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Brigadier Chess. Introducing the powerful Brigadier piece on a 68-square Gustavian board.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This is not correct. My Brigadier is *not* the same as the 'Super General' in Supremo Superchess. The Brigadier moves and captures like a Queen but can also *capture* an enemy if there is another piece in between, and any interim squares are empty. However, in Supremo Superchess the 'Super General' can also jump *without capturing*. This makes an immense difference. The Super General's movement freedom is overwhelming, while the Brigadier's movement is much more restricted. So the Brigadier is not the same as Mr. Howe's unpublished Optima and Nova, either, as these, allegedly, use the Super General moves. Moreover, the Brigadier is a very useful piece. I, too, have discarded several piece inventions, but the Brigadier was found to work very well. I have implemented it in Zillions and tested it in several computer-computer games. It was found not to be overwhelmingly powerful, and the activity of the pieces remained distributed between the different pieces, i.e., the Brigadier did not move around too much. It's not possible to go between to protect a piece that is directly threatened by a Brigadier (because the Brigadier can capture by jumping). But this doesn't matter much because, while the Brigadier is so valuable, all pieces, except the king, can stay put if directly threatened by the Brigadier. A king standing on the same diagonal/orthogonal as an enemy Brigadier needs two pieces between itself and the enemy Brigadier to be protected. This is not hard to accomplish since the highly movable friendly Brigadier can be used as defensive piece. As to Fergus's 'uninvented' Tank and Bazooka: pieces must be properly tested, I think, before deciding whether they work. Moreover, such pieces could, after all, be blocked by a Bodyguard, which can stymie piece movement. So it also depends on the context if they can be used. Andy, I have never experimented with 'different armies' chess variants, although I always use this concept when testing the strength of new pieces. Pitting Amazons against Brigadiers is an interesting concept, which you could try to implement in some form. /Mats
Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Feb 25, 2007 01:51 PM EST:I must disagree with Mats' statement that what is important is:
above all, creating Zillions files, and e-mail presets.
We are talking about the worthiness and balance of pieces. What is important is playtesting. And playtesting against Zillions doesn't count. Zillions cannot evaluate pieces correctly, and doesn't play a reasonable opening. To be able to make any real statement about radical new pieces beyond speculation, requires significant playtesting against other people.
'MHowe, who cares who invented a certain piece, that's a trivial thing.' This is an odd thing to read from one who carefully claimed to be the inventor of the Brigadier, as well as many other pieces. But as I said before, which you apparently did not understand, I feel no sense of ownership. As far as my lack of judgement in throwing the piece out, you yourself failed to understand my context, to which you attach such importance. I decided that, in the context of Nova Chess, the Lioness did not work as well as various other pieces. I have no idea whether or not you have found an appropriate context for it, having neither played nor analyzed your variant. Now I remember why I cancelled my membership to this site. And now I really should learn to stay away.
For instance, I altered the Korean Chess and Chinese Chess code in the Zillions standard versions. All I did, more or less, was to tweak the pieces so that their values became more correct. The result was that my tweaked versions won one match each against the standard Zillions versions. Both matches ended 6-0. So the effect is an immediate increase in playing strength. Please have a look in my zrf's and copy the tweaking code. It's a pity that people don't tweak their programs. Perhaps it's not always necessary, but in most cases it is, and suddenly the program is interesting to play against and the playtests are valuable.
Zillions can play chess very well, if pawn moves are encouraged in the opening, etc. I playtested my Saitek Travel Champion which is evaluated to Elo 2080 by USCF. This is a very proper evaluation, I think. This computer plays a very nice game of chess. I ran it against my Blindfold Chess (which contains some tweaking) at 10s per move in two games, and 30s per move in one game. The Zillions computer was a 1.6 GHz. The two first games ended 2-0 to Zillions and the last was drawn, although Zillions had a pawn up in the endgame. In the first game Zillions had a pawn up in the endgame, too, but it should have been a draw. The Travel Champion made a silly move however.
In the second game the Travel Champion was run over in the opening. Openings were well-known. The first was a Keres defence. The other a Caro-Kann, Panov variation, and the third a closed Sicilian. Zillions played better in the opening in all games, so the tweaking is effective. While the Saitek computer could put up some resistance, I would judge Zillions to be, perhaps, Elo 2150-2200, on an 1.6 GHz computer, because it wasn't that superior. Of course, more playtesting is needed. But a good guess would be at least Elo 2250 on a standard computer of today, that is, around 3.2 GHz.
