Comments by catugo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-I6u-AxMg
The above link is also about infinite chess, not yours, vickalan but anyway!Let us reiterate the Apothecary1 pieces. There are five categories of strength:
Major Pieces:
Queen:Classic chess queen
Griffin:Moves one square diagonally and the towards outside rides orthogonally as a rook
Aanca:Moves one square orthogonally and the towards outside rides diagonally as a bishop
Rook piece:
Rook: Classic Chess Rook
Fool Piece:
Fool: Imitates the last move of the opponent
Minor Pieces:
Knight:classic chess knigth that moves but not captures with a (3,2) leap
Bishop:classic chess bishop
Champion:steps one step orthogonally or leaps two steps diagonally or orthogonally
Wizard:steps one step diagonally or makes a (3,1) leap
Pawn piece:
Pawn: classic chess pawn move and capture but promotes and rank 8 to any minor at rank 9 to a minor or rook and rank 10 to any piece.
Let us reiterate the Apothecary2 pieces. There are five categories of strength:
Major Pieces:
Queen:Classic chess queen
Archbishop:bishop+knight
Chancellor:rook+knight
Rook piece:
Rook: Classic Chess Rook
Fool Piece:
Fool: Imitates the last move of the opponent
Minor Pieces:
Knight:classic chess knigth that moves but not captures with a (3,3) leap
Bishop:classic chess bishop
Elephant:moves and captures one or two steps diagonally or leaps just to move (3,0)
Zebra:Makes a moving or capturing (3,2) leap or step just to move 1 step diagonally
Camel:Makes a moving or capturing (3,1) leap or step just to move 1 step orthogonally
Pawn piece:
Pawn: classic chess pawn move and capture but promotes and rank 8 to any minor at rank 9 to a minor or rook and rank 10 to any piece.
I've posted the last two comments in the interest of this one.
I have established the final rules for the outcome of the two games. In orthodox chess there are three possible outcomes win,draw and loss. In the two apothecary chess games there are five outcomes win, advantage, draw, disadvantage,loss. For tournament play a win worths 9 points an advantage worths 6 points, a draw worths 4 points an disadvantage worths 3 points and a loss worths 1 point, not participation worths 0 points. A win is obtained through checkmate, case in which the other side loses. In a stalemate the side that cannot move is considered to have ended the game at disadvantage and it's opponent in advantage. Now comes the fun part (this idea is partially taken from shogi). In case threefold repetition or by the 150 moves rule (akin to the 50 moves rule in orthodox chess but after 150 moves aka if no pawn pushes or captures have been made in the last 150 moves the effects of the rule take place) the points count take place. For the purpose of the points count major pieces worth 9 points each, rook pieces worth 6 points each, minor pieces worth 3 points each, fool worths 4 or 5 points, 5 points when the opponent of the fool owner has at least equal number of major and minor pieces (or more major pieces) 4 points otherwise,usually a pawn worths 1 point with the exception of a rank 8 pawn which worths 4 points and a rank 9 pawn which worths 7 points. If the absolute value of the points count is 3 or less the game ends in a draw, otherwise in an advantage/disadvantage. I, Aurelian Florea, believe that the advantage/disadvantage outcome would be rare but not entirely theoretical. The reason for introducing it is that I consider that if a player finished with 2 knights or and aanca or a zebra and a camel, did better that a player that has finished with just a king. Also this rule makes some threefold repetitions more undesirable. What do you guys think about these rules?
I've edited my last comment changing the tournament points to better values in my opinion. Also how many points should a player receiving a bye in a swiss tournament should get?
@Vickalan
A player should get a point for participation for making a difference from players that have not participated in previous or future rounds. A player showing up and resigning after 1 move is awkward but how often does it happen, it does not seem very rational to me.
I'm inclined to believe that white's initial advantage is smaller that in classic chess as there are more pieces and more time for black to equalize.
In my system one win and one loss worth more than one advantage and one disadvantage and that more than two draws as I want to encourage the more decisive results. This has been done before with the 3-1-0 system used sometimes in the Bilbao tournament. But I too think that 150% for 1W+1L vs 2D ((3+0)/(1+1)) is too much so I reduced it to 125% ((9+1)/(4+4)). Anyway here tournament organizers (like the Bilbao ones :)) just joking they'll never play those games) are free to use any points system they deem fair.
