[ List Earliest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]
Comments by FergusDuniho
King Battler. King usually moves as a queen.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Contest to design a chess variant on 43 squares. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I would like to request an extention of the deadline for round one. I did not do any evaluating of games this past week, because I was busy preparing for my Summer course, and that course is going to eat up the time I have available in June. I would like to take adequate time to evaluate the games once I have some time to do it, but if the deadline remains what it is, I expect I'll have to offer rankings of the games without taking the time to play them.
Asteryx Chess. Hexagonal chess played on an asterisk-shaped board. (Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Looking over this game, it appears that the King is weaker than the usual hexagonal chess King, and the Queen is stronger than the usual hexagonal chess Queen. The result is that the Queen can checkmate a King without any assistance from another piece.It also seems very capable of forcing checkmate. Although I haven't played the game, I suspect that the Queen is too powerful.
Equihopper. Jumps across a piece in any direction with the same distance before and after the hurdle. Cannot jump additional pieces on strai.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]The description of this piece needs clarification. It says that the piece may move in <i>any</i> direction, but the diagram only illustrates movement in diagonal, orthogonal, and hippogonal directions. What about other directions, such as zebragonal or camelgonal? Can an Equihopper really move in any direction, or is it limited to directions the regular Chess pieces can move?
Fleap. Pieces move as equihoppers, but become FIDE pieces after being captured. (5x9, Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Since the movement of the Equihopper needs clarification, so do the rules of this game. How is this piece intended to move in this game?
Hex Shogi. A new family of hexagonal Shogi variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I normally use first names here and dispense with titles. It is Gilman who likes to use last names. I do plan to update my ZRFs for Hex Shogi and other Shogi style games when I have the time. But I'm currently kept busy by work and other projects.
Here's something I thought of yesterday. M.A.D. Chess is just like Chess except that each side also has a large nuclear arsenal capable of wiping out the enemy many times over, and each side is able to use it at any time. In fact, if one side decides to launch a first strike, the other side still has a bit of time to launch a full strike of its own, mutually assuring the destruction of both sides. The game plays like Chess, but players may threaten a first strike for certain moves, and they may carry out their threats. For example, a player may threaten nuclear annihilation if his King is ever checked or a piece ever captured. Most games of M.A.D. Chess should end in stalemate.
Home page of The Chess Variant Pages. Homepage of The Chess Variant Pages.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]After using a computer to make a move, a dishonest player could then analyze the computer's move and explain, as though he were explaining his own move, why it's a good move. So I don't think this will prevent dishonesty much better than the honor system.
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'Your idea here of applying en passant to the highest piece as well as the lowest has given me an even more radical idea.' Is this comment on the right page? I really don't know what you're talking about. The only difference between Chess and British Chess regarding en passant is which ranks it can happen on.
'the name of your Anglican Bishop is odd because the standard Bishop would be assumed Anglican in most of the English-speaking world' Besides the very good point that John Lawson makes, England was still a Catholic country when the English began calling the diagonal moving piece a Bishop. The Anglican church dates back only to 1536, when Henry VIII had England break with Rome. The modern Bishop had been added to Chess about 50 to 60 years earlier.
Contest to design a chess variant on 43 squares. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Glenn, I just emailed you my votes. Let me know if you don't get them.
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'Why quote me on what I have already conceded was wrong?' For the sake of context. Anyway, I think you're really missing the point regarding the Catholic/Anglican distinction for the Bishop. Real Catholic Bishops take vows of celibacy. This is analogous to staying on only one color. Anglican Bishops may marry and have marital relations. This is analogous to being able to move on both colors. So, within the context of British Chess, Catholic Bishops have taken a vow to stay on one color, and Anglican Bishops have not taken any such vow.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I did not make any distinction between real and fake Catholics. My distinction was between real clergymen and game pieces with clerical names. I use the word Catholic in its most common sense, which is to refer to Roman Catholics. If people who are not Roman Catholic wish to call themselves Catholic for whatever reason, it is an internal matter that does not concern me. It does not change the fact that the word 'Catholic' is universally used to refer to Roman Catholics. And it is even commonly used to distinguish Roman Catholics from Anglicans, as when news articles tell about protestants and Catholics fighting in Northern Ireland. I have always understood this fighting to be between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, not between, say, Anglican Catholics and Methodists.
