Comments by Todor Tchervenkov

Every game should be played by people that master the rules in order to
reach a theoretical depth. It's not serious to have discussion on rules -
this doesn't serve any purpose.

It's impossible to find some real game theory on Ultima in the Internet.
How about having it here, at the chessvariants pages? If there are any
experienced players around, perphaps they would like to gather
observations just in one place?

Hi! I was exploring Rococo's ZRF, I found many divergences between what I
was expected to be correct and what does Zillions do.
Now I have many questions to any one concerned with Rococo:
1) wether the Chameleon could swap with the Swapper, jumping over any Long
leaper;
2) wether the Chameleon could swap and capture any Withdrawer or
Advancer;
3) wether a Pawn that's already on the 9th rank could promote by moving
sidewards (it's clear it could not go to the 10th rank);
4) wether a piece on the outer ring could 'commit suicide' (i.e. - does
this count as capturing?).

I will appreciate having authors' opinion.

Thanks a lot.

Hi all, fans of ultima!

Here is the only site, as I know, which gives you the possibility to play ultima on-line in real time: http://adage-studio.com:8080/universal. Rules as the official rules, as published first by Abbott. You have to register in order to play. There are also two other ultima-like games: Rococo and Supremo.

I wish know whether you like the site. Suggestions are welcome.

I played this game with a human opponent as well as against the computer. I find it to be excellent for fun, probably not perfectly balanced but what game is perfectly balanced, after all?

However, sometimes the game gets stucked: it is possible to block both Cleopatras in such a way no one can win. I suggest the following change to the rules: if for N moves no piece is flipped, the game is drawn. This rule is alike of Chess rule about no pawn move in 50 moves. For Cleopatra chess I think 50 is too much. 10 or 20 should be a good idea.

I knew the rules of Shatranj for a few years but had never attempted an actual game. But these days I'm again delving into historic Chess variants. My primary goal is to find a few sample games of Shatranj which would hopefully let me understand why the game was appreciated (for me it is just impossible to play it: I fill lost when I open it in Zillions, I don't know where to go, what short term goals to pursue).

While searching for sample games, I discovered the astonishing lack of historic recorded games of Shatranj. I found but two, dating back to the Xth century. It turns out that apparently Shatranj was never played from the initial setup. Players would agree on a standartized position -- which could be called an opening in modern terms -- and would use it as actual setup. I found sixteen examples of such openings but without an analysis of their strengths and weakness it is still difficult to use them. One can still admire their poetic names.

In my opinion, we see Shatranj as a poor, uninteresting game just because we don't know enough about it. It would be so nice if somebody could provide us with the analysis of As-Suli, mentioned by George Duke back in 2008 in the first comment to this page. Perhaps more knowledge of the actual way this game was played would allow us to better appreciate it, since initial setup, piece movement and winning conditions don't seem to be enough?

Would it be possible to provide a rule enforcing preset that begins with the "rational" setup with all Pawns on the second rank?