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The Travelers. Missing description (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]looks very interesting, i can't imagine how it would play, very unusual, are you planning a zrf?
OH, what a mistake!, thanks Michael, I´ll try another names for these pieces. Christine: I am planning a ZRF, and for it I have to imagine a good manner to implement the Traveler movement, I have had some troubles with the command 'attacked?' in other opportunities in which there are different piece movements, and I doubt it works well here, more considering the Displacers (a Traveler is not 'in check' if it can be 'displaced'). Suggestions?. I´ll be happy with all possible help for the ZRF. Answering Michael: Is this game a Chess variant?. I have also my doubts, but the 'check' concept is used here, although in a different way. If you allow the Travelers to be capturable, and add a new rule for a victory: 'You can also win the game if you capture both enemy Travelers before they reach the last rank', and change the original first objective saying: 'You win the game when all your remaining Travelers reach the last rank', the game should be considered a Chess variant, being the Travelers the royal pieces, but it adds much more complexity to the game play, and it is enough as is, so I am not very tempted to change the original rules, even if the game is not clearly considered a Chess variant. As for now, the game play is very interesting, as I have tested, it seems that Travelers must advance hightly protected, and exchange of pieces are not trivial, and the piece values are definitely relative to positions: it makes not sense an 'approximate generic value' of each piece in this game, but I have not doubts about Displacers: they are very powerful pieces, more than any other. A good sequence of exchanges and displacements can be decisive sometimes, but the end can come in a few moves and you can lose after a 'material-oriented' although bad sequence of exchanges, and sacrifices seem to be very common in the ends of game. Yes, the game play is very unusual, I believe unique, and it needs training.
Updated, changing some pieces names. I would appretiate opinions about the rules for victory: Adding the 'capture both Travelers or reach the last rank with the remaining Travelers' rule, the game is clearly a Chess variant, but I´m afraid it would be more complex. Nevertheless, I can try some tests. It would be also good a Preset in Courier (for tests, out of 'rating statistics', please, or it is not going to be useful enough for the purposes).
well i think i like the original, that is as you say, more complex, i
don't think you should worry if it is a 'chess variant' or not, i
rather like the idea of it not being a chess variant actually.
i mean, the pieces are very 'chessy' anyway, it just doesn't have the
'mate' or 'capture king' rule.
you can always try 2 variants if this is a 'worry' to you.
updated--> oh wait, now it is more complex? i really would need to play
this game .. anyway, still, i did like the idea of winning by getting
both travellers to end of board, but i can't be sure without playing.
regardless, it all sounds interesting, good etc.
Christine, I´ll prepare a Preset, perhaps tomorrow or on Sunday. If you want we can test the game the next week, with its original rules, playing a couple of simultaneous games out of 'rating'. I don´t expect we are going to play inmortal games of extreme beauty and precision, but at least we can test it with some detail. 'Taking back the last move' is going to be permissed, of course, as commented analysis of possible moves by both bands.
ok i got a problem. Fergus if you are there, Roberto and i are going to start soon a couple of 'traveler' games with game courier, but the first 2 invites he sent, he didn't click on 'unrated' (these games should be unrated we think, seeing we are allowing 'back moves', and basically we just want to test this game etc) anyway, roberto told me to accept invites and then delete logs, as he has sent me 2 new invites, but now i get this line, when i try to view game logs .. Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/chessva/public_html/play/pbmlogs/the_travelers/rlavieri2003-zcherryz -2006-21-502.php on line 9 so i can't see any logs or anything to do with current on going games with game courier at the moment.
Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Jan 24, 2006 12:59 AM UTC:Hello Fergus or whomever. I have just gotten exactly the same error as Christine, when I clicked on the 'Last Game Courier move made ...' button on the 'What's New' page, down to the exact wording.
looks like it's pretty obvious who broke it, doesn't it Joe :)
Christine, I have deleted all the logs of The Travelers games with you and Roberto, because they were disrupting the logs page. The problem seems to have been caused by a space after your userid. All the log filenames had a space after zcherryz, and the line that was breaking the logs page read
$zcherryz _colors = '597ABA AAAABB ';
I don't think I have done anything recently that would have caused this, but I'll look into it if it happens again with someone else. My best guess is that you or Roberto accidently typed your userid with an extra space at the end. When I'm not as tired, I'll add some code for trimming whitespace off of userid input.
ok, well i wasn't ready to begin playing till end of this week anyway, Roberto, we should wait a bit then. as soon as i type 'z' the auto 'zcherryz' comes up, and it has no space after it, so i don't think prob came from my end .. we'll see what happens soon, maybe let us know when to try. thanks Fergus
I´m guilty, I remember I have typed the blank after 'zcherryz' considering it can´t cause any effect. Sorry.
ok well we got 1 game going with you as white, now to get the other going. what do you do (anyone?) if you accepted a game to play as white, but before you made a move, an 'earthquake' came along, so you closed the window. now i can't see how to make a move, clicking on email says takes me to a page that says i have accepted etc (my 2nd game with Roberto) * i can see that it says you can log on with your userid, and access your games to make a move, but when i do that, i still can't see how you can do that.
