Ratings & Comments

This (and the original Heroes) are some of my favorite variants. The hexagonal board allows, or even suggests, different kinds of pieces than square grids. Instead of relying on the orthogonal/diagonal distinction, we can have, coherently, pieces that all move on the same lines but have other differences.

There are some things that are questionable about this variant. There could have been two camels and two guards instead of one and three; and the camel could have some extra ability to differentiate it from the chariot. I also wonder if Heroes 1's hole in the center might make for more interesting gameplay than the full board found here.

It would be nice if all the diagrams used the proper board size. Was there some consideration of using a 127 hex board? I also found the pawn description hard to interpret regarding the ability of the pawns to move to the side without capturing. I had to look at the sample game to be sure that was intended.

Still, this is a great idea!

Macro Makruks

ifmnD doesn't seem to work.

Edit: My bad.

ifmnD doesn't seem to work.

I think this was already fixed; try refreshing the browser cache.

I was thinking today about how ratings and favorites would work for collections, like this one. These are rare enough (probably only I do them), so that they do not need anything special I am thinking. The way I'd see it, the users who want to review these games just say things about all variants and maybe give the average grade for the games. And if you like most of these games you can put them on favorites. One behavior I'd encourage though is to treat the collection as a hexathlone, like and track and field. Is that a good idea?

HaruN Y, thanks so much for the info. You have indeed listed pieces I couldn't find games for, I'll have to add here and then add to the zrf which is ready to upload, well, it was ready, before you posted, lol. I still need also to check the info Bob Greenwade gave me the other day too, just been unexpectedly busy last few days.

HaruN Y, with your games you listed, I think a couple of them I couldn't find, anyways, I'll check it all out more deeply and if I have any questions, which I will, I'll ask you, thanks again to you both.

I figured out what was wrong. The problem was that if a shock piece (whose capture grants an extra turn) had a move stopping on its starting square, that would set kind |= 64, and then the code would fritz out due to this being done on the moving piece.

Remember Raichu Shogi (the Chu Shogi equivalent of Shock Chess)? When I set the Lion's move to KNScaK (as it is set to now), the diagram works perfectly, but if I introduce even a single move that stops on the starting square, it fritzes out. The diagram at the link uses a custom script for forcing the turn pass.

I can't think of any reason to think that a move to the starting square from a shock piece should trigger a forced turn pass (except when it captures another shock piece of course), except when an unloaded shock piece gets placed there, and the moving piece then lands on the starting square, capturing said piece after it is placed on the starting square. But of course it would always be more efficient in such cases to simply capture the shock piece without moving. So unless there is something I am missing, I think all we need to do to fix this is make sure the code doesn't set kind |= 64 when looking at the starting square.

Spider Rider Chess on Game Courier.

Way back on March 8, 2005 I posted a Zillions file for a Shatranj game ending in a blockade stalemate after twenty moves. Four days ago I posted a seventeen move blockade stalemate on the (standard) CHESS page. It now looks like sixteen moves is the shortest possible Shatranj example. H. G. Muller has posted an applet in the Shatranj Comments (May 3, 2021). Clicking "Play it!" and copypasting the game below will show all the moves.

1. a3 a6 2. Nc3 a5 3. Be3 a4 4. Ra2 Ra6 5. Kc1 Rf6 6. Kb1 Rxf2 7. Ka1 Rxg2 8. Nf3 Rxh2 9. Qf2 Rxf2 10. Bh3 Rxf3 11. Rb1 Rxh3 12. Bc1 Nf6 13. d3 Rxd3 14. Ne4 Nxe4 15. c3 Rxc3 16. e3 Rb3 stalemate victory for Black.

Note that it is possible to pre-load an Interactive Diagram with a game, through the parameter moveList. This would save the reader the trouble of copy-pasting the game into the Diagram.

So a Shatranj Diagram with the extra line

moveList=1. a3 a6 2. Nc3 a5 3. Be3 a4 4. Ra2 Ra6 5. Kc1 Rf6 6. Kb1 Rxf2 7. Ka1 Rxg2 8. Nf3 Rxh2 9. Qf2 Rxf2 10. Bh3 Rxf3 11. Rb1 Rxh3 12. Bc1 Nf6 13. d3 Rxd3 14. Ne4 Nxe4 15. c3 Rxc3 16. e3 Rb3

would enable the reader to start navigating through the game immediately, by using the button bar in the AI panel opened by the Play It! link. Like below:

potential unforseen consequence of this rule: making it harder to checkmate in the middlegame with the queen (now general)

in regular chess, it usually doesnt matter if a queen is protected as you should not expose it to capture either way... however you are perfectly content to "expose" a protected queen to capture by the enemy king as the king cant capture it

in this variant, you are not content to expose the general to the enemy king, as the enemy king can just igui

the queen is often directly adjacent to the king in middlegame checkmates, but a general would often just be captured in that situation

Moose Pawn appeared in Universal Chess-170-17.

Rex Exclusive Shock Chess960