Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I dug out my copy of 'Abbott's New Card Games' (1963, Funk and Wagnalls)
and the suicide rule is stated thus:
'A piece that is immobilized does have one special move that it can make,
that of suicide.  A player may use a turn to remove from the board one of
his own pieces that is immobilized.'

i have two questions about rules i am not completely certain on.

1/ can a pincer pawn capture more than one piece (in one direction)?  e.g.
if there is a friendly piece on f4, and enemy pieces on f2 and f3, can a
pawn move to f1 and capture both?  i think this is unlikely, but i want to
check.

2/ can withdrawers capture by moving away on the diagonal from an enemy
piece?  e.g. enemy on g5, can a withdrawer capture it by moving from f4 to
e3?

thanks.

1. No, a Pincer Pawn can capture up to three pieces in different orthogonal
directions, but it cannot capture two pieces in a row.

2. Yes, a Withdrawer can capture by withdrawing diagonally, a Long Leaper
by jumping diagonally, an Immobilizer paralyzes diagonally and though a
Coordinator captures in an orthogonal way, it may be through a diagonal
move (say King on d1, Coordinator moving from h1 to b6 captures enemy
pieces at b1 and d6).

thanks for the swift replies.

that is how i initially thought the withdrawers must operate.  but when
playing my game of ultima in the tournament, i got in a position to take
in this (diagonal) manner, but typed in my move and the piece remained on
the board.  so i changed my move.  until i saw ben's next move, i did
not
realise that i had to manually (as it were) remove the piece from the 
board myself with a separate command.  never mind!  thanks again for the
clarification.

Ultima design analysis:
# squares: 64
# piece types: 7
Piece-type density: 10.9%
Initial piece density: 50%
Power density: 84/64 = 1.31
Long diagonal: a1-h8
Est. piece values: P1, K2, W3, Co 3, Ca 4, L 5, I 8
Exchange Gradient: G = 0.505; (1-G)=0.495
Ave. Game Length: M = 3.5(Z)(T)/(P)(1-G) = (3.5*64*0.109)/(1.31*0.495) =
38 Moves
Features:  Unusual Pawns (pincer) may cohere with the chosen piece mix
Comments: Prosaic values across the board confound evaluation.

a couple more questions.

1.  can a king take by co-ordinating with the co-ordinator, or does it
have to be after the co-ordinator's moves?
2.  i assume that a king cannot move into check, and you have to tell your
opponent if they do?  i was playing against the applet linked off this
page, and you have to actually capture the king rather than checkmate it. 
which is it?  

if white's co-ordinator is on f1, white's king on b1, and black's king
moves onto say b7 from the c file...  if the white co-ordinator has a
clear run to f7, is black's move therefore illegal?

Answers:
1.  can a king take by co-ordinating with the co-ordinator, or does it
have to be after the co-ordinator's moves?
No, King only captures by replacement. Co-ordinate capture is performed by
the Coordinator, or by a Chameleon to capture an enemy Coordinator. King
can´t do that.

2.  i assume that a king cannot move into check, and you have to tell
your
opponent if they do?  i was playing against the applet linked off this
page, and you have to actually capture the king rather than checkmate it.

which is it? 
Oficially, you can´t move into check. The object of the game is checkmate
the enemy King. Zillions implementation adopts the 'capture-the-King'
rule for technical reasons, the main reason is because if you immobilize
the King and you use the checkmate rule, it is interpreted by Zillions as
a Check, and it is not. 

3. if white's co-ordinator is on f1, white's king on b1, and black's
king
moves onto say b7 from the c file...  if the white co-ordinator has a
clear run to f7, is black's move therefore illegal?
Yes, this move is illegal, you are moving into check.

In April 2004 comment this same page I estimate those Ultima values in
Design analysis: P1, K2, W3, Co3, Ca4, L5, I8, keeping integers. I
haven't done C++ programming this decade, so don't know whether King's
offensive value would be needed, depending on structure of program. 
Refining these estimates, maybe L closer to 5.5, and W>Co. [Further, I would 
enter P1, W3.1, Co2.9, Ca4.3, L5.3, I8.2, and see how that plays]

Try this link.  It was a little awkward to find:
http://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?subjectid=Game+Design