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LiQi. Very Strong Chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]What are planar moves?
Planar moves are translations from one corner position of a plane to its opposite corner position. The plane is defined by two distinct axes. There must be no other pieces located on positions within this plane. For example, an orthogonal planar move from b3 to d7 could be performed if b4, b5, b6, b7, c3, c4, c5, c6, c7, d3, d4, d5 and d6 are vacant. 8 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 7 [ ][-][-][x][ ][ ][ ][ ] 6 [ ][-][-][-][ ][ ][ ][ ] 5 [ ][-][-][-][ ][ ][ ][ ] 4 [ ][-][-][-][ ][ ][ ][ ] 3 [ ][o][-][-][ ][ ][ ][ ] 2 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 1 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] a b c d e f g h This a translation within a 3x5 plane. And, of course, these planes can be of various dimensions. The diagonal planar move can prove a little difficult for the new player to visualize. The same translation from b3 to d7 could be accomplished if a4, b5, c4, c6, d5 and e6 are vacant. A 2x4 plane. Note that b4, c5 and d6 are NOT part of this diagonal pattern. 8 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 7 [ ][ ][ ][x][ ][ ][ ][ ] 6 [ ][ ][-][ ][-][ ][ ][ ] 5 [ ][-][ ][-][ ][ ][ ][ ] 4 [-][ ][-][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 3 [ ][o][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 2 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] 1 [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ] a b c d e f g h The simple linear slide can be considered a planar move with one axis being only one position wide. And planar pieces can also perform this form of movement. Okay, that is the short version. I hope that it was illuminating. I've included an empty field variant with the Zillions implementation(for those who have the program) so that a player can check out the dynamics of this form of play.
Larry, I think you meant to write 'a move from b3 to d7' not 'a move from b3 to f5'. Interesting idea, planar move, like a more restricted large shogi hook-mover.
Thanks for the heads-up. Just a small error while half-asleep. ;-) I've made the correction to the previous post to avoid confusion. I had first started with the f5 position, then changed it to d7 to best demonstrate the diagonal planar move. Made the changes to the potential positions within the pattern but missed the initial statement.
''A Taxonomy'' by David Howe could expand piece-types to 10 or even 20. With planar pieces, conflated with my ''Multi-path'' article(2004) there is a five-Phylum system: Slider, Leaper, Rider, Multi-path, Planar. That works well at least for this comment. People are ignorant of biology's five-Kingdom system: monera, protista, fungi, plantae, animalia, thinking there are only the last two. If planar as type is useful, as with the others, there are overlaps here and there, and they are productive not distracting. L.Smith (another originator of planar is G.Smith) here shows slider interpreted as planar. Still we would tend to keep slider Phylum too for something seeming fundamental about linear sliders especially. Take leaper Flamingo (1,6) variantly defined as requiring set vacancies along both its long columns from departure to arrival, not complete vacancies. That Flamingo, carefully chosen as colourswitching to avoid L.Smith's diagonal planar capability, is synonymous with just ''Planar.'' (Here for convenience we're assuming orthogonal nullification in effect.) So Planar and Leaper blend like Planar and Slider, as Smith incorporates. And Planar overlaps to the same extent with Multi-path, the latter having only specific routes and almost always allowing some occupancy within the rectangular plane from departure to arrival. Especially the Diagonal Planar component and Multipath considerably overlap. In the last paragraphs, when Smith refers to ''playing field,'' he means the intermediate sub-rectangle betwixt. Also in the same sentences, when he writes ''definite steps,'' that's isomorphic with Multipath, the aforementioned shared regions of those 2 of the 5 in the over-all. Since planar, diagonal or orthogonal, boils down to specific pathways, even if requiring all of them, they could all be interpreted as Multi-path. But it could work the opposite way too, Planar encompassing Multi-path. So the specific context steers us to one or the other designation. Each of the five overlap each of the other four in their way and context: think about it, even for the pair Slider and Leaper definitionally. With proliferation, improved classifications are absolutely necessary. These are all in one Kingdom. The other Kingdom would be pieces and their types that don't move but have effects. What other categories suggested by the Howe article could go within the Kingdom of movers? See follow-up there soon.
