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Overprotection Chess. If an attacked piece is more often defended than it is attacked, it gains extra powers. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
gnohmon wrote on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 04:23 AM UTC:Yes, I'm afraid that recursion (drat and drat again) must be explicitly
forbidden, which is too bad because it sounded like fun.
The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon wrote on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 04:30 AM UTC:It recently occurred to me that I might have named the Zombie an Iron Golem so that its dissolution by ichor would be a nethack reference. But perhaps that would have been inappropriate after all. Lovecraft never played a game of Nethack in his life.
Slanted Escalator Chess. Chess on an asymmetric board with interesting connectivity. (8x8, Cells: 60) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon wrote on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 04:55 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Very interesting. 1. At first sight, the board seems unbalanced because a Black R at b6 attacks both b2 and c2, but a WR b3 does not get its power doubled. I would suggest that in the long run this advantage is much greater than W's advantage of first move. 2. The Bf1 can't go to c4, right? Perhaps Bishops should be replaced by something else. (Not zFF, that would increase Black's advantage.) 3. A Knightrider on a6 attacks both f2 and e2, right? And a Rose on h6 attacks both d3 and e3, and therefore... interesting.
Overprotection Chess. If an attacked piece is more often defended than it is attacked, it gains extra powers. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Changes made as best I understood.
<p>
Alas, the Happy Editor song can never be written down or recorded, lest the
secret society of web editors silence y
Slanted Escalator Chess. Chess on an asymmetric board with interesting connectivity. (8x8, Cells: 60) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon, you're wrong about a few things. first of all, while black rooks can control double files if they are on the a,b,g, or h files, a white rook on the b-file would control both the a-file and b-file, and likewise a white rook on the g-file controls both the g-file and h-file. Download the ZRF and you'll see. Bishops may seem weak but they may yet have a purpose in the game. It may be true that their ability to penetrate the other side of the board and attack is more difficult, but they'll still be pretty good as stay-at-home defenders. Note however that white bishops at a3 or h3 control very long diagonals (bishop at a3 attacks e8, bishop at h3 attacks d8) and while black may be able to control the outside files with his rooks faster, white should be able to occupy the escalator squares more quickly. In order that white does not get an overwhelming advantage in the game, I gave black the first move. Time will tell if the game is balanced sufficiently or not. Incidentally, if anyone who has ZILLIONS OF GAMES would like to play either SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS, or SPINAL TAP CHESS http://www.chessvariants.com/large.dir/spinal-tap-chess.html or both, with me by email, drop me a line at DavidNYJfan@hotmail.com We can email each other the notation and record and save our games with ZILLIONS. What I really like about SLANTED ESCALATOR CHESS is that not only is there interesting connectivity around the board, but that it's going to be a bit challenging for each side to try to navigate the board to get to the other side and get a good attack going. Should make things very interesting!
gnohmon wrote on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 05:40 AM UTC:Um, okay, but Black has 2 doublings on each flank and W only one; and 1...a7-b6 already exploits a doubling to tie W down a tiny bit. Have you considered slanted escalators on a 9x9 board? On the 8x8 board, it seems to me that the clumsiness of Bishops should be regarded as an opportunity to find some other piece that fits the game better. Perhaps not as strong as a Rhinorider. Pieces have to use their own movement powers, so isn't it more of a staircase than an escalator? And so wouldn't ascending pieces get tired? It's too late at night, I'm getting silly.
Tron Chess. Every square passed by the queen creates a wall that hinders movement. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The trouble with my Zillions implementation is, a piece that captures a Wall disappears until you make the board redraw itself. When the computer plays against itself, it's not a problem. But when a human captures a Wall, he needs to hit Ctrl-F twice or something. It would be an easy, easy thing for Zillions Development to fix. I guess it's my own fault for trying to make two boards, one on top of the other. I just thought it would be more elegant that way.
Don't use two boards... I suggest you download Rubble Chess (another one of my inventions, Z'd by Peter Aronson) and take it apart to find out how it worked. All you need to do is make variants of it where the <foo> leaves behind Rubble Pieces, for <foo> being any chess piece. (I don't think pawns would work very well, but...) You can also make special starts where the board starts full of walls (rubble chess start), etc... --Adam
Anonymous wrote on Wed, Apr 10, 2002 01:10 PM UTC:Leaving rubble pieces behind as the TronQueen slides is the problematic part, because (and I've run into this problem again and again) there's no (direct) way to generate a move that creates more than one piece. The solution that leaps to mind is to have so-called 'empty' squares be dummy pieces with no images, and turn multiple ones into Walls at the appropriate time (which is also problematic, but doable). That's probably what I'll have to do, but it means reimplementing all the Chess moves so that chess pieces are trading places with dummy pieces instead of moving to empty squares. Capturing means trading places with the captured piece and turning it into a dummy. There are lots of things that could go wrong and strange bugs that would surface. The two-board approach meant that the dummies could cover the underboard while the chess pieces moved about on the overboard. When you play the game, you only see one board. The second board occupies the same pixels. It's just an implementation device.
