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Rithmomachia Information. Information on Rithmomachia. (16x8, Cells: 128) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Randy L Vinecore wrote on Tue, Oct 15, 2002 05:42 PM UTC:
Please see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rithmomachia/

William Overington wrote on Mon, Oct 7, 2002 06:18 PM UTC:
I have managed to make some progress with the board and pieces and have
placed some notes and some pictures in a thread in the forum.

William Overington wrote on Mon, Oct 7, 2002 06:49 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Thank you for the information.

I'll have a first try to find out if I can get the images to come out
straightforwardly.

I shall try to make them the same size as the chess diagram symbols used
in this site with the same colours for a 'black' square and for a 'white'
square that are used in those diagrams.

I have it in mind to make the pieces literally solid black and white then
to place the numbers upon them in whatever colours seem to work, such as
the board square colours, though that might not be possible as the 'black'
square colour may not show up well against the white pieces: and in any
case it might make the pieces look as if they have holes cut through them.
 I will try to avoid making the figures either black or white as I feel
that that might lead to confusion over which pieces are black and which
pieces are white.

I will use Microsoft Paint to draw the pieces and try to use the 'full
stop lock and key' method described in one of my articles on
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo to align the numbers.  I am thinking
of preparing each number on two lines using Microsoft WordPad set for
centred text, the first of the two lines containing the number and the
second of the two lines containing just a full stop.  That will mean that
1 digit, 2 digit and 3 digit numbers can all be centred consistently.  I
have the Old English Text font so I shall have a look at using that for
the numbers first of all, but will abandon that idea if it looks wrong.

However, when producing gif files I will save the bmp from Microsoft Paint
and produce the gif files using Paint Shop Pro using an Optimized Octree
colour transformation to produce the palette for the gif file as, for gifs
using less than 256 colours, which these will be, the Octimized Octree
method keeps the original colours exactly.

My immediate design concern is how to get the big numbers onto the
triangular pieces and also keep the numbers the same size on all pieces
and keep it all legible on the screen!  An interesting challenge!

Thank you for your offer to help produce the pieces.

Dan Troyka wrote on Mon, Oct 7, 2002 03:31 AM UTC:
<html> <body> <p>The images should be straightforward.  The board is 8x16 and consists of two stacked chess boards (dark square bottom left).  All but two of the piece images consist of a circle, triangle, or square with a number inscribed on it.  One side is Black and the other is White although the game manual is specific that any two contrasting colors is acceptable.   The one piece that might present a challenge is the Pyramid/King, which consists of a stack of several pieces.  It is necessary for both the total number (91 or 190) as well as each composite number to be visible.  </p> <p>To see the pieces follow this <a href='http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Rithmomachia.html'>link</a> to the Game Cabinet's description of the rules from a game manual published in 1556 by Claude de Boissière.  All the pieces listed on this page are used in the 1563 Lever and Fulke manual although they are arranged slightly differently.  Basically you can rely on the Boissière array except that in the 1563 version only four empty rows separate the player's forces, with two empty rows behind each player's pieces, and the first row of Rounds (i.e., Circles) is centered for each player. </p> <p>I can help out on this if you'd like.  I'm planning to make a Zillions board for recording games and will have to create some images for that purpose anyway.</p> </body> </html>

William Overington wrote on Sun, Oct 6, 2002 10:06 AM UTC:
I have just realized that my posting of yesterday about Rithmomachia has
not got my name on it!  My mistake, sorry!

William Overington wrote on Sun, Oct 6, 2002 10:02 AM UTC:
I wonder if a new forum for Rithmomachia could be considered for inclusion
within the forum section please.

Anonymous wrote on Sat, Oct 5, 2002 08:07 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Thank you for your comments.

I have very little knowledge of the game at present and have no ideas of
my own on which rules to use.  I do like historical authenticity so I find
your suggestion of using rules from 1563 highly attractive.

While there may be other historical sources, the study of which may well
be of great interest as time goes by, I feel that it would be a good idea
to have the 1563 game manual which you suggest as the rules for a first
game (and maybe for others later) so as to get a game started.  As it is a
fun game if a situation arises which those rules do not cover then
research on other historical sets of rules could follow to try to resolve
the situation, that being all part of the learning fun.

So, to set the process going, could you please say which pieces are needed
for black and which pieces are needed for white and whether play is on a
plain board or on a chequered board, so that I can start the process of
making some gif files for diagrams.

Dan Troyka wrote on Fri, Oct 4, 2002 08:56 PM UTC:
That strikes me as a good idea. I've been wanting to explore the game for many years but have always managed to put it off. What rules would you propose using? I have Moyer's book which contains a reproduction of a 1563 game manual and there are various rule sets available on the web. I would go with the Moyer reproduction because it is indisputably authentic, unless someone has access to other original sources.

William Overington wrote on Fri, Oct 4, 2002 06:04 PM UTC:
I first learned of the existence of rithmomachia from the book Discovering
Old Board Games by R. Bell.

Is rithmomachia an on-topic subject for this site?

If so, could we possibly organize some sort of game in the forum between
two teams whereby the teams publicly discuss which move to make before
making each move?  This might not end up as too competitive as each team
would know the other team's game plan!  :-)  So, it would all be for fun
with a view to those people who are interested having the opportunity to
participate in a rithmomachia game.  The teams can each be as large as
half the total number of people wanting to take part in the game!  The
game might go on for weeks or even months.  Perhaps some sort of clock
could be used so that the total time taken for deliberation by each team
could be monitored.

Perhaps some web pages could be devised, with some special gif files made
up so as to display the diagrams, made to be size and colour compatible
with the chess symbols used in this website already.  I would be willing
to participate in making the gif files.  The Microsoft Paint program would
be sufficient to make the designs, though I might possibly need to convert
the bmp files to gifs using Paint Shop Pro so as to avoid colour
distortion as that can sometimes be a problem when saving to gif format
using Paint.

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