Based on what I've found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Catholic Church denies what you're telling me about the Anglican Church. In its article on Apostolic Succession (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01641a.htm), it specifically says, 'That the Anglican Church, in particular, has broken away from Apostolic unity.' In its article on the Anglican Church (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01498a.htm), under the section entitled 'Anglican Revival,' it tells of a school of thought within the Anglican Church that 'has set up the claim, hopelessly untenable in the face of historical evidence, that the Anglican Church is one and continuous with the Ancient Catholic Church of the country, and is an integral portion of the Catholic Church of today.' So, the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to hold the position that Anglicans are not Catholics. Since I am neither Anglican nor Catholic, I have no stake in the issue. But I wanted to be clear on the subject. The claim that Anglicans are Catholics seems to be one maintained mainly by some, but not all, Anglicans, and it is not, as far as I've ascertained, accepted by Roman Catholics. So, it does seem to be an internal matter after all.
Outer Space Chess. Space-themed game with hyperspace and regular space boards. (2x(5x8), Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with fixing problems with a game. But I do appreciate the point Carlos is making, because there are more and less elegant ways of fixing the same problem. Let me describe a problem I fixed in one of my games that is like the one you describe with the Galaxy. In Three-Player Hex Shogi, players may capture Kings and hold them in hand, and the goal is to make all three Kings your own. The problem here is that a player might force a draw by holding one King in hand indefinitely. There were various ways to fix this problem. For example, I could have said that no King may be held in hand longer than five turns. But this would be an inelegant solution that overcomplicated the game. Instead, I chose to provide an incentive for dropping a King back on the board. So I added the rule that the King is the only piece a player may drop when he has one in hand. Since dropping other pieces is normally critical to doing well in the game, holding a King indefinitely would impair a player's chances of winning.
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]'Equating colourbinding with celibacy does not work for me. Quite apart from celibacy being rare among camels and elephants, after whom other colourbound pieces are named, but usual among cardinals, after whom a non-colourbound piece is named, being non-celibate is not a reliable indicator of Anglican office.' Celibacy is not the point. The key word is 'vow.' Your point about animals is irrelevant. Different pieces could be colorbound for different reasons. In the case of Bishops, it is because, within the context of this game, they have taken vows to stay colorbound. 'Firstly, not only Anglicans have non-celibate bishops.' Known and irrelevant. The Bishops are Anglican, because the game is British Chess. 'The Orthodox clergy, which has a rank of bishop, is open to married men.' I'll bear that in mind if I ever invent Russian Chess. It just isn't relevant to British Chess. 'Secondly, some Anglican clergy are celibate - genuinely celibate, not merely saving themselves for the right woman.' Bully for them. 'Thirdly, and this is the bombshell, Catholic priestly celibacy is not quite universal.' So what? The norm is still vows of celibacy for Catholic bishops and none for Anglican bishops. Exceptions to the norm are still exceptions. The analogy behind the Anglican Bishop piece is based on the norm and needn't take exceptions into consideration. 'Incidentally Anglicans in Scotland and Northern Ireland, though indeed counted as Protestants, are a minority on that side of the divide. Presbyterians outnumber them considerably.' Two points. First, the Anglican church is the official Church of England, and the English monarch is the head of this church. Second, Presbyterians don't have bishops; they just have ministers and elders. For these two reasons, an Anglican Bishop is more appropriate for British Chess than a Presbyterian Bishop would be.
Contest to design a chess variant on 43 squares. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Regarding the Condorcet counting process, there is a potential unfairness if finalists cannot vote for their own games. This process counts how many times each game is favored over one of the other games. It generally makes sense that the games a person does vote for will all count as being favored above the games that same person does not vote for. The potential unfairness would be if I cannot vote for my own game and this causes my votes for other games to all count as votes of preference for these games above my own. If finalists are allowed to vote, this unfairness goes away either by allowing us to vote for our own games or, if we can't vote for our own games, by not counting our votes for other games as preferences for these games above our own.
I'm not answering your question. I am not running this contest and do not make the decisions regarding how votes are counted. I am just raising an issue I would like Glenn to address before I cast any votes in the second round. I would also like him to answer your questions, because they're all important questions that any finalist in this contest needs answers to. Glenn has written that the second round will be done in the same fashion as the first with two exceptions. Since neither exception changes the requirements for entrants, I would presume that finalists are still required to vote in order to win. But the requirement can no longer be what is stated for the first round, because it requires entrants to vote for at least ten games to stay in the contest, and there are only eight games left. So, if finalists are still required to vote in the second round, we need to know how many games we're required to vote for.
