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Comments by arx

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Tamerlane II. Modern variant based upon ancient large chess variant. (11x11, Cells: 121) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sat, Mar 13, 2021 03:17 PM EST:

Is the King permitted to switch places with a Queen or only with an unpromoted Prince?


Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Mar 23, 2021 01:47 AM EDT:

In this private log my opponent tried to move but got an error saying the log backup failed https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Tiger+Chess&log=arx-agroden-2021-51-783


Game Courier History. History of the Chess Variants Game Courier PBM system.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Mar 26, 2021 06:24 PM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from 05:34 PM:

Maybe themes should be shared among all games that use the same piece set and geometry


Chu Shogi. Historic Japanese favorite, featuring a multi-capturing Lion.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Apr 7, 2021 12:43 PM EDT:

I'm having a problem with this preset where, when viewed from the second player's perspective, all the pieces but the kings are shown as black circles.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Apr 7, 2021 04:49 PM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:26 PM:

thank you!


slide-then-step moves[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Apr 12, 2021 10:09 AM EDT in reply to Greg Strong from 09:43 AM:

Renniassance Chess has pieces that can do either


Apothecary Chess Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sun, Apr 25, 2021 05:10 PM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from 04:02 AM:

I have


Grande Acedrex. A large variant from 13th century Europe. (12x12, Cells: 144) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sun, Jun 13, 2021 08:56 PM EDT:Excellent ★★★★★

I wish this game were more popular. It seems like an excellent design. The piece selection seems strange at first but after thinking about it I can see the beauty of it.

I imagine the aanca could have originated as an enhanced ferz, to go with the bigger board. Then the knights could have become unicorns by gaining a diagonal slide after their leap to complement the aanca. The crocodile is a fairly obvious addition. The giraffe and Lion both make knight-like leaps, suitable for the large board, and the Lion includes and extra 3,0 leap which removes it's color binding and forms a nice looking pattern.

The result of all that is eight pieces with a nice range of power and an aesthetically consistent set of moves. There are all of the 2,1 3,1 and 3,2 leaping moves, the rook and bishop moves, and bent rook and bishop moves (unicorn and aanca). The leaping pieces are differentiated in power by some of them having additional movements, but they don't ever feel like arbitrary combinations.

The initial setup is also elegant. The Pawns start as far apart as they do on the 8x8 board, and the pieces are all on the back rank. The promotion rule fits well with this setup and is another great innovation.

I think the main weak points, if there are any, would be the pawns and the king's leap. It seems unlikely that the king would benefit much from a 2 square leap on such a big board with so much empty space; and perhaps modern pawns would be better. But overall this variant appears to be carefully designed.


ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sun, Jun 27, 2021 07:29 PM EDT:

I'm trying to describe Expanded Chess for ChessV but I'm having trouble with the Osprey. I used this:

AddPieceType( "Osprey", "O", 500, 500, "Bird");
Osprey.XBetza = "DmpafyafsW;

but apparently everything before the y in the xbetza description is ignored, so it's interpreted as equivalent to DyafsW. Is that intended, and is there another way to describe that piece for ChessV?


Game Courier. PHP script for playing Chess variants online.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Jul 7, 2021 07:15 PM EDT:

When trying to move the war machine in Atlantean Coffee House Shatranj I get this error:

ILLEGAL: .DW f3-e3 on turn 1:

The move MOVE: .DW f3-e3 is not well-formed.

Betza notation (extended). The powerful XBetza extension to Betza's funny notation.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Aug 9, 2021 06:01 PM EDT:

Does XBetza allow defining pieces that capture by stopping in the square just before the captured piece?

Also, somewhat related to that, I was thinking there are a lot of potential pieces that could be defined if it were possible to specify different priority levels for movement options, such that a piece must make the highest priority kind of move available. For example, there might be a piece that moves as a queen, but can only make a non-capturing move if it has no available captures.

Another question I have is, does 0 have any meaning when used as a piece's range? If not, perhaps it could be used to indicate that a piece must move as far as possible in whichever direction it goes.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Aug 11, 2021 01:35 AM EDT:

What about using numbers after lowercase letters to indicate separate meanings? It might look weird, but it would allow using any letter any number of times.


Hex Shogi 91. A hexagonal Shogi variant on a 91-space board. (Cells: 91) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Aug 17, 2021 08:03 PM EDT:Excellent ★★★★★

I've only played this once, but it feels right somehow. The hexagonal board, oriented horizontally like this, gives a distinct chess experience that square boards generally lack. It feels more natural than square shogi to me.


About Game Courier. Web-based system for playing many different variants by email or in real-time.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sun, Oct 3, 2021 12:42 AM EDT:

Whenever I try to open any of my current games I get one of these errors

The == operator requires two non-null arguments.

or

The join operator requires two non-null arguments.

Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Oct 4, 2021 03:31 PM EDT in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 03:12 PM:

I can't either, so it's not just you.


MPsuzumu-shogi[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Oct 4, 2021 05:06 PM EDT:

I'm trying to play this game, but whenever I push 'confirm' for my first move, it never seems to finish


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Oct 4, 2021 11:44 PM EDT in reply to Fergus Duniho from 10:23 PM:

Thanks, I didn't even think to try a different view


ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Oct 5, 2021 04:52 PM EDT:

I'm trying to test a game with ChessV, and I get an error saying "Not enough Zobrist keys" when I try to start it. What does it mean?


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Oct 6, 2021 02:40 PM EDT in reply to Greg Strong from 11:31 AM:

I am, unfortunately. I have 144 squares and 21 piece types. What is the limit?


2.Manticore and 2. Griffin ?[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Oct 12, 2021 09:48 PM EDT in reply to Bn Em from 08:11 PM:

I agree that a piece that changes direction after 3 steps could be awkward to visualize. It would be worse, though, if the first step were a jump to the third square, because with a sliding move, you can easily see if a nearby piece blocks the movement.


ChessVA computer program
. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Fri, Oct 15, 2021 07:10 PM EDT:

I think I found another problem. I've tried giving a piece the xbetza move pB, but even though it can only move by jumping, it can still capture like a bishop.

Also, I have a question about promotion rules. Is it possible to have pieces promote only when making a capture in a certain area of the board, and only if the promoting player has no pieces on the board of the type being promoted to?


Please teach me how to type < W > (Without space)[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Sun, Oct 24, 2021 01:30 AM EDT in reply to You-Ting Chu from 12:14 AM:

<This> seems to work in WYSIWYG, and also in markdown if you do <this\>

It seems like you can also use &lt; and &gt;


Grand Apothecary Chess-Classic. Very large Board variant obtained trough tinkering with known games.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2021 04:21 PM EDT in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 03:11 PM:

The extended betza notation is explained here. The "fs" is understood as specifying a direction relative to the initial step, so it indicates that the gryphon moves, after the first step, forward and sideways relative to the direction it first moves. It is a more complex notation, but it allows for more possibilities.

I notice here that the knight's move in the rules is different from that in the interactive diagram. Which one is correct?


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Oct 26, 2021 01:48 PM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from 11:23 AM:

About the colors, have you considered something more like this?


Apothecary Chess Tournament[Subject Thread] [Add Response]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Thu, Oct 28, 2021 01:26 AM EDT in reply to Aurelian Florea from Wed Oct 27 07:56 AM:

Thanks for running the tournament!


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