Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

To clarify my amendment proposal

Aronsons swapper has two moves..

Positional swap 
P(S,P)=>(P,S)

Mutual destruction
M(S,P)=>(_,_)

I recommend removing the latter, which seems to refer to a separate concept, and adding 2 new swap moves.

Colour swap
C(S,P')=>(S',P)

Type swap
T(S,P')=>(P,S')

The fact that this is a natural completion of the concept can be shown from the fact that any swap move acts as a combination of the other two (for friendly pieces T and P are equivalent, and C is a null move).

The resulting piece is considerably stronger (probably the equal of any piece on the board), more logically consistent, and I would argue no less intuitive or complicated than the current version or some of the proposals.

1. Rococo IS an Ultima variant. You somehow misunderstood me.
2. The Swapper destroys an adjacent piece, not one in line with it. So letting it destroy more than one adjacent piece is only a slight enhancement
3. Ok, so you quit the mutual destruction completely. Your swapper is a positional swapper, a colour swapper and a type swapper. That's actually not a bad idea.

But actually there is no need to alter that game at all. The Swapper is the weakest piece above the pawns and that's it.

But it's always funny to find varitions to existing games.

Now I find the Swapper ok, but the pawns too strong. Is there really a need to give them also the power of promotion?

I think the general trend in ultima variants is in removing significantly weaker pieces from the board in favour of a balanced set, which I think is aesthetically better and more interesting. 

Only way I think having weaker pieces works is if there is an even hierarchy of different valued pieces, but most ultima pieces cluster around a ~7-9p value.

As far as overpowered pawns and explosive capture attack, why not just introduce a seperate piece for that purpose?

What about an "alchemist" piece that allows adjacent pieces to perform atomic/suicide capture (like in Atomic Chess), and that explodes as an attack or if captured?

Like the swapper, the withdrawer can be extended quite logically.

Allow it to capture pieces in its line of sight as many squares distant or less as it moves when making the capture.

It already does this when capturing adjacent pieces.

In this way, the withdrawer could capture pieces as many as 4 squares distant using the outer edge of the board.

This games prides itself on conceptual simplicity, and indeed the 5 most fundamental Ultima types manifest themselves in some form or other, 

Replacer (x, y) => (0, x)

Neutral (x, y) => (x, y)

Codestructor (x, y) => (0, 0)

Archer (x, y) => (x, 0)

Swapper (x, y) => (y, x)

although only the latterly added Archer exists as a standalone representation.

Aronson attached codestruction to his swapper, but both concepts are better fleshed out separately in my opinion.

My amendment to the swapper is specified below, while the Queen from Atomic Chess as representative of the latter concept seems a very natural addition to this game (albeit it requires staggered opposition pawn rank to prevent early slaughter).

Its worth pointing out that the immobiliser in this game is stronger than the original concept of Abbots game. Abbott floated the idea of a "Neutraliser" 

(x, y) => ((y, x') => (y, x'))

as a separate piece, which acts as the twin of the immobiliser (one disables movement, the other the effect). As its able to not only freeze but entirely disable the chameleon, swapper and archer, the Rococo immobiliser is really a compound of both, which goes towards explaining why its so overpowered.

The strength order probably goes like this:
Immobilizer - 9 points
Advancer - 8 points
Chameleon - 6 points
Long Leaper - 5 points
Archer - 5 points
Withdrawer - 3.5 points (resistant to the Immobilizer)
Swapper - 2.5 points
Withdrawer - 2.5 points (not resistant)
Pawn - 1 point

Incorrect.

More accurately; Immobiliser 13 FIDE Pawns, Long Leaper/Advancer 8, Chameleon/Archer 7, Withdrawer 3.5, Swapper 2.5, Cannon Pawn 2.

Certainly the Rococo Withdrawer and Rococo Swappers normalised values fall far below those of the minor FIDE Pieces, the Long Leaper alone benefits from the exotic board giving it comparable strength to the Advancer, while the Rococo Immobiliser, with its added abilities, is unmatched even by the Advancer+Withdrawer compound (the awfully named "Pushme-Pullyu").