Chigorin Chess. White has knights instead of bishops and a chancellor for his queen; black has bishops instead of knights. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]My comment that Black was ahead was based on R+B vs R+N multiplied by pawn
promotion. The B vs N is probably just a wash -- maybe giving White some
early play but moving towards Black in mid-end play.
Slanted Escalator Chess. Chess on an asymmetric board with interesting connectivity. (8x8, Cells: 60) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Agree with gnohmon that there is an imbalance. Suggest reversing e-side
escalator and transposing one side's royals (e.g., Kd1 and Qe1).
The discussion of piece values and the purpose of the variant for
<a href='../diffsetup.dir/chigorin.html'>Chigorin Chess</a> reminded me
of a conceptually-related idea I had a while ago I called Rook-Level Chess.
<p>
<h4>Rook-Level Chess</h4>
<p>
The idea I wanted to explore in Rook-Level Chess is: how would the play of
Chess be affected if the Rook, the Knight and the Bishop all had
approximately the same value? It seemed to me that threats would be
harder at the very least. Anyway, drawing on Ralph Betza's work on the
value of Chess pieces I selected stronger Knights and Bishops that retained
some of the character of the existing pieces: for Knights I used NW (Knight
+ Wazir or Marquis), for Bishops I used BD (Bishop + Dabbabah or Bede).
These pieces retain the color behavior of the pieces they replace: the
Marquis is color-changing, and the Bede is colorbound.
<p>
I sent this to David Paulowich, and asked him how he thought this would
affect exchanges. He replied that we would still prefer a Rook to a
Marquis and a Marquis to a Bede, as you could mate with a Rook + King vs
King, but not with Marquis + King vs King or Bede + King vs King, and he
still though color-switching pieces more valuable than colorbound ones,
other things being equal.
<h4>Rook-Level Chess II</h4>
<p>
Given the above comment, I wondered if the powered up Knight and Bishop
could retain <i>different</i> characteristics of the base piece? So, for
Rook-Level Chess II I replaced the Knight with ND (Knight + Dabbabah or
Vicount) and the Bishop with BW (Bishop + Ferz or Dragon-Horse). In this
case I retained that the Knight was a strictly leaping piece not attacking
adjacent pieces, and I retained that the Bishop was a non-jumping piece.
Are these pieces of equal value? And could you mate with Vicount + King
vs King? (Dragon-Horse + King vs King is a win.)
<h4>Discussion</h4>
<p>
I've played around with Rook-Level Chess a bit with Zillions for what it
is worth, but I strongly suspect it loses somethings that Chess has. If
nothing else, weak pieces can be fun since they can harass stronger pieces.
<p>
Other versions are of course possible. Given that Ralph has settled down
to rating the Crooked Bishop (zFF) as equal to a Rook (there being a brief
point where he was rating it at 1.5 Rooks), a Crooked Bishop might replace
the Bishop nicely.
<p>
I should eventually add these as modest variants.
General Comments Page. Page for making general comments.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]It would be nice if a place to click to create a new subject at the top
of the comments page. Right now, as far as I can tell, you have to page
down until you find an existing thread, and click there.
Monochromatic Chess. Pieces remain on squares of the same color. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Here's an amusing possible solution to the problems with this variant:
combine it with <a href='../other.dir/alice.html'>Alice Chess</a>.
<p>
Here's how it might go. You add a second board, like in Alice Chess,
except the 2nd board has reversed checkering: a1 is white, not black.
When a piece's move would otherwise cause it to move to a square of a
different color, it instead lands on the equivalent square of the
other board. Thus Knights always switch boards when they move, and
Bishops never switch boards.
<p>
There are a number of ways to handle switching boards:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Alice Chess-style. The move on the board on which the piece
starts must be legal as in orthochess, and the square on the other
board must be empty.</li>
<p>
<li>The Plunge. A piece moving to another color may only to move to
a square that is empty on their current board, then they plunge through
the board to the equivalent square on the other board, capturing any
opposing pieces they land on, except for Pawns who may not plunge to
occupied squares.</li>
<p>
<li>The Switch-a-roo. A piece makes a normal orthochess move on the board
on which it starts, and then, if the destination square is of a different
color than the piece's starting square, it moves to an equivalent
position on the other board. If the space on the other board is occupied,
then the piece occupying that space is moved to the space just landed on on
the board that the moving piece started on. This version actually allows
Bishops on the 2nd board.</li>
<p>
<li>The Last Square. The piece's move is as normal, except that if the
piece would land on a color of square different from which it started, the
last square of its move is the equivalent space on the other board, and the
move does not pass through what would be the final square of its move in
orthochess. The last square on the board on which the board-changing piece
moved from may be occupied by a friendly or opposing piece -- it doesn't
matter as the moving piece does not pass through it.