Caïssa Britannia. British themed variant with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, Anglican Bishops, and a royal Queen. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Gilman, unlike you, I am not finding this debate interesting. You are splitting hairs over irrelevancies. When I created British Chess, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition. But I must thank you for giving me new appreciation of what Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he said, 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' Your example of my Pope piece from Fusion Chess is a perfect example of this. When I create pieces for different games, I don't worry about making sure that my naming conventions are consistent from game to game. When I created Fusion Chess and when I created British Chess, I had different things in mind. When I created Fusion Chess, I was not thinking about different religions, and I didn't specifically model the Pope piece after the Catholic Pope. I called it a Pope because it combined the authority of state and church, being a fusion of the King and Bishop. It was only when I later created British Chess that I thought of the difference between Anglicans and Catholics. The principle idea was that this was British Chess. A corollary of this was that the Bishops would be Anglican instead of Catholic. So I thought about how Anglican Bishops would differ from Catholic Bishops. I thought back to a sketch from Monty Python's Meaning of Life, in which John Cleese is talking about the difference between Protestants and Catholics. This led to the thought that being colorbound is like taking a vow of celibacy, and so I enhanced the Bishop in this game to reflect that it wasn't bound by the same vows that other Bishops were. Bear in mind that the name of the piece in this game is Bishop, not Anglican Bishop. I call it an Anglican Bishop only to distinguish it from its counterpart in Chess.
There is one thing you might do to keep from posting messages without your name. Become a registered user of chessvariants.com. As a registered user, you would use a password to post your message, and getting into the habit of using a password might help keep you from posting a message without your name in it. It will give you the added bonus of being able to edit your messages after you post them.
Aberg variation of Capablanca's Chess. Different setup and castling rules. (10x8, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]I just compared this game with Carrera's Chess at http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/carrera.html and found that this game does not exactly match the starting position of Carrera's Chess. It is in fact the mirror image of Carrera's Chess. The difference is that the two new pieces have reversed positions in this game.
The subject lines in this message system are too short. There is barely enough room for anything in the subject line. Look at the subject line of this message as an example. It got limited to 16 characters.
The updated PBM is now ready for some beta-testing. Let me run down some of the new features. 1) You can use a single graphic image for the board, which is overlayed with transparent table cells. I've created presets of Eurasian Chess and Chinese Chess as examples of this. It also works with images smaller than the whole board by tiling the image. You can try some of these out by editing a preset. 2) The PBM now includes formal invitations and acceptance of invitations. 3) The PBM now uses userids and passwords. You need a Chessvariants.com userid and password to use the PBM to play games with another person. Although only contributors can register right now, David is currently working on allowing others to register. 4) All games are logged, and the log format is completely different than it used to be. Logs are now an integral part of how the PBM operates. 5) There are different levels of privacy for logs. 6) The PBM can now be used for playing games in real time. Logging all games allows players to bypass the need to actually receive email. Also, if you are on the page for moving before it is your turn, the page will periodically refresh itself until your opponent has moved, and it will alert you with an audible beep when it is your turn to move. Since the PBM is the beta-testing phase, there could still be bugs. Please try it out in the spirit of testing for bugs and let me know if you find any. Also, I'm hoping someone will volunteer to help me try out the real-time play feature around 9:00 pm EST Monday night. I'll need a volunteer with a Chessvariants.com userid. This is one thing I can't thoroughly test by myself.
Let me amend my request for bug-reports by asking you to report them here rather than by email. This will help cut down on redundant bug-reports.
I've now eliminated some bugs in the new version that made it difficult to accept an invitation to play. David has now made it possible for anyone with an email address to register with this site. So you can all get userids, which will let you post messages here and play games on the PBM. Using a second userid I created for myself, I tested the ability of the PBM to serve as a real-time game host. I got rid of some bugs and got it working. The PBM seems to be working properly now. I'm still writing the documentation, and I still have some other features planned, but it seems ready for use now. Since the documentation is not ready yet, here are some brief instruction. To start a game, invite someone to play. Wait for an acceptance of your invitation. The invited player gets to choose which side he will play. When each player moves, an email message is sent to the opponent, and the log is updated. This allows a game to be played by email or in real time. Once a game is started, you don't need email to continue it. And if you do play by email, you don't have to worry about interruptions in the game caused by lost email. Your game is given the same URL, no matter what turn it is. Moves, turns, and other things are all stored in the log. When you go to this URL, the page will let you know whether it is your turn. If it is not your turn, it will occassionally refresh until it is. Once it is your turn, the page will gain focus, emit a beeping sound, show you your opponent's move, and provide you with a form for moving. This is useful for playing in real time, as well as for checking whether your opponent has moved without checking your email. More new features are still planned. At present, it does not allow you to take back moves. I plan to add the ability to take back moves by branching the moves list. Thus, take-backs would show up in the movelist, allowing the enforcement of a no take-backs rule in tournaments.
25 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.