The Withdrawer is not resistant to the Immobiliser so I'm not sure why you included that value.

If we're talking hypothetical pieces in a Rococo setting I have already made far more logical and consistent amendments than such ad hoc tacked on rules.

In truth, Ultima pieces don't really have fixed values but rather discrete sets of values that vary based on the nature and composition of other pieces.

Looping around to give the weakest pieces resistance against the strongest only enhances this "rock-paper-scissors" dynamic (not that that necessarily makes it a worse game).

Robert Abbott was inventor of Ultima in the 1960s. Abbott commented 13 years ago on Rococo:

Abbott.

Rococo is my single preferred CV whether Orthodox style or Track Two Heterodox style like Rococo. It themes every piece moving like Queen but capturing differently. Contrary to Abbott, the border squares substantially make the game, because different pieces and Rococo Pawns react differently with those "half-squares" variously accessible according to the piece-types divergent Rules. "Divergent" is carefully picked to describe because all Rococo pieces are divergent in the CV sense that they move and capture differently. But then Abbott has a narrow specialty having invented several (not a lot) of great game rules and secondly made challenging mazes. He admits here and there he does not play games, CV or not, very much himself. He seems to have just chanced on 2 or 3 great Rules sets in card game Eleusis and CV Ultima. Or maybe Ultima gets attention because it was one of the first modern ones in between Parton and Boyer and just prior to Betza. There is not much follow-up insight on Abbott's part, where for instance most revisions of his suggestion worsen the great original. Abbott never really delved into CVs and does not consider Ultima even to be one like we do, but just using Chess equipment in his words.

However, over-all we have played Abbott's great Eleusis quite a bit more than Aronson and Howe's Rococo, no comparison really. Eleusis, so thanks aplenty to Robert for countless hours at Eleusis.

A cool variant that may take some time to be at ease with, but it looks worth it.

If a Chameleon is to Capture a Cannon Pawn, need the mount be adjacent to both the Chameleon's original Square and the Captured Piece's Square? May the Mount be a Long Leaper, and if so, in the situation shown somewhat crudely in the table above, would the Chameleon be allowed to Capture both the Long Leaper and the Cannon Pawn by going to c1? The section on the Long Leaper states, "A Long Leaper may never jump over a friendly piece, jump over two or more pieces in a row without any empty spaces between, or move to an occupied square.", but are these rules actually so intrinsic to the Long Leaper's ability that they also apply to the Chameleon when it tries to capture a Long Leaper, or are they simply observations about the Long Leaper's abilities? I'm sure there are other ambiguities like these regarding the Chameleon, but I haven't thought of any more explicitly.

edit: corrected notation

While playing a game with an internet friend of mine, she revealed that she had misinterpreted the rules regarding edge squares. After the game, we both agreed her misinterpretation was better than the actual rule. She thought that the rules were roughly "you need to capture to get on the edge, and you need to capture to move while on the edge, either to stay [on the edge but move to a different square on the edge] or leave". I think that this is much simpler than the rather complicated current rules and serves the purpose of restricting pieces from edge squares almost as well. No one would want to put a piece on the edge if it meant they couldn't easily get it back. She also pointed out that the Swapper could be powerful with her rules because if it were on the edge, it could threaten to swap with an Immobilizer, and that Immobilizer would be stuck. I think that these rules should be considered. Also, a version where pieces could move to the edge without capturing but had to capture to move within or off the edge might be worth considering.

edit: The Immobilizer would be stuck after being swapped onto the edge, not just from the threat of being swapped onto the edge.

edit 2: removed unnecessary information

It appears from the Game Courier Preset that the answer is that the Long Leaper is not Captured in this situation and that only the Cannon Pawn is Captured. I suppose that I will accept this as the correct rule for now even though I don't know if this is intentional or a bug.

I asked David Howe about the situation where a Chameleon can capture a Cannon Pawn by hopping over an enemy Long Leaper, and he says "The Long Leaper is not captured. The Long Leaper capturing move requires moving to a vacant square."