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'Amphibian Chess: Standard chess array and noncapturing moves of pieces. Units must leap over opposing spaces on a normal arrival space to the next space beyond to capture, unless the opposing unit is on the edge and there is no 'next space beyond' in the direction of movement (in which case the capture occurs as in standard chess). For the purpose of determining the next space beyond, a Knight's normal leap is viewed as one space orthogonally followed by one space diagonally (through a corner adjacent to the opposite side); a Knight's one space beyond is one additional space diagonally (i.e., to a space a [3,2] leaper might have reached). All other rules are as in standard chess.'
Tony, think on this proposal: 1.- One Knight (orthogonal+diagonal 1-move to determine next space beyond on a capture movement) 2.- One mirror Knight , as in Quintanilla´s Takeover (diagonal+orthogonal single moves, to determine next space beyond) 3.- Diagonal Long-leapers, instead of bishops. As Ultima´s long-leapers, but diagonally (capturing by displecement ONLY on the edges, never after a leap capture) 4.- Orthogonal Long-leapers, instead of Rooks. (capturing by displecement only on the edges, but never after a leap cature) 5.- Long-leaper, instead of a Queen: Diagonal+orthogonal Long-leaper.
Tony, this looks like a neat idea, not to mention easy to make into a ZRF
-- I think all you would need to do is to add a little logic:
<pre>
(define leap2 (
$1 $2
(verify not-friend?)
(if (and enemy? (on-board? $2))
capture
$2
(verify empty?)
)
(add-and-flag)
))
</pre>
<i>(Above code untested.)</i>
<p>
I also like Roberto's Mirror Knight proposal, although it would require distinguishing the Knights.
<hr>
Roberto, what you're suggesting would be an interesting game, but a fairly
different one than Tony's -- the multiple captures would, I think, weaken
Pawns considerably.
When I first looked at what I call Amphibian Chess I had just viewed George P. Jelliss's article on chess variants and found his description of 'Sea Chess' (line pieces capture by vaulting to next space beyond). The term 'Sea pieces' was new to me (I was familiar with the 'Mermaid' or Q version only), and I was struck with the practical flaw in the game: pieces on the edge were relatively difficult to capture. Since the 'sea pieces' were in contrast to the more usual FIDE (land?) pieces and 'amphibian' pieces seemed like an amusing compromise, I toyed with how these pieces might work. I looked at this as a 'thematic' task, and I usually focus on making only the necessary changes to produce an interesting and (possibly) playable game (Occam's razor, or something like that). The sea-land compromise was obvious for line pieces, but Knights presented a problem. Three possible solutions were considered: (a) leave the standard Knight alone (b) define a 'space beyond' to correspond to a second Knight's leap (c) introduce a devise to break down the Knight's move Choice (a) seemed unworthy of something called 'Amphibian Chess'. Choice (b) was probably the most elegant option and it's playable, but it seems to makes the 8x8 board seem pretty small. Instead, I chose choice (c) and adopted the Chinese 'Mao' move. Since Peter seemed to be addressing a similar problem, I added my comment. The approach admits to several generalizations (e.g., other Amphibian pieces) that you may wish to explore. I hope you and other CV enthusiasts will do so. BTW my 'rules' left out the qualification that the 'next space beyond' should be vacant. (Sorry. Rule writing is a tough job.)
I didn't see the Jelliss note on Sea Pieces until about a year after I designed Jumping Chess. At the time, I felt a bit disappointed that others had had the same idea first. Then I got a copy of the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants, and realized it had been tried a bunch of times . . .
<p>
The Amphibian Chess approach seems workable, although it may still favor the defense, since an unbroken array is only vulnerable from rank 3 Knight attacks and by diagonal attacks on Rook's Pawns, which are, of course, generally protected by Rooks. But still, if an opponent just sits there, shuttling a Knight back and forth, you could eventually mount an attack on them -- something you could not do with pure Sea Chess.
<p>
A vicious version of Amphibian Chess would be to allow a replacement capture when the target square is either nonexistant <strong>or empty</strong>, but that'd probably be a bit much.