</ul>
<p>
I don't know which would be best.
The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]ben wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 07:15 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★Question: can a wounded friend move over (but obviously not stop on) a square occupied by a mummy? i am not sure. if anybody wants to try this game with me by email, send to good7972@hotmail.com
Feeble Chess to Weakest Chess. Some Chess variants with weaker pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
David Howe wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 01:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★I wish I had thought of this! The idea of finding the weakest possible pieces that still provide a chess-like game is inspired. For some reason, it reminded me of my attempt to create a <a href='../newideas.dir/construction.html'>chess variant construction set</a>. The concept of a flipping move to switch between capture-only and move-only is something I never thought of. On the whole, a well-thought-out, and aesthetically pleasing game. I must try it out sometime!
David Howe wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 03:28 PM UTC:It's an interesting idea, but would make for a more positional game with
more trading off of material. I would recommend these Rook-level pieces
perhaps for larger variants which would still include the usual knights
and
bishops.
Chigorin Chess. White has knights instead of bishops and a chancellor for his queen; black has bishops instead of knights. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 03:33 PM UTC:Okay, but I don't believe that the Chancellor is worth less than the Q. The midgame forking power of a piece that moves in 12 directions is quite amazing, the Chancellor has exceptional ability to save an inferior game by giving perpetual check, and finally, the drawn cases of K+Q versus K+P are wins in the endgame K+NR vs K+P. Of course there are positions that favor the Q, but all in all, my experience says they are equal.
Of course, there is the issue that on a larger board, since leapers are
weakened, most of these pieces are probably not quite Rook-level anymore.
One piece I do want to try in a larger variant someday is the NH (Knight
+ (3,0) leaper), since the H portion of the move would allow it to move
around a 10x10 board slightly faster than a Knight moves around an 8x8 board.
David Howe wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 03:38 PM UTC:Continuing Peter's idea from his 'Alice Chess' comment on <a href='../diffmove.dir/monochro.html'>Monochromatic Chess</a>...
<p>I don't like the idea that Bishops would be restricted to their initial board. Perhaps giving the bishops a non-capturing wazir move would fix this. Option 3 is also a nice idea (the switch-a-roo).
<p>On the whole, I like this set of ideas. Perhaps it can be developed, with some play-testing, into a workable variant of Alice Chess, although Alice Chess itself is difficult enough to play... :)
gnohman wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 04:01 PM UTC:Rook-Level Chess is a very nice idea. Of course, the Queen isn't R-level... As for K+ND versus K, confining the K is tricky but it can be done. Example: BKb8 WKc6, White ND e4, Black's move 1...Kc8 2. Nd6+ Kb8 3. Kb6 Ka8 4. NDc8+ Kb8 5. NDc6+ and 6. ND a6 mate.
The Game of Nemoroth. For the sake of your sanity, do not read this variant! (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 04:08 PM UTC:A Wounded Fiend (not 'friend' unless you are a truly scary creature) is impeded by mummies, as indeed a Rook would be. Notice also that it cannot retrace its steps because of its own ichor, and therefore, as Azgoroth once said, 'carries within it the seeds of its own destruction'. (The endgame where each side has one Wounded Fiend and nothing else can be quite interesting.) This game is tough to get used to. For a while I thought I had made a major rules error, but in fact when a Leaf Pile engulfs, the mummy does not appear until it moves on, and so the Leaf Pile is vulnerable to being engulfed by an enemy Leaf Pile. If it were not so, the first player would attack with Leaf Pile (engulfing his own Human for greater speed) and win by force.
Feeble Chess to Weakest Chess. Some Chess variants with weaker pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]gnohmon wrote on Thu, Apr 11, 2002 04:15 PM UTC:I am grateful for your effusive comments. There will be more on the subject, as I like the game and have analyzed the Weakest K versus Weakest King endgame -- it was very interesting. But at the moment, I've gotten out a chessboard and some coins (with which to mark mummies and statues) and am studying the play of the Game of Nemoroth.
There's an idea for the Bishop's move -- give it a colorbound Wazir's move,
so that it can only use it to change boards.
Just repeat that term: <i>A colorbound Wazir's move</i>. I love to be
able to say that and have it mean something
Feeble Chess to Weakest Chess. Some Chess variants with weaker pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]If we created higher dimensional analogues of the Feeble/Weak/Weakest pieces, would we be able to make a playable higher-dimensional CV with them (perhaps even a Chess For Any Number of Dimensions)?
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