Comments by ChessShogi

I have moved the standard piece values to the Notes option as an additional variant to make it clearer which value set you are using.

red square. The checker pieces have to make a complete tour of the board. Their

I have removed the underlined sentence, as it doesn't really say anything.

• At least four checker pieces per player make a complete tour

I probably should have touched on this earlier, but I think this rule seems like another random addition. However, I do think it can work with the right tweaks.

First, the checkers should ideally have two sides, like with some checker sets that use a star for a Checker King. That way, you can flip the checker (or "promote" it, so to speak) when it makes a complete tour around the board.

Second, if a promoted checker gets captured, it would make more sense to keep it promoted, since otherwise, this condition is too unlikely to happen.

In that case, the two sided checkers would still be helpful, as they tell you which checkers are out of the game, by having the checkers that have completed the tour have one side up, and all other checkers having the other side up.

I am mostly referring to the physical game.

My reasoning is that if the two sides are indistinguishable, or there is no other way to tell which checkers have made a complete tour, then a player could easily mistake a checker which made a complete tour for one that had not and bring said checker back into the game.

Resegnation is a fact of life that cannot be prevented by any rules. The best rules can do is put a sanction on doing it, and the worst imaginable sanction is an individual game is that you would lose. Which is exactly the idea, and thus has zero value as a deterrent. You will have to find a better solution for when one of the palyers forfeits (e.g. loses on time because he simply walked away).

I have edited the resignation rule to remove the constraint on resignation.

Resegnation is a fact of life that cannot be prevented by any rules. The best rules can do is put a sanction on doing it, and the worst imaginable sanction is an individual game is that you would lose. Which is exactly the idea, and thus has zero value as a deterrent. You will have to find a better solution for when one of the palyers forfeits (e.g. loses on time because he simply walked away).

I have edited the resignation rule to remove the constraint on resignation.

They are stored in

/home/chessvariants/public_html/play/pbm/sets/

Thanks.

Do you know how to use SCP or SFTP?

Do you still have the passwords I sent you by email?

I have not used either SCP or SFTP before, but I should be able to figure out how to use WinSCP.

I still have the passwords you sent me. I figured out pretty quickly that it was best to save the email.

Edit: I have updated the set files, and now know the basics for uploading via WinSCP.

@François Houdebert,

I saw your Jocly implementation for Chu Seireigi. It works much better than it used to.

I went through and tested everything, and here is a comprehensive list of all known errors that I found:

-------------------------------
Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
-------------------------------

Ram's-Head Soldier and Prancing Stag are not forced to promote when reaching the last rank (these pieces must promote on last rank)

Strong Bear (Starting and Promoted) still has its old move (should move one square diagonally or sideways)

Whale is missing its forward orthogonal step

Flying Swallow is not forced to promote when reaching the last two ranks (this piece must promote on last two ranks)

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps, Black Golden Bird is missing its (1,-2) leap from White's perspective

Kirin promotes to Lion (should promote to Bishop) and White Kirin moves has extra (2,2) leap in all directions (should move as in Chu Shogi)

Phoenix promotes to Queen (should promote to Rook)

-------------------------------
Board Setup Errors
-------------------------------

There currently aren't enough spaces in the hand to accommodate all the droppable piece types (there are 19 in total). You will need a second column of hand spaces on each side to account for this.

Black Running Leopard and Black Running Wolf are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup.

Thanks. Hopefully we can also upload your implementations of Hectochess and Seireigi to the site soon.

I have tested the new moves and will update you on bugs to be fixed. Here are the errors I found as of the writing of this comment.

-------------------------------
Piece Movement/Promotion Errors
-------------------------------

Whale is missing its backward slide

White Golden Bird is missing its sideways orthogonal leaps

For some reason Flying Swallows that are dropped from the hand (not the ones present initially) have their move reversed

-------------------------------

As for the trouble with the hand spaces, maybe ask H. G. Muller about that? He is the one who made the original model if I remember correctly. It shouldn't be that hard for him to figure something out.

As far as I can tell, you should only need a second column of hand spaces on each side, but of course, it's probably not as simple as I am making it out to be.

Looks like you fixed everything, save for the hand spaces of course, but I won't bother you on that too much until you are ready to test the solution.

I would at least like the ones for Hectochess and Seireigi. Ideally, the files should be placed in such a way so that I know which files go where.

You may include Chu Seireigi if you wish, but I am doing one last update to make it easier to defend against a Lion:

• Renaming Prancing Stag to Running Rabbit (fBfR), which promotes to Prancing Stag (fBsRvW)
• Strong Bear moving the same as Chu Shogi Drunk Elephant

I had your Jocly implementation play out several games, and even though it played rather poorly (for obvious reasons), it was clear that there needed to be more defense.

P. S. I'm surprised you changed the Whale's symbol to a trident. I guess it makes sense if you take into account Greek mythology. I think the whale tail symbol you used before would look more accurate, but it really comes down to personal preference here.

I actually found a better replacement for the Old Kite with the Running Rabbit (fBfR).

Thankfully, this is the last time I will need to make any changes.

Here are all the errors I found in your draft:

Piece Movement/Promotion/Drop Errors

Old Kite should be replaced with Running Rabbit, which slides in any forward direction (fBfR)

For Pawn, Lance, Ram's-Head Soldier, Running Rabbit (currently Old Kite), Knight, Flying Swallow, White's promotion is always forced, while Black's promotion is never forced

When captured, White Kirin is not being placed in Black's hand

Board Setup Errors

White King and White Great Elephant are swapped from where they should be in the initial setup.

Other

The grid seems a little off, but you probably already knew that.