<p>
By using a Mirror-Knight (moves like a Moa) instead of one of the Knights you would balance the number of pieces (other than Pawns) that capture by leaping diagonally and those that capture by leaping orthogonally. Not critical, but I think it would be nice.
Peter: I think the defensive massing of pieces is probably of limited value in Amphibian Chess. Knights can capture any unit on an edge (I preferred the Mao-type over the Moa-type partially for that reason) and diagonal movers can pick off corners or edge-resting units. Only the Rooks are unequivocally weak against masses.
Peter, I have thought on it, and you are right about weakness of the pawns if multiple captures are permissed, and re-thinking the pawns is going far from the Tony's original idea. But, as you, I defend the mirror knight, with arguments that you have explained well. In every case, I agree that it is easy a ZRF, so Tony is encouraged to make the code. And if some testing is needed, well, I can do some work. If the result is as expected (I think it is going to be nice), a Game Courier Preset may be added. After that, there would be people interested on play the game. Me too, I think.
Sorry, but I haven't written any Zillions scripts in well over a year.
I have a rough Zillions Rules File for Amphibian Chess -- I'll try to clean it up and post it tomorrow night. It'll have variants both with and without the Mirror-Knight.
<hr>
Tony, yah, the diagonal movers can clip off the corner Pawns, but then there's the Rooks there. Which can be dealt with, true, but it is still a more difficult attack. As for the Knights, again they can attack the back rank, but they would have to be carefully supported or the Pawn line would get them. Of course, in doing so gaps would be opened. I still suspect that it will be more difficult to attack than in FIDE Chess.
I am curious about the game play, if there is the ZRF soon, I´m going to test the game. It should be truth that the attack may be more difficult than in FIDE Chess, but it is not necessarily demeriting, it may be an interesting characteristic of the game. Let´s see.
My first impression is that both variants are really good. I´ll test the game a little more carefully this afternoon. Very thanks to Tony, for the ideas, and to Peter, for the ZRF, I think the game is enjoyable...
Peter: Nice work on the ZRF. My own impression is that diagonally supported salients (a la a Dutch Stonewall) are too strong -- a completely blocked position with no pawn captures can occur too easily. A possible improvement (which I've tested a bit) might be to use conventional FIDE pawns.
Yes, the game tends to blocked positions in some situations. All pieces look weaker in dense positions, and pawns are the better example. Using FIDE pawns may be an alternative, but I don't like it too much, because this kind of pawns are not thematic and they may be very vulnerable once the game has cleared a bit. Better is use MIX pawns, with Amphibian move and (FIDE-Chess or SHOGI move), i.e., really amphibians in all environments, with terrestrial and marine movements, other possibility is more elaborated: a two-moves per band game, the first is a normal move of one of the own pieces, the other is to move ANY enemy piece (except the King) to ANY position on the board where the piece is not directly attacked by an own piece. This induced 'separation' of the group is usual in the sea world, the compact groups look strong, isolated specimens are weak and the whole group is many times affected by the strategy of the enemies...
The original game of Sea Chess only had jump capture for the rider pieces -- Pawns, Kings and Knights still captured by replacement. Having the Pawns capture by replacement is sort of a 'return to roots' in that case. Anyways, I rather doubt that the Pawns would be too weak -- in my experiance, replacement capture is stronger than leaping capture, particularly when the leap is constrained to the square just past the target.
<hr>
Tony, another thought in favor of the Mao-moving Knight -- it preserves the characteristic of being color-changing, while a Moa-moving Knight is not when it captures.
While I'm somewhat distressed at abandoning amphibian Pawns, I feel relatively lucky. I don't think I could have fully recovered if I'd developed Sea Chess but had to leave out the 'Prawn'. Somewhat toroidal boards, soldier (/Shogi) pawns, bicolored multimove turns -- that's the spirit. For the time being, though, I'd personally prefer to stick to a somewhat simpler game (with standard pawns) if it adequately showcases Amphibian pieces.
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