People seem to underestimate Zillions's chess playing capacity greatly. It's a good program that plays an interesting game, at least when tweaked. Of course, against humans it would fare even better because we aren't used to playing these strange chess variants, with their strangely moving bifurcation pieces, etc. However, in standard chess, strong human chessplayers would know how to overcome it. /Mats
The WWW page for the Leo was created here on May 24, 2000. In response to a request on this page for examples of previous use of the Queen+Leo piece, I checked my hard drive for my copy of Comments/Ratings for Nova Chess 100, from [2005-10-15] to [2006-01-05].
Michael, hello and goodbye.
Greg, we are still left with the important question: What are the relative piece values of the R, N, B on Gustav III's chessboard? Perhaps I will comment on that in the proper place.
In response to:
'I haven't 'claimed' anything.'
I quote:
'Brigadier Chess, and the new Brigadier piece, were invented by undersigned, August 2006 (if you have heard of this piece before, please contact me).'
This is a claim. And a request for correction if applicable. We now have more information about a prior use of the Queen+Leo piece. Best of luck with Brigadier Chess.
And in response to:
'hello and goodbye'
I said that I should learn to stay away. But I might not be smart enough.
MHowe, how could I possibly deny that I've implemented this piece for the first time in a variant? It's a simple fact. I am very relieved that you've twice assured us that you don't 'claim ownership' of this piece, which you haven't published anything on, and which you didn't invent, and which you didn't even think up. So now I don't have to be sued in court and can sleep well at night. What a relief! /Mats
'MHowe, how could I possibly deny that I've implemented this piece for the first time in a variant? It's a simple fact.'
Back to making claims? But it has already been established that both Nova Chess and Optima included an identical piece and both of them predated Brigadier Chess. I thought this had already been made clear.
'I am very relieved that you've twice assured us that you don't 'claim ownership' of this piece, which you haven't published anything on, and which you didn't invent, and which you didn't even think up. So now I don't have to be sued in court and can sleep well at night. What a relief!'
I didn't claim to have invented it, just to have used it in a game with an earlier date than Brigadier Chess, information which you yourself requested when you put up the Brigadier Chess page, and which has been corroborated by others. I don't know who first invented the piece; there might be earlier applications.
I see no need for the sarcasm. Try to be civil about things, if you please. This site needs more civility.
I'm curious now, and this is not intended as sarcasm, and feel free not to answer if you don't see fit, but what is your age, Mats?
Greg Strong wrote on Mon, Feb 26, 2007 08:55 PM EST:Michael,
I, for one, am happy to see you back. I know that communication in such
forums can be frustrating ... In the late 80's I thought BBS's were
pretty cool, and then went down-hill when more of the general public
jumped on board. Then, in the early 90's the Internet, and UseNet in
particular, was very cool and filled with good information. Then the
Internet went public in 1995 and the signal-to-noise ratio on UseNet
became unbearable. And, yes, this site has gone down-hill as well, and I
feel partly responsible. The whole user-submission of games was
originally my idea, and I'm sorry that I ever suggested it. But I think
that everyone who cares about Chess Variants should stick around, lest the
signal-to-noise ratio decline even further. If a user or a discussion
angers you, just try to ignore it ...
Mats,
My previous signal-to-noise ratio comment is not aimed at you (for the
most part.) Your recent comments have, in my humble opinion, been a
little less delicate than they could have been, but my primary beef is
with a couple of other users who will remain nameless. Regarding
playtesting with Zillion, I would say that it is true that it can be of
some value, especially if you carefully tweek it, but there is still no
substitution for human playtesting. Consider this: even if you tweek the
material values of the pieces, the computer is then playing with your
values! To a large extent, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a game
between people, each person has a different idea about the value of the
pieces, and so the game helps to determine who's ideas are closer to
correct. Now you could do the same thing with Zillions by doing lots of
trials, testing one copy of Zillions against another, and giving each a
different evaluation of pieces, and continue to repeat this proceedure,
refining each time until you zero-in on the actual relative values. But
this takes lots of CPU time. Probably best is a combination. You play a
game, with a person, you discuss the results, then you do some playtesting
with Zillions using the opinions of the different players, and try actual
board positions from the game between humans... then, as Zillions tries
different moves than what the people did, get the people to try those
positions... etc. Go back and forth. I think that this sort of rigerous
study is best. But please don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing you
for not doing this, as almost nobody does this. 99% of the games on here
are not really tested much, if at all. All I'm saying is don't jump to
conclusions about how throughly tested your games are. If you want
through evaluation of the games and the pieces, why not pick a couple of
them, and get a game-courier preset for them created, get a couple of
games going, get some discussion going, etc.
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