Your planar movers are not restricted to certain moves, correct? They can go to any space on the board. Basically, a planar move is a move from one square to another where all other squares within a rectangle with the origin and destination as corners are empty. It's almost quantum movement, taking many possible methods of arrival simultaneously...
The planar pieces in this variant are not restricted to any specific set of values for their axes. Though developers might consider such for their games. Hey, just have fun. And since all the positions within the planar move are considered, they are strictly NOT multi-path. They do not have optional paths within the area of a specific move. But if one wants to be fussy about planar categorization, they could be termed omni-path. But why not simply refer to them as planar?
''Very Strong Chess'' is misnomer. Planar they are as legitimate piece-type. 'Fussy'' is to properly point out when something has been done before so as not to keep wasting people's time. ''Fudgy'' is not to do so. I question ''extremely powerful pieces,'' as that applies only to Tianwang. Now Tianwang is John Conway's Angel of the 1970s. Those are two points in one. What other pieces in LiQi do you think are more powerful than Queen? I think LiQi is kind of cool and original. The usual critique, if we are ever going anywhere, applies widely that since no one much is going to play it, it's another artwork to be appreciated at a distance, being nothing fundamental about LiQi per se. The ''flavour'' Larry refers to no one beyond a handful of dabblers will ever enjoy and we are all perfectly glad to take his word for it -- this dynamics of developer as sole tester has been demonstrated over and over. It's almost a given. But Planar Pieces ARE probably fairly basic or fundamental. Not singling out Larry Smith on planar, but applying to, for example, Joe Joyce on differences between Shatranj and OrthoChess (an immediately concurrent topic), and applying to Rococo copycats of say Michael Nelson or Charles Daniel, and applying likewise to the majority of games after about 2005 -- why not perform differently? In the future, instead of cliched ''new CV'' ''new CV'', like a 911 alarm, no one will ever much play, why not consider making a reference article or history or piece-type essay? Here JiaoYe and FeiYe and BenYe, Larry says, are the whole point of LiQi. J. and F. are just about Bishop/Knight value until the end. B. is about Rook value until the end. There is only the one strong piece made in the likeness of Conway's Angel (I think there is some Shogi near-equivalent), so in a nice artistic game, those certain statements about strengths are incongruous and frankly seeming to be wrong. This is the fun of it to find the flaws and failsafes in the fantasies.
To speak as George Duke: Rider is mono-axial Class in Phylum Planar. The Kingdom is Chessoids; displacement-captors with no effects, in the Domain Wargames.
Isn't the running-leaf by definition stronger than a queen, since the queen is a subset of it? (That is, if the 'degenerate' planar move in which one side of the plane is 1 is an allowable move.) And I can tell that the young-lion is not allowed to return to its original square (a limitation not shared by the Japanese lion), but there is one slight unclear point: is it allowed to make double captures?
The BenYe(running leaf) is definitely stronger than the Queen. And the JiaoYe(angled leaf') is stronger than the Bishop. And the FeiYe(flying leaf) is stronger than the Rook. And these strengths are present from the opening to the endgame. The TianWang(heavenly king) is stronger than the King. But since it must always maintain a defender, it loses strength as the game progresses. And yes, it is based upon the Emperor piece from several historical Shogi variants and I took creative license in its re-naming so that it fit the overall theme of the game. And the RuoShi(young lion) is permitted up to two captures during its move. The 'igui' capture was denied to force the player to reposition this piece when used, offering the opponent potentially new lines of attack through the player's defenses. Now before anyone points out that the title and the names of pieces are Chinese, allow me to say that I attempted to blend aspects of the three dominant wargames of the World. Mad Queen, Shogi and XiangQi. Thus the number of pieces being from the European game, several piece types having similarity to the Japanese games and the overall appearance very much like the Chinese game. The use of points, rather than cells, actually aids in the visualization of the planar movements. As to this game being referred to as 'artwork', I gladly embrace this attempted disparagement. I believe the game is quite beautiful, both in appearance and play. But that is just my egocentric two-cents-worth. ;-)
Okay, so Benye is not requiring both diagonal and orthogonal clearance, making it more than Queen value. Maus' Cavalry has four Queen compounds on 8x8, and there are such examples of more strong pieces at once than LiQi. The disparagement is not attempted, but just the reality that there will be little play of this artwork, as Larry knows. Now the most played CV in Game Courier ever, Pocket Mutation, is hardly ever played either, by my definition. No disparagement, just the chosen way CVPage operates. Would Larry say Maojus are stronger than Rococo pawns? If they are, is it only by virtue of promotion? Just a question, to give this pretty little game some deserved attention.
