Ratings & Comments

The Review New Submissions page seems to be skewed towards new submissions now, rather than submissions that have new changes ready for review. This makes approving pages much harder, as you will only see the newest pages rather than the ones that have changes ready for review. Perhaps if the page is sorted by the timestamp of the last action taken on each article this can be rectified without having to worry about the unreliable modification date.

update test

Mitsugumi Shogi seems to be missing. It doesn't have as many problem pieces as its big brother Suzumu Shogi, so it can be added to the list without much trouble. I've also successfully tested a modified NextLeg function, which relieves the AI from having to use cumbersome recursive functions to vet moves for the range capturing pieces, which I will implement in the CVP articles soon.

I think I will implement the following interface for extending the Interactive Diagram with user-supplied scripts:

The user can supply a JavaScript function xxxTinker(m), where xxx is the satellite name for the Diagram (default value: 'piece'), and m is an array describing the move. This array will contain the board coordinates (which always start counting at 0) for the squares involved in the move, the rank number following the file number of each square. The first square (in m[0] and m[1]) will be the origin, the second (m[2] and m[3]) the destination, and after that will come the locust squares in the reverse order as the XBetza description visited them. The element m[-2] will specify how many squares will be altered by the move. (So if there are no locust squares this will be 2: the origin and destination.) After the locust squares can come squares where e.p. rights are generated; these are not counted in m[-2]. It is not specified how many there are of those, and most moves do not have them.

The element m[-1] contains the promotion piece for the move (i.e. the piece that will appear on the destination square), but it might or might not be initialized.

This xxxTinker() funtion can then modify the m array in any way it wants. Likely modifications are altering or supplying a promotion piece in m[-1], or adding locust squares by writing those in the appropriate m[] elements, and increasing m[-2] correspondingly. When it is done tailoring the move, it should return a value to indicate to the standard script what it should do with that move. Possible return valueas ar:

-2 Terminates game immediately, as a win for the player that can do the move (as if the move captured a King).
-1 Terminates the game as a win if the player making it survives the reply of his opponent (as with Shatranj baring).
 0 Take the move as we now prepared it (which could be unaltered).
 1 Discard the move; it is forbidden (e.g. due to zonal confinement, or improper promotion piece).
 2 Suppress deferral of normal Shogi promotion (as per maxPromote and promoOffset).
 3 Take the promotion we specified in m[-1], but also add a move that defers.
 4 Perform a Chess-like promotion. Moves with every possible promotion type will be subjected to xxxTinker(), and can be
   rejected or accepted by it in the normal way (returning 1 or 0).

The value 4 should only be returned when the value of m[-1] was undefined (if(!m[-1])...), to make a move that otherwise would not promote at all offer a Chess-like promotion choice. If m[-1] does have a value > 0 the promotion choice has already been made, and we must only reject or accept it.

SHATRANJ BLOCKADE STALEMATE IN 20 MOVES

Using Zillions, I played out a make-believe game, which ends with the 4 remaining Black Pawns blockaded by 4 White pieces, while a Black King, Chariot, Knight, Counselor, and Elephant are locked in behind the Pawns. Even if the rules allowed Kings to move into check and be captured, Black still has no legal moves in the final position.

NOTE: the initial position had Kings on the d-file. I posted the completely legal game on the Shatranj page way back on [2005-03-08]. Apparently this led to the latest version of Rule [7]. See my previous post for why I am still dubious about the entire rule set.

I'll look into it more deeply hopefully!

I added mention of the pO notation for fast castling to the XBetza section, and dressed up the article with two Interactive Diagrams for exemplifying flexible and fast castling.

I also added mention of the K~b1 notation for unambiguously specifying flexible castlings.

The article is a bit vague about the castling and promotion rules. The choices you made in the FSF settings (O3 castling and no promotion to Prince) seem the logical ones, though.

Anyway, I put in some section headings, and added an Interactive Diagram in the Setup section, playing by these rules.

