Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

George: Thank you for taking the time to comment.  I added a quote from you to the game notes, that being: 'As far back as Duke of Rutland's Chess year 1747 exists use of Crowned Rook(Rook+Ferz), and Logical Follow-up to Duke of Rutland's Chess recently has the Crowned Bishop(Bishop+Wazir).'

I do not see any good logic, however, to your rating the game as poor.  A thousand pages of citations and references would not change the dynamics of the game one iota.  I based the pieces on Shogi pieces... which I did mention.  And now I have added your citation.  Has the game improved because of that?  No. 

By your own logic [which I disagree with] many games would seem to be poor, including the Duke of Rutland's game.  Why, because it too lacks citations.  

You mention I have given 'No analysis, no justification, no game scores.' True, but then again, how many other CVs fall into this category?  A lot.   

The game is a simple deviation from chess, created only due to some inspiration from Joe Joyce regarding changing pieces on an 8 x 8 board.  It was not designed simply as a model for discussion in game theory... but we can discuss it in terms of Game Theory and I am sure we will not see it as 'poor.'  Instead, I believe we will find it to be dynamically rich and intellectually challenging.  But, we need to play games to prove this in practice.  I did do a rather lengthy presentation on Game Theory while obtaining my Masters Degree... I could have used this game as a model, if it existed.  As a side note, I have also studied logic and argument at the college level.  I suppose that is why I felt compelled to look at your 'logic' and argue a bit about it.

You stated , 'The inventor does not even start a game to play.'  True.  I am very busy these days: finishing up a chess book, editing the Unorthodox Openings News, writing a science fiction novel, creating chess problems on a weekly basis for Chessville, and playing in the CV tournament... plus doing things with a wife and four kids.  So, do I need to play this new game?  Would my playing it make it a better game?  Answer: No.

You also wrote, '...just throws up a Preset.'  Incorrect.  I put the preset there so the game can be played.  But, I also wrote the rules.  If I had no pre-set I imagine you would complain, 'He doesn't even give us a pre-set, so how can we play it?'  But, perhaps not.  I just can easily imagine that.

You wrote, 'Maybe it appears G Gifford only has a rather nice name [sic], 'Latrunculi' and finds any convenient embodiment as excuse to employ it.'

A nice guess, but wrong.  I suppose you are being sarcastic... regardless... the name doesn't affect the game dynamics.  I thought 'Chess 2007' did not sound as interesting as the Latin equivalent... plus, would not really be fair to the name 'Chess.'

You add, 'That one good feature, the name Latrunculi, has interesting Internet information not even attempted to be described or explained in the empty write-up.' 

Based on this comment I added this to the notes: 'Note: Collin's Latin Dictionary translates 'Chess' into the Latin 'Latrunculi.'  Elsewhere we can read that Latrunculi means 'robber-soldiers' or 'mercenaries.'   Latrunculi was actually the Roman Empire's most popular intellectual game. Many boards have been found which vary in size.  The 8 x 8 board was the most common.'

So, I added that comment... and I think it is fine to do so.  Thanks for the prompt.  But again, it does not change the actual game.

Thanks again for commenting.  Take care.

Latrunculi was given a poor rating for 6 reasons or points.  Now it seems that the poor rating is reduced to one point being, 'simply because the full piece mix was used before, without even acknowlegement.'   

A point of confusion is that I acknowledged Shogi (from where I borrowed the R+f and B+w pieces.  But in an attempt to please someone I also added acknowledgement to Duke of Rutlands which is a 10 x 14 board game. The 140 square game has pieces I do not use in the 64 square Latrunculi.  It has  Concubine; Rook; Bishop.  Latrunculi has none of these and uses a standard chess board.  The two games are hardly anything alike.  I've played Duke of Rutlands, I like it.  I never even thought of it while making Latrunculi... I did think of promoted Shogi pieces.

Many games use pieces that have been used before.  Look at Chessgi. Look at The Logical Follow Up to the Duke of Rutlands (isn't that far closer to that game than is Latrunculi?) Look at Fischer Random Chess, Avalanche Chess, Maxima compared to Ultima, etc.  Look at Gothic Chess (my goodness, that one just has 2 pieces in a different position from the game it is based on).  

I have not seen this Latrunculi before.  Yes, it uses pieces we know about.  I admit it.  I admit I invented none of them.  It is a variant... we can expect that to mean it varies from something but is otherwise similar in certain respects.

Now, on a different note, I read in the recent comment, 'There are no 6-point criteria. That's silly.'  So, I guess that means Latrunculi was judeged 'poor' the first time due to 'silly criteria.' 

The Latrunculi comment preceding this one has a lot of text to it.  I could reply to all of it.  But why?  What good would it do?  In fact, I thought we had all this variant stuff out of the wash and out to dry.  I guess not.

Some basics regarding my variant - there was a complaint about references... so I added them.  There was a complaint about not discussing the Latin meaning, so I added that... neither, of which, affect game play.  Game play, interestingly enough, was not discussed.  And you think that would be important. 

How I see it:  Latrunculi duo milia et septum is a new variant that uses previously known pieces on a previously known 8x8 board.  It is a new game and has a right to exist.  Should we find that it already exists we can remove my rules and rename the pre-set.  But I have a very strong feeling that we won't find a pre-existing version.

Hopefully we can close the door on this one.  It is obvious that myself and another have strong disagreements about this game.  Can we not just admit that we disagree and leave it at that?