Planar is correct as new piece-type. Also, as I see it on reflection, Planar is most closely associated with Leaper. Planar is a provisional leaper in the classification index of piece-types. Planar is compound leaper with restriction for intermediacy. Now the introduction (well, Gavin Smith's and couple of others preceded) to them here has no set values for their axes. Let's take just one leg of Jiaoye's qualified leap from c1 to d4, visualizing regular squares that we are used to calling Camel's destination. If any of d2, c3, or a3 are occupied, Jiaoye cannot leap to d4. So we can say Planar is subset of Leaper. Simplified, the Planar unit cannot go some specific place(s) if there is certain specific occupation(s). The intervening piece voids the move. However, Leaper can easily encompass other categories Slider, Rider, and Multi-path if we are very careful of definitions. New thread CBM10 follows this up.
GD, this is a 'strong' game. There is no claim that it is the 'strongest'. Please refrain from multi-voting. This drives down the average rating on a page. Or is this your intent?
Okay, Larry, you're welcome for the analysis and attention in well above average embodiment by CVPage standards. It took some time to appreciate the author of LiQi's intent of how they move. Certainly the anonymous poster ''Just Someone'' was not yourself, the way I once suggested a certain northwest European programmer may have self-commented anonymously. Now Leaper and Planar are the closest cousins among the stellar five with Slider, Rider, and Multi-path. Likewise, Slider and Multi-path would be closest to each other. ChessBoardMath10 will continue this. MauJu is a strong Pawn, like Rococo Pawn, but it is still cleverly pawn and not piece. Larry points out that like Glenn Overby's Beautiful Sun, just linked a couple comments back, LiQi blends the three traditions, Chinese, Japanese and West. It is fine work insofar as introducing new piece-type, and please continue with more ''planars,'' whether CVs or preferably articles. This interesting ''intermediate'' piece-type category Planar actually fully deserves its own stand in the panoply.
Yeah, GD, anonymous postings can be taken with a grain of salt. Though I believe the moderators can verify the ISP source of such, and thus determine if someone is ghosting. But this still doesn't justify your multi-voting. Which is an obvious rating manipulation.
Interesting to see Gutenschach's Foundation1, Theorist2, and Study3 on a 2d board. The next thing, I suppose, would be to have planar pieces on a hex board, for which I have just suggested piece names right at the end of Man and Beast 15.
Notes:
1same as Base in Prince, but name changed to avoid confusion with suffix -base meaning Man and Beast 12 downward-orientated piece.
2differs from Scientist in Prince in lacking 3d-specific Technician move.
3differs from University in Prince in lacking 3d-specific Technician move
Just a little history of planar pieces. In 1997, D.E. Matson simply named the 3D planar pieces; 3D Rook(orthogonal), 3D Bishop(diagonal) and 3D Queen(orthogonal/diagonal). In 2004, Prince was published at TCVP. And in 2004, LiQi was published at the Zillions-of-Games site.
H. G. Muller wrote on Wed, Jan 24 12:11 PM UTC:I think it is unacceptable that this article doesn't explain what is meant by 'planar move', and that one has to dig deep in the comments for that.
Bn Em wrote on Sun, Jan 28 09:36 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Wed Jan 24 12:11 PM:Would it be worth someone adding an explanation of planar moves to this page? As it stands it certainly is a particularly blatant relic of a time when editorial standards here were somewhat(!) laxer.
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