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csipgs Chess. Design and buy new chess pieces during play. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Matthew Paul wrote on Sun, Apr 11, 2004 10:28 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

One question though, suppose you have a rlRD (Did I get the notation right?), which is worth 4 points. Clearly it is not colourbound, but yet it can't reach all the squares on the chessboard. Would/Should it get a ten percent discount?

John Lawson wrote on Sun, Apr 11, 2004 10:34 PM UTC:

Under 'Orthogonal Atoms', the rules state that the base cost of sideways-only pieces is multiplied by 0.5.

Matthew Paul wrote on Mon, Apr 12, 2004 12:25 AM UTC:

I'm not sure what you mean.

The piece I was thinking of had Dabbabah movement (1.5 z), as well as
sideways rook movement (5.0 x 0.5 = 2.5z).  This gives a value of 4 if I
read the rules correctly.  This is similar to the example of the
forward-only rook having a price 2.5 and being given a ferz move so as to
not waste half a zorkmid.

My question was concerning the fact that the rook-sideways + dabbabah
could only reach every 2nd rank, and therefore only half the squares, but
would not be colourbound.

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Oct 21, 2004 07:10 PM UTC:

What would the cost of an immobile piece be? An example of one would be a Flag, which is immobile but royal.

Anonymous wrote on Thu, Jul 16, 2009 08:31 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

This is great, but I'd advise renaming the currency. Zorkmids were made for Zork, which has precious little to do with chess.

Jeremy wrote on Fri, Mar 25, 2011 03:43 AM UTC:

'Computer programs cannot play this game competently.'

What makes you say that?  If I were going to design an AI for this game,
I'd probably:
1.  Start with something like a FIDE Chess AI
2.  Modify the heuristic for the value of a board position.  Estimate piece
value based on cost, reserve pieces about a tempo less, bank may be
somewhat nonlinear but this doesn't seem scary.
3.  Create a representative library of about 20-50 useful pieces, including
at least 1 using each atom.
4.  For lookahead, you know the pieces purchasable on the current turn;
assume pieces purchasable on future turns are that player's current
designs plus entire library (limited by bank).
5.  Collect some stats from the lookahead to predict the designs you'll
need in the immediate future (AI never builds designs except those in
library).

Branching may be higher than FIDE, enough to weaken the AI, but I would
think it could still play respectably.  You can sandbag the AI if you
invent a piece that is significantly better for the current position than
any piece in its library, but that seems hard, and AI starts considering it
as soon as you design it, which is at least 2 turns before it can attack. 
Am I missing something?

sirius628 wrote on Thu, Aug 31, 2017 11:34 PM UTC:

I would consider adding a (3,2) leaper as well as a lame modifier.

Jerdle wrote on Tue, Dec 18, 2018 08:39 PM UTC:

The royal fmG isn't 2 zorkmids at all, it's actually 3.

So it's no cheaper than a royal fmGbmD, which fixes the problem of just having a royal fmG.

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