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Interactive diagrams. Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Feb 6, 2023 11:43 AM UTC:

I now improved the piece-value guessing of the Diagram. This used to be based on the 'raw' moves delivered by the move generator, as specified by the XBetza notation. But now that user scripts can add locust victims, either directly or through a promotion code that requests burning, it has become important to first subject the move to this script before determining its power. Before, the values of the Ultima Pincher Pawn, Coordinator and Immobilizer were estimated as next to nothing, because the guessing only saw the mR or mQ part, and the Chameleon was given the same value as the Long Leaper (because the XBetza description was the same, and it did not realize that the leap-capture part was restricted to capturing Long Leapers only).

Guessed values based on the 'cooked' moves were much better; only the Immobilizer was still considered worthless, as even the cooked move never has any captures. So I added an ad-hoc bonus for a piece that puts a spell on its neighbors: 1000 for freezing, 600 for charming and 300 for burning. This makes the Immobilizer the most valuable piece in Ultima. (Which I believe it should be.) The Chameleon might still be underestimated, as no account is taken of the fact that it can freeze an Immobilizer. (Which of course has the repercussion that it then also gets frozen itself. But since the Immobilizer is worth more, this should be worth something to the Chameleon.)

I wonder if I should also support an opportunity for affecting the evaluation through a user script (say xxxEval()). Of course there is already the value=N parameter, which can be used to tune individual piece values. But the current evaluation doesn't take into account whether pieces are frozen. It might be very hard to program something sensible for this, though.