The matter of the threefold repetitions is very complex I think. But there are cases where you may enforce a threefold repetition with inferior material and I don't think that's very fair. I mean the superior side has worked a whole game to become superior and missed something. The inferior side still gets something from it (3>1) but does not deserve to draw in my opinion. This rule I don't think should be up by tournament organizers.
George Duke's comment if to that you are referring vickalan was not about our quantity of comments but about the fact that our many messages got out of context, or at least that's what I think. George Duke if you see this comment please clarify if I am doing something wrong I'll abstain for the future.
Vickalan I'm glad for your interest and collaboration!
Interactive diagrams. 
Diagrams that interactively show piece moves.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]H.G.
Diagrams don't seem to work anymore, just code appears!
Eight-Stone Chess. On an 8 by 9 board with eight neutral stones. (8x9, Cells: 72) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
ChessV. Program for playing numerous Chess variants against your PC.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hello Greg,
Are the griffin and aanca easier to implement in chessV2?
Hello again Greg,
I have 2 questions:
1. How do I use the scripting language you mention?
2.I tried to install the program over what I have previously unzipped from what you gave me . It exited. What happened?
ok, thanks greg, when you say no griffin it is actually no griffin , yet!
On Designing Good Chess Variants. Design goals and design principles for creating Chess variants.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hello Kevin, Hello Fergus,
Actually I've noticed the camel issue on a 10x10 board in my own upcomming apothecary1 game, with the wizards being confident on exchanging favorably with black pieces. I currently don't know how to overcome this issue.Maybe enlarge the board.
Hello guys, It's been sometime since I last posted, beeing mostly sick meanwhile.
I had problems with the wizard being to dangerous in the opening of apothecary chess 1 and to some degree the camel and zebra in apothecary chess 2.
In regard to this after playing a bit of brouhaha I decided to use that concept for the apothecaries to solve the above mentioned problem. So here are the new rules :
Ten new squares are added named c0,d0,e0,f0,g0,d11,e11,f11,g11,h11 for white non- king side foul start and d0,e0,f0,g0,h0,c11,d11,e11,f11,g11 for white king side foul start. The d and h squares are designed to hold the fools. In apothecary 1 e0,f0,e11,f11 hold the champions and d0,g0,d11,g11 hold the wizards. In apothecary 2 e0,f0,e11,f11 hold the elephants d0,d11 hold the zebras and g0,g11 hold the camels. The champions and elephant receive on those squares a (4,0)and(4,1)leaper forward moves. The wizard receives forward (2,2) and (3,3) leaper moves. The zebra receive (2,2) and (3,3) forward moves and the camel receives (2,0),(3,0)&(4,0) forward moves. As in brouhaha the special squares are temporary one the initial piece ocupying them vacates them they dissapear from the game.
I hope you can make some sense from this post.
A second new rule I though about it's called the pocket pawns rule. First at move 50 and 75 each player receives a pocket pawn. A pocket pawn must be played at the next move into a square of the owner's choice on it's 3rd rank. The third pocket pawn is subject to variable time depending on which piece have been promoted to and move time. If no pieces are promoted pocket pawns appear for each player at move 100,130,165,205,250,300,355,415,480... . Each promoted pawn decreases the time until the next pocket pawn.
In apothecary chess 1 you get an 4% time decrease (rounded up) from the current interval for promoting to a champion 16.5 % for promoting to a knight, 31.5% for promoting to a wizard and 66% for promoting to a bishop all promotions on rank 8. You get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a rook on rank 9. Also you get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a queen on rank 10. You receive and 100% time decrease when promoting to a griffin (basically receive and extra pawn) and and 190% time decrease when promoting to an aanca (almost receiving two pawns, this is very much possible).
In apothecary chess 2 you get an 50% time decrease (rounded up) from the current interval for promoting to a elephant, 62.5% for promoting to a bishop and 100% for promoting to a knight or a camel 112.5 for a zebra all promotions on rank 8. You get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a rook on rank 9. Also you get a 4% time decrease (rounded up) for the current interval for promoting to a queen on rank 10. You receive and 100% time decrease when promoting to a Marshall (basically receive and extra pawn) and and 160% time decrease when promoting to an archbishop.
All these complications are done in order to balance promotions between different pierces. For example at rank 10 a player will always promote to a queen but this way receives a extra pawn if it promotes to a griffin/Marshall. The downside of this it's that it leads to prolonged the games.