And you are right: this 'promotion to King' business seems a bit nonsensical: you simply win by reaching the last rank with a Prince, so there is no need to change it for another piece. There is a question, though, whether it is allowed to promote it on a square attacked by the opponent. In the Diagram I programmed it as an immediate win, because the rules explicitly say that you can expose a Prince to capture. But if you would really promote it, it would no longer be a Prince, and you would have exposed the resulting King to capture. So this 'promotion to King' could be just be a roundabout way of saying that this is a delayed winning condition, where you have to survive the opponent's 'after-move' in order to win (like in King of the Hill). But this interpretation is subverted by the mention of the first variant, which uses the resulting King as extinction royalty, so that it could be exposed to capture.

Just for fun

Here is a Fairy-Stockfish variant file that I made for the variant. Despite the E and Elephant symbol, these pieces are still princes (princE). It might not be 100% accurate, but this should be incredibly similar to the actual variant, as there are essentially no differences between promoting the princes to kings to win (by getting them directly to the last rank) or merely getting the princes to the end of the board (the last rank) to win. This variant also has defined castling rules.

[chessii:janus]
startFen = rnbeqkebnr/pppppppppp/10/10/10/10/PPPPPPPPPP/RNBEQKEBNR w KQkq - 0 1
customPiece1 = e:WF
pieceToCharTable = PNBRQ............E...Kpnbrq............e...k
castlingKingsideFile = i
castlingQueensideFile = c
whiteFlag = *8
blackFlag = *1
flagPiece = e
maxFile = 10
archbishop = -
promotionPieceTypes = rnbq

This is meant to be used with https://fairyground.vercel.app/, and should be pasted into a file called variants.ini, before loading the variants.ini file into the website.

I edited my previous comment, in case any missed that.

Bah, I was (sadly) fearing to get such an answer. I take your last sentence straight in my face, thank you. Are you especially angry today?

Not angry at all. But if you suspected this answer could come, there must be some truth in it, right? And don't get me wrong, Shako and Pemba are great games. I count them in the top 10%-tier of all chess variants, because of the good spectrum of piece values and interesting pieces. But that doesn't mean one should make infinite numbers of variations on them, using the same set of pieces over and over again, with minimal variation. Especially since there are already many other variants that use Elephant, Cannon and Vao. At some point that gets boring, and a clone of a great original is still just a clone.

For 8x8 FIDE Chess I use P=1;N=3.49(micro-less than B - normally I say 3.5);single B=3.5;R=5.5;Q=R+B+P=10 and K's fighting value=4(the same as a guard's value, to keep it simple).

With N=3.5, using my own crude, flawed ways of estimating fairy piece values, I get AD (aka Spider)=2.25 on 8x8. Makes sense to me that it would be less than FA (aka Modern Elephant)=3.125 on 8x8 (by my estimate), though H.G. Muller values FA about same as a N on 8x8 if I recall correctly.

I've often slipped in H.G. Muller's rules of thumb for values when all else fails, though I still don't fully trust computer analysis to give reliable piece values for a given board size (e.g. may well depend at least to some extent on what else is on the board, and where exactly it's placed, in the setup used by a given computer study).

You expressed an opinion. H.G. expressed a different opinion, complete with the logic behind it. I don't see anything objectionable here, except possibly the last sentence, and even there I think you are being too sensitive.

You often express strong opinions - sometimes quite forcefully, especially regarding the names of pieces. You also sometimes respond poorly to alternate opinions.

"It seems that an AD is almost exactly worth 1 Pawn less than a Knight..." wrote H. R. Muller on [2012-09-20]. I offer this simple point value system for Shatranj, using the tempo as an abstract unit of value.

Tempo = 1, Pawn = 3, Elephant = 4, Ferz = 5, Knight = 10, Rook = 15.

Did players calculate the advantage of having first move (one tempo) a thousand years ago?. They probably valued different pawns individually: something like two points for a pawn on the a-file and four points for pawn on the d-file. I am inclined to value Alibaba (A+D) = 7 and Commoner (F+W) =12.

While I was born in Halifax (Nova Scotia), I have lived in PEI for the last thirty years.  Played in a bunch of tournaments from 1997 to 2012.  Fred and I were playing at the chess club every week for much of that time.
 
The more I stare at my diagram, the more I want to play a variant with eight Rooks on the board!  But I am restricting myself to simpler games nowadays, like Shatranj. Currently working on (yet another) Shatranj variant.  About to post a Comment on the ALIBABA page in Piececlopedia.

Hi J-L: If you mean my answer, no, not angry at all - though I did just get up from a nap and may not yet be as tactful as I should be.