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Man and Beast 06: The Heavy Brigade. Systematic naming of symmetric and forward-only non-coprime radial pieces.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
John Smith wrote on Thu, Nov 27, 2008 08:25 PM UTC:
You missed one, Charles! What would be a colourswitching Nightrider? How about a Dabbabante+Panda and its Bishop and Queen counterparts?

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Nov 30, 2008 07:03 AM UTC:
I have missed a colourswitching Nightrider, true, but not from this
particular page. The description on the index specifies radial pieces.
Perhaps the introduction should reflect that description better. Its place
would be on the next page in the series. It needs naming with other
odd-only oblique pieces in mind. Would Nightswitcher, Camelswitcher,
Zebraswitcher et cetera do? In the meantime I have slimmed down the next
page ready to add whatever names consensus falls on.

Panda+Dabbabante is a less-blockable version of the Rook - and its
analogues in other directions a less-blockable Bishop, Queen, Nightrider
et cetera. I will give them some more thought - and of course welcome
ideas from others.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Dec 21, 2008 07:16 AM UTC:
The Mightswitcher et cetera have now been added to the next article.

Anonymous, an onyst wrote on Fri, Sep 2, 2011 06:26 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Two things:
        1) You often say 'pentagonal' or 'pentagonal prism' as a board
shape. These should probably be 'hexagonal' and 'hexagonal prism'.
Regular pentagons don't tile the plane.
        2) 'Al fil' is Arabic for 'the elephant'. I should know --- I
speak Hebrew, where 'pil' (somewhere between 'peel' and 'pill' in
pronunciation) means elephant, and Hebrew is very closely related to
Arabic.

Ben Reiniger wrote on Sun, Sep 4, 2011 03:54 AM UTC:
While regular pentagons do not tile the plane, some (non-regular) pentagonal tilings have been introduced. (Furthermore, you can regularly tile hyperbolic space with pentagons; I don't think I've seen such a game yet.) One obvious challenge to pentagonal cells (indeed to any cell with an odd number of sides) is that sliders require a somewhat different approach.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Sep 4, 2011 06:54 AM UTC:
'You often say 'pentagonal' or 'pentagonal prism' as a board shape. These should probably be 'hexagonal' and 'hexagonal prism'. Regular pentagons don't tile the plane.'

No, but irregiular ones do - see here. Hexagonal geometries - abbreviated to hex over much of the Chess Variant Pages including Man and Beast, are relatively orthodox and do have long straight lines of radial steps. It is the pentagonal geometries that lack them and therefore have so few straight pieces.

''Al fil' is Arabic for 'the elephant'. I should know --- I speak Hebrew, where 'pil' (somewhere between 'peel' and 'pill' in pronunciation) means elephant, and Hebrew is very closely related to Arabic.'

I considered this fact well enough known among Chess variant enthusiasts not to repeat, but perhaps I should add it to the notes.


💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jan 15, 2012 07:22 AM UTC:
The shortest-range (in terms of perimeters) amphibian radial pieces on each geometry are as follows:
	Square-cell
Ferz+Trebuchet (Frog)
Dabbaba+Trebuchet (Toad)
Elephant+Trebuchet (Newt)
Trebuchet+Cobbler (is this by any chance called Salamander?)
Trebuchet+Commuter
Then come Ferz/Dabbaba/Elephant/Trebuchet/Tripper/Cobbler/Commuter plus Quibbler
	Cubic
Ferz+Trebuchet (Frog)
Viceroy+Trebuchet (currently Trevi, could be renamed)
Dabbaba+Trebuchet (Toad)
Elephant+Trebuchet (Newt)
Eunuch+Trebuchet (currently unnamed, could be renamed)
Viceroy+Tripper (currently Trivium, could be renamed)
Then come Ferz/Dabbaba/Elephant plus Zombie, followed by Trebuchet/Zombie plus Cobbler
	Hex
Viceroy+Dabbaba (currently Vicbaba)
Dabbaba+Trebuchet (Toad)
Viceroy+Cobbler (currently unnamed)
Trebuchet+Cobbler (is this by any chance called Salamander?)
Then come Viceroy/Dabbaba/Eunuch/Trebuchet/Zombie/Cobbler/Corpse plus Quibbler.
	As you can see, cubic ones mount up far quicker than hex ones, so I am inclining to favour cubic over hex for amphibian naming. I also note that pieces like the square-cell Pterodactyl (Tripper+Quitter+Triquibbler), in that being unbound requires all three components, are much shorter-range on cubic boards. The shortest-range hex one is, I think, Eunuch+Skeleton+Biquibbler but the shortest-range cubic one is Dabbaba+Tripper+Zombie.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Jan 18, 2012 06:50 AM UTC:
Currently I am considering a mixture of archaic synonyms for, and more specific kinds of, each already-used amphibian. Names that spring to mind are Bullfrog (specific kind of frog), Eft (old word for newt), Natterjack (specific kind of toad), and Paddick (old word for toad). Any other such names are welcome. Bullfrog would suit Viceroy+Trebuchet, for its similarity to the Frog (on a cubic board), with Unicorn+Trebuchet becoming Minotaur (a name that I am amazed not to have yet used in Man and Beast). Eunuch+Trebuchet has similar parallels to the Newt and so could be Eft. Salire+Trechick and Key+Trechick could follow the Frock/Toke/Nuke pattern with Bulk and Effect. I am not sure what to do with Viceroy+Tripper and Ferz+Zombie yet.
	I am thinking of limiting -bante to twice-coprime components to differentiate extending different components of mixed-non-coprime pieces. For thrice-coprime I would substitute -trante and for still longer leaps -quadrante, -quintante, et cetera, on the basis that riders of such leaps will be rare enough to suit such obscure terms. For example the Toadrider would still be Dabbarider+Treburider, with some destinations covered twice over, but Toadbante would be Dabbarider+Trebuchet and Toadtrante Treburider+Dabbaba. Likewise Newtrider woud be Elephrider+Treburider but Newtbante Elephrider+Trebuchet and Newttrante Treburider+Elephant. One name whose meaning would change would be page 19's Fourbante, which would become Drummrider+Cubbaba+Cobbler rather than Drummrider+Cobblrider+Cubbaba. There would also be a new Fourquadrante, Cobblrider+Cubbaba++Drummer.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Mar 31, 2012 06:23 AM UTC:
Recently I have been considering names for mixed-range part-Hopping radial
pieces. So far I have settled on Rook+Spear=Distaff (female-rôle
counterpart to a spear in theatrical conventions), Bishop+Musket=Vigilante
(modern person taking community action too far), and Arrow+Dabbaba=Dartgun
(gun firing arrowhead-like projectiles). FO names are easy to derive from
all three - Staff, Vigil, and Dart - none of which I have previously used.
	However, I am having real trouble naming Cannon+Elephant. One name
that I considered was Flamethrower, with Flame for the FO version, but the
link to its components was tenuous. In any case there are already several
names starting with Fla- of which Flail is connected (curved Elephrider)
but the rest - Flambeau, Flamen, Flamingo, Flattener - are not. Other
names that I considered as fitting the piece better were Howitzer,
Launcher, Mangonel, and Mortar, but I could not see a way of naming the FO
piece in the same way.
	Any better ideas would be really welcome, with an explanation if
not obvious - but please use the indexes to check that they are not
already in Man and Beast. Ideas for deriving a name for the FO piece from
any of my last four suggestions are also welcome.

💡📝Charles Gilman wrote on Mon, Apr 2, 2012 05:49 AM UTC:
This has been harder than I thought, and a particular irony that the piece
which I have had difficulty naming is the one that is a compound of pieces
from standard games. At one stage I looked to see if the Fil of Alfil was
the start of anything. I nearly thought that I had it with Filibuster,
whose original meaning is a military or nautical adventurer, with Buster
for the FO piece. Unforunately I felt that with Bustler and Butler already
in use, Buster would be too confusing.
	Then I turned to Roget's Thesaurus and looked under weapons, and
was amazed to find something called a Minethrower listed. That would work,
I think, with Mine for the FO piece. There is, it is true, a Miner, but
that refers to mine in another sense of the word, and I do not foresee
much confusion. Before I go ahead with it, however, I would welcome any
thoughts on whether it is the best that I am likely to manage.

Ben Reiniger wrote on Mon, Sep 25, 2023 03:17 AM UTC:

I appear to have the movement diagrams here (and earlier M&B entries) fixed now. There was a further complication to my process on this one: some of the piece names had periods not at the beginning.

The diagram for the Fearless looks out of place, but in a way that I can't imagine was my mistake. Anybody with more patience than I: care to explain why it has the retreating two orthogonal squares?


Bn Em wrote on Mon, Sep 25, 2023 10:27 AM UTC in reply to Ben Reiniger from 03:17 AM:

Per the description as an FO Fearful, the Fearless should have no retreating moves at all. I'd imagine it's a copy‐paste oversight or the like


Danylo Maschenko wrote on Sat, Dec 23, 2023 11:09 AM UTC:

would the plural of Dabbaba be Dabbabae? kind of like nebulae and spatulae


🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Dec 23, 2023 01:04 PM UTC in reply to Danylo Maschenko from 11:09 AM:

No, Dabbaba is from Arabic, not Latin.


Bn Em wrote on Mon, Dec 25, 2023 11:33 PM UTC in reply to Danylo Maschenko from Sat Dec 23 11:09 AM:

The authentic arabic plural of dabbāba is apparently dabbābāt. But English doesn't usually bother preserving Arabic plurals so Dabbabas is perfectly fine and will be more widely understood


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