I'm hopping you can make sense from this weird post.
Hello vickalan and thanks!
Yes white had to much of an advantage because the wizard could easily advance and fork two stronger (or God forbid the king). Most pieces are stronger than a wizard. And yes the ability to easily attack pieces that start on the 9th rank over the pwans protection that makes the wizard/camel&zebra very dangerous!
Thanks, for the complex feedback, this is why this post exists. I think you are correct about 4. In my view 2 can be anything I've extended it from 50 to 150 because of the larger board and number of pieces.
As for the non-capturing moves. The zebra just moves of the knight in apothecary1 are desingned by the inventors of advanced omega chess to increase slightly the power of the knight, as the enlarged board takes a bit of it. I like this concept. In apothecary 2 the elephant receives such a move (the threeleaper move) for two reasons speed and decolourbounding. Actually the apothecary 2 elephant I consider a better designed piece. It works quite well. The camel receives an unbouding wazir move and the zebra receiver a helper move for simetry. About the apothecary 2 knight I think it quite bad. It receives the threaper moves as a couter point to the elephant. The bad stuff is that that move is useless for the most part as is too long and also a knight can reach there in 2 moves anyway. But this rule stays. So does the brouhaha rule as this way the rooks are now connected.
The reasoning behind the promotion rule is to promote to more pieces than just the queen. That's actually the reasoning behind the pocket pawns, but know I think this is an exaggeration. I'm officially scrapping that.
6 is under scrutiny, too.
About trying hard. I am. I hope for good games, thanks for noticing.
How difficult is to setup a game courier? I never did it. But I think with my average programming skills should be fairly easy.
I aim to set up the chessV1 first and then publish as computer tests are also interesting.
Thanks once again for your kind and complete feedback, Greg!
After a private discussion with Greg Strong, I decided to scrape my work with apothecary chessV1. The reason for that is that it will require a lot of work to add the Bruhaha squares, and they are here to stay as otherwise the wizard camel and zebra are too strong in the opening. As it will take quite a while until I with the help of Greg manage to implement apotheccary in chessV 2 (I currently know nothing on c#) I decided to publish the two games as they are in a few days, and then we will see what's going on.
I think is good to always have an engine! One can always play Cyborg chess! That solves the cheating problem!
Going through my notes on piece values in order to write the articles I've figured out HG Muller had helped a lot in the evaluation of these games. But he has said nothing lately. Does anyone know what's going on? I'd love the new apothecaries to have diagrams although it would be tough.
Diagram Designer. Lets you display diagrams without uploading any graphics.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Hello Fergus,
I need for my apothecary to include bruhahaa squares so bassically a 10x10 board with 4 more squares connected to the top and bottom rank, say d0,e0,f0,g0,d11,e11,f11,g11. But just those. Is there a way to block the rest of a 12x12 board or do something to be able to draw that? Also I need to figurate a pocket square for an joker(jester) that will be added during the game seiwaran chess style. How do you recommend me to do that?
Thanks!
Thanks, I am trying to write an article for now! Then I'll be constructing the game courier and maybe other wonders for everyone to enjoy!
Hello Fergus,
While trying to post the apothecary games online I did two silly thing for which I deeply apologize as it is probably you who has to solve my problems.
Firstly, I accidentally posted an incomplete apothecary 1 article. Plesase disregard and maybe delete that one.
Secondly, and worst, as know I cannot post the real apothecary two article, I think yesterday evening I tried to post something entitled apothecary chess 2 as now I am receiving the following error when attempting to get to step 2 of uploading my apothecary 2 article. I am not sure what is going on here :(.
Array
(
[0] => 23000
[1] => 1062
[2] => Duplicate entry 'MSapothecary-chess-2' for key 'PRIMARY'
)
Thanks for your help!
25 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.
Hello, vickalan,
I'm glad you brought this topic (infinite boards) on this website again. Infinity is something I fancy and there is reason to include it one way or the other in my own games. Anyway this is a difficult concept to work with. I haven't properly understood the game but it seems to me that 2 experienced players will still do a a lot of draws. Also, why do the hawks start so much behind? Is there some justification related to the bishop move? The game doesn't propose any innovative ideas besides of the infinite board, as the fairy pieces here are fairly well-known. There is an exception to that I do like a lot - the idea of the huygens. This piece is interesting lifting my first rating I post on this website to good.
Good luck, vickalan