example piece may well be called a herring, red or otherwise, but it illustrates that topological equivalence, though necessary, is not sufficient for game equivalence. That having been said, I agree that for the pieces actually used in Penturanga there is game equivalence between the pentagonal and the hexagonal boards.
... but this is a mathematical problem with a definitive answer.
Exactly! A square has 4 sides, a hexagon has 6 sides, a triangle 3 sides, and a pentagon 5 sides. A board with 6-sided cells is termed hexagonal, so surely it is correct to term a board with 5-sided cells pentagonal?
Cheers
Graeme
I have never been a fan of the drop, feeling it to be an alien addition to the mechanics of chess. Promotion on the other hand is not, being a well established chess mechanism.
I therefore suggest using promotion as a better means of introducing the RN and BN. Thus, for example the Rook could promote to RN on making a capture, and the Bishop likewise but to BN. The idea could be extended further allowing the Knight to promote to, say, a Nightrider.
Using promotion also goes someway towards relieving the piece-density and power increases associated with dropping; more so if the number of each of the new pieces is restricted to one.
1. Tell me where you can acquire the pieces to do this? Saying, 'Well we
can make our own' isn't something someone you introduce the game to, will
actually do
The future of chess, I suspect, is on computers and the internet within the virtual cyber-realms created by software. Any initial lack of physical pieces should not hinder the popularity of a variant.
2. If people thing adding two pieces between queen and rook level is too
powerful, how is having a rook fly down to the other side and promote, and
the other pieces going to not be overpowered?
Surely a Rook promoted to RN is a less powerful outcome than a Rook and newly dropped RN ?
3. Is the main concern 'congestion'? ...
The main concern is surely playability? Unless a variant plays well it is unlikely to gain a following, however well it is promoted.
I will say the point about gating is that it is a useful way to integrate
new pieces into older games. As is promotion.
If you don't happen to like it, or anything drop related, you are forcing chess to follow the same way it has always been, that being fixed positions
I am not forcing chess into anything, merely suggesting a way for using RN and BN within an 8x8 board. Besides, neither 'drop' nor 'promote' will change the fixed nature of the starting position. The only solution to that is to introduce non-determinism.
.. so this would not be conventional gating.
Yes, it would seem to be a combination of (c) and (e)
... what fixed set of rules would be needed to still identify the game as chess, and allow for infinite variations? ...
From the CVwiki we have
The single defining quality of 'Chess' is that
the winning condition is predicated on one (the royal) of two (royal and non-royal) classes of pieces
If this statement is accepted then for a game to be a chess variant it must have these 2 rules: one to define the royal and non-royal classes; and one to define the winning condition in terms of the royal class.
Joe, I've hooked it into the Welcome page (page name start).
The quickest way to find the name of a page is to go to that page and then look in you browser's address bar - the text after the final '/' is the page's name.
My games:
- TriMac HexChess
- Modern Courier Chess
- Save the Standard 13x13
Joe, I've added a comments section to the Named Games page thinking that it could be used for any negotiations, questions etc.
That's everyone named their initial set of games - the full list is here
An as yet unpublished preset for TriMac HexChess is available here
Changed my games
Replacing TriMac HexChess
with
Circular Chess with Crooked Bishops and Queen
'... I would like to hear someone explain why draw rate of 60% or higher is a good thing ...'
I don't believe anyone has claimed it to be a good thing.
What I do not comprehend is why some think it to be a bad thing.
Between equally proficient opponents I would expect a high percentage of draws.
Carlos, I can view the games but cannot play them. The userid seems to be grayhawke2 - it should be just grayhawke, without the 2.
Cheers
G.
Carlos, I don't mind creating a new userid, but am not sure how that helps. Can't the games be reassigned to grayhawke?
Thanks to all for their comments.
I have added a paragraph to the end of the rules section in an attempt to answer Doug Chatham's question.
With regard to the 'no pawns' loss condition, I see it as akin to the 'bare king' state which is used as a loss condition in several variants. It seems reasonable to me that a side without attacking potential should be deemed to have lost.
Following Michael Nelson's suggestions, I have attempted to further clarify the losing scenarios.
Although I have altered stalemate from a draw to a loss (a personal preference), in line with my second design aim 3-fold repetition remains a draw.
Joe Joyce said
I'd like to thank everybody who participated...
And I would like to thank all the judges for their time and effort with special thanks to Joe for holding things together and guiding the competition to its conclusion.
Joe, I think your knight-slider is kin to my Marauder
Point-n-Click can be done entirely in PHP - see here
The code is in a zip file here.
Not sure how clear it is but I'll try to answer any questions you may have.
Basically it uses a transparent image that overlays the board as an input type in a form that returns a set of co-ordinates.
Sam Trenholme wrote:
'Would you be open to me modifying your Zillions' file ...'
Please feel free to modify the file as you wish.
I think Game Courier only supports square or hex boards though it may be possible to upload a custom graphic.
Is Fairy-Max still being developed? I am using it as the engine in my MAGPIES project, and was wondering if the 8-rank restriction was likely to be removed in the near future. If not then no matter, I'll try adapting the code myself.
Thanks for the info and pointer to MaxQi. I've downloaded the source for MaxQi - if I get anywhere with adapting the code I'll make the source available on my magpies site.
I feel the board may be a tad small, and think increasing it to 6 hex on a side might be better. Also the problems with the rooks could be resolved by moving them to the back rank and turning them into crowned-rooks (dragon kings). To complement these and to complete the second row I've added a couple of crowned-knights (centaurs). Here's my suggestion.
Thanks for the input Jeremy. I've adopted your berolina pawns and leo - and also have increased the board size further - to produce these 2 related variants, described more fully here.
'... One question: are the routes a1-d1, b1-e1, and c1-f1 also barred?'
No, they are not barred. I've added an explicit statement to this effect under the description for the Bishop.
I agree the use of the twisted knight for the tusker is not ideal - but they do both begin with t. I'm not sure what to do - there is no other Icon in the set used that is any more appropriate and I do not know how to add a new Icon even if I could design one. I am open to suggestions as how best to proceed
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