Christine, after you log on with your userid and password: bring up the game by clicking on your name and then look for a 'continue' button on the page.
wow this game is stunning. it's hard to find words to describe properley, but, it really is unbelievable, a work of art. apart from the 'displacer', all the pieces move fairly simply. But the gameplay is far from simple, it is extremely complex, rich in depth. Beautiful game. Roberto and i are playing 2 games on game courier for anyone interested in checking it out. It would a major disappointment if this game does not make it's way to zillions.
checking out the Travellers. Sounds very interesting. however bit confused by 'A Trey can capture a piece at distance exactly 3 in the eight directions, regardless there are or not intermediate pieces in the path.' Does that mean there can be pieces between the trey's initial square and the target piece 3 spaces away ? In other words can it jump other pieces ?
Trey captures and moves differently, a divergent chess piece like OrthoChess Pawn or pieces in Divergent Chess. Moving, Trey is restricted Queen up to three spaces. Captured by leaping if necessary, Trey's victim must be three away diagonally or orthogonally. Read Deuce in Lavieri's write-up for full easy comprehension and grasp of the parallels among Trey, Deuce, and Ace. Roberto Lavieri's recent emails to me include(some order rearranged): ''There is a new redistribution of incomes, old economic Pyramid is changing its shape, turning into a Cylinder every day less high. Rich people and economic sectors are in war, a real War against Chavez. They are trying as they can to stop the project. (I'm not a great Chavez fan.)'' Also ''New environmental laws are very strong, democracy more and more participative at municipal and local for now. Ecology is strongly protected: social aspects CAN'T be apologies for damages to environment. First is the guarantee for existence itself and second the way of existing...without ecology there is not economy.'' So Lavieri, absorbed in revolutionary changes in native Venezuela and South America generally, is doing fine, just not so interested in Chess right now.
Well, I´ve been out of scene for a few months, and it is possible I´m not going to be a very frequent visitor of TCVP for a while. Some serious health problems are the main factor (serious, really, but I´m still alive, and I hope so for a long time). There are some other factors, including seeking what is going on now in my country, Venezuela. I have wrote a few e-mails (in response to others sent to me by to G.W.Duke), explaining some aspects of my health and also some aspects of Venezuela´s current proccess, and my point of view about it´s balance, the good and the bad things, from my optics (in figurative sense, my vision is far from good, as some of you know). I am going to come to this pages once in a while, friends, to see what is happening here. Greetings.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jan 17, 2008 01:49 AM UTC:Hello, Roberto. It is very good to see you back. Some of us have been concerned at your long absence. Sorry that you are still ill, hope you get your health problems solved quickly. And may all your other concerns work out well for everyone. Heck, I suppose this means far fewer of your fine designs. Maybe you'll manage something, though. Hope you enjoy your visits, and get here more often than you expect. Enjoy! Joe [Edit]ps: CBJ and I posted a variant you and I had discussed in passing, HyperModern Shatranj, with your 2-square queen preference.
Hello Roberto, Can a displacer displace more than one piece a turn if it lands adjacent to two enemy pieces? Thanks -Neil
No, a Displacer can´t displace more than one piece a turn
Hello, again, Roberto. The rules do not specifically state this, so I just wanted to confirm. Can the deuce and trey capture OVER a blocker? For instance, two enemy deuces are sandwiching a blocker, can they capture each other?
Yes, blockers are invisible (and only) for capturing purposes
There is a nice implementation of this game and you can download it from this site, but you need to have zillions of games installed on your computer. the zrf plays very decently, I can even say it is moderately strong. The program implementation was not easy, Antoine Fourriere and Larry L. Smith helped me with parts of the code and after the first release I improved the game play of the program with some elaborated tricks. If you have ZOG, try The Travelers, it is a deep, refreshing and magic game. Perhaps it´s not exactly a Chess variant, but at least it´s very close to be.
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