Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Also, a player unable to move or who causes three time repetition loses as well.

On turn 7 in a game I'm playing with Yeinzon I made a double capture with the chameleon which he estimates it is illegal while I don't think so.

Could you please tell us your viewpoint?

Thanks beforehand!

The first capture, C hf-f7, is legal.  However, pieces in Rococo don't get to make multiple capturing moves like in Checkers/Draughts, so the second capture, f7-f9, is not legal.  Rococo Chameleons can make multiple captures with a single move (when the move fulfills the requirements of multiple attacked pieces capturing moves), but not multiple moves.

Thanks Peter.

I will follow your statement as the right viewpoint in this issue. However I wonder why the preset's program did not prohibit that double capture if it has reinforced the rules.

I made these two moves to test the preset:

1) C h5-f7;f7-h7 by capturing two pawns (f7 and h7)

2) C h5-f7;f7-h9 trying to capture the g8-advancer after capturing the f7-pawn

The preset's program allowed the first and banned the second.

Perhaps Antoine Fourrière may have something to say since he was who reinforced the rules.

In 1), both moves are legal, so Game Courier accepts them, just like it would accept h2-h3;h3-h4;h4-h5. But the second part of 2) isn't legal as a single move either.

Thanks Antoine.

Unfortunately I deleted accidentally the game in which was the position object of discussion, so we have no more any base to follow commenting the issue. 

However, by means of the "MOVE pieces by yourself" resource, I'll try to reproduce a similar situation.

Robert Abbotts idea for 2 cooperating triangulators would work better if one of the pieces was made "royal", and the other piece could be brought back, either as a circe piece, or brought into the game by its "royal" counterpart, which is the piece that would have to be captured in order to take both off the board permanently.

This idea could be used for other tandem pieces, which are an interesting concept by themselves, and throw up all kinds of new possibilities...

Replacing the spare long leaper with a 2 range archer seems a logical step forward. Merging the advancer and withdrawer takes a weak piece off the board, but the new piece is possibly too strong in an already offensive game.

I like the idea of keeping the withdrawer, but allowing it to capture king and officer pieces from up to 2 squares away, but perhaps only 1 square still for pawns.

Cannon pawns are hoppers, not locusts.  They capture by displacement.  They would not be hindered in ANY way by the absence of border squares.

Add a full-rim border to 64 squares and you get 100-square 10x10. In turn, 64 squares come from 36 squares surrounded and 36 from 16 of the 4x4 smallest useful board. Well, here's a 2x2: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSdavesexamplega. The brilliance of Rococo is precisely the *Border Square*. The border squares make Rococo's play like a large Chess yet requiring the master precision most decimal Chesses lack. 
Now piece/Pawn can move off a border space, but not onto one except in capturing.  For design analysis a decade ago, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=5613,  border squares were counted as 0.5 making Rococo as if 82 squares, right on the cusp of regular/to/large categories. Withdrawer can capture ending on a border square only from the 28 squares comprising the 8x8 perimeter, and border squares are more important the Withdrawer than LL, as Abbott implication mis-leads, http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=5123. 

Abbott and Betza, for that matter Dawson and Parton --  unable to imagine let alone cope with the ensuing chaos brought about by 80, 84, 90 and 100 -- were unapologetic adherents to strict 64 squares, outsized and outmoded. 

Breaking the rule, Cannon Pawn gets established as 2.0 points above, instead of orthodox 1.0 to Pawn of every other design analysis, to keep comfortable, familiar values Advancer and Long Leaper.  Important to Cannon Pawn, Border Square secures its value as 2.0, piece-comparable. For instance, Rococo Pawn captures there where Long Leaper cannot unless already in the perimeter.

Another variant, instead of making the Withdrawer immune to the Immobilizer, you may specify that you want to capture the Immobilizer with an immobilized piece, and the Immobilizer's owner specifies how this will be done, and in this case only the immobilization is ignored. You said Immobilizer seem too powerful, this is another way to make it weak, and in some cases may add some additional complications to the strategy (especially if there are multiple captures possible in this way).

Recently i found out about traditional Korean non-chess board game Nei-pat-kono, and it's pieces seems to be similar to to cannon-pawns. Never seen mentoiding of this game in information about Rococo.

While the Cannon-Pawn is similar in some ways to a piece in Four-Field Kono (the usual English name for the game), unlike it, they can capture by jumping over opposing pieces as well as friendly pieces.  Now, I've been exposed to Four-Field Kono via one or another of R.C. Bell's books, so it could have been an influence, but the Cannon from Xiang Qi was a more immediate influence.

can a swapper, used as a bomb, capture more than one enemy piece?

A Swapper's capture by mutual destruction only captures a single piece.  That said, allowing the mutual destruction capture of multiple pieces would not be an unreasonable variant.

That was quick! Thanks!

 Great game!

The swappers capture method seems decoupled from its ability. Its also quite a weak piece.

I propose; a) allow the swapper to swap 2 pieces on either side of it, while remaining stationary.
b) allow it to swap piece type, ie converting a friendly to an enemy and an enemy to a friendly.

No, please not!

But acting as a bomb, how about destroying all adjacent pieces, including friendly ones. This would give more attacking force to the swapper without altering or complicating this piece so much

Well its your game. However I think this move better complements the swappers ability.

And the new swapping procedure really isn't complicated; P1 Sw P2 -> P2 Sw P1.

Or for conversion (Black Piece of Type 1, Swapper, White Piece of Type 2) => (White Piece of Type 1, Swapper, Black Piece of Type 2)


Its a good way of introducing the missing concept of conversion into an Ultima variant.

If you think its too complicated or over dynamic then you could also just use direct conversion as the "special move."

(Black non swapper, White Swapper)=>(Black Swapper, White non swapper)

The latter move equates to double the material gain produced when merely mutually destroying the swapper with a stronger piece, and fits in more intuitively with its ability.

Explosion is a concept that is definitely worth considering adding in some form.

However I'm not sure tacking it on to an existing piece is the way forward. I also don't see it working that well in this game, other than an overpowered means of flattracking the weaker pieces.

On the other hand a direct ability swap/conversion would give the swapper a unique and strong threat against all opposition pieces. The stronger the piece in the swappers line of sight, the more severe the threat the swapper/converter would offer.

In fact now that I think of it, it is enough of an augmentation by itself to safely disregard my mediated swap proposal.

Hey, it's not my game! I,m just playing it for the first time.

A Conversioner ("missionary")fits quite well into Ultima-derived games. But this game is good as it is. Just the Swapper may really be too weak.

Since the swapper already is a bomb, enhancing its explosional abilities seems to be the best way to make it stronger while changing as little as possible to the original game.

Sorry my mistake.

I don't see that conversion is more an Ultima concept than a Rococo one, nor do I see how turning the swapper into a exploding piece fits more with its ability than an ability swap.

As I understand it, the swapper currently merely mutually destroys with an opposition piece in its line of sight. Its not an "explosion", its just taking it and another piece out of the game.

On the other hand, allowing it to swap its ability with another piece in line of sight ( (S, P') => (P, S') ) is just a logical extension of what the piece already is. Existing swaps of friendly pieces ((S, P)=>(P, S)) could equally be interpreted as an ability swap rather than a positional one.

This rule allows it to become a worthy piece while remaining "swapperlike."