Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The piece represented by the 'Ethel' rune could be considered a Crooked
Boar. The Boar in my variant Truffle Hunt Chess is also a colourbound
enhanced Ferz on the Pawn rank, but enhanced by the forward moves of the
Elephant with some pieces blocking it if on the intermediate cell. I
interpret the crooked form of a move along either forward diagonal as
alternating between the two, thus a Crooked Mitre would have half the
Ferz
moves, but only a quarter of the Crooked Bishop's non-Ferz moves.
	As a matter of general interest, my own use of Valkyrie is for a 3d
piece, a Rook that can also move exactly 2 cells diagonally OR
triagonally.

The piece represented by the 'Ethel' rune could be considered a Crooked
Boar. The Boar in my variant Truffle Hunt Chess is also a colourbound
enhanced Ferz on the Pawn rank, but enhanced by the forward moves of the
Elephant with some pieces blocking it if on the intermediate cell. I
interpret the crooked form of a move along either forward diagonal as
alternating between the two, thus a Crooked Mitre would have half the
Ferz
moves, but only a quarter of the Crooked Bishop's non-Ferz moves.
	As a matter of general interest, my own use of Valkyrie is for a 3d
piece, a Rook that can also move exactly 2 cells diagonally OR
triagonally.

I am witholding a rating until I get a chance to playtest it, but unless
there is some hidden flaw I expect to rate it 'excellent'. The game
concept is very innovative and I particulaly like those quirky Pawns.

Is anyone working on a ZRF for this game? If not, I will try it myself. 

If anyone is, you will need some code trickery--a straight forward
'capture both kings' type win condition will make Zillions very
hesistant to use the Valkyrie swap move on a King--during move evaluation,
Zillions erroneously considers this to be a loss of the King, though it
treats the move correctly when actually determining if the win condition
is achieved. Email me for details.

I will start development this weekend. I can use a coventional board and
piece graphics while I'm perfecting the implementation and substitute the
final graphics later. I might be able to derive the images I need from the
picture on the Web page, which looks really good.

By the way, Peter, I should have credited you with the indirect capture
target technique which I learned from you. It simplifies many complex
situtations as well as the king swap issue. It is, for example, essential
to the implementation of the Decima 10-points condition.

Garry,

I have a working ZRF implementing all the rules as you have given them on
the web page. Please send me the graphics files and I will finish the
implementation.

The Valkyrie swap is evaluated correctly when involving non-royal pieces,
only the swap with a King is problematic. The bug is in the evaluation of
win/loss/draw conditions within the consideration of the move: removing a
royal piece temporarily to replace it elsewhere is deemed a loss, whereas
after the move is executed and Zillions checks the conditions, it is
handled correctly. In other words, during a swap move, Zillions mistakenly
thinks the temporary disappearance of the King while it is being swapped to
another square is permanent.

In any case, the indirect capture target technique solves the problem.

One question: is it legal to use the Valkyrie swap to make a null move?
That is if a Valkyrie on c6 swaps the other Valkyrie at c9 back to c6,
then you have made a move but the position on the board hasn't changed.

In most CV's the answer is 'No', so I have coded accordingly: a
Valkyrie cannot swap positions with the other Valkyrie and a King using a
Valkyrie move connot swap positions with the other King.

If you intend to allow null moves it is trivially simple to change the
code to allow them.

Here is the 'Excellent' I thought I would be giving this fine game.
Having seen it in action while coding the ZRF, I am quite convinced of the
game's quality. 

The piece set is quite interesting and works well together. The Pawns are
unusual but easy to learn to use. The Pawns are quite strong: I'd guess
about halfway between a Ferz and a Knight (slightly closer to Ferz). 

The Forest Ox is the big gun of the board on both offense and defense. 

The Valkyrie is not quite as strong as the Forest Ox, but is much more
powerful than a Queen: the swap move allows if easier developement (can
swap with a Pawn in the opening setup) and more ways of escaping trouble,
while still having all of a Queen's move and capture power. 

Rook and Bishop are minor pieces, with the Rook the stronger but with less
gap between them than in FIDE Chess, since a Valkyrie swap can get the
Bishop to the opposite color.

The idea of the King's movement depending on the friendly pieces adjacent
to it works quite well here and I'd love to see it used in other
variants.

Overall, a highly playable and enjoyable game.

I am glad to hear that Michael Nelson's ZRF coding for Odin's Rune Chess
is going well. I am anxious to see the result.  Thank you Michael, for
undertaking the task. 

Michael wrote: is it legal to use the Valkyrie swap to make a null move?
That is if a Valkyrie on c6 swaps the other Valkyrie at c9 back to c6,
then you have made a move but the position on the board hasn't changed.

Michael is correct to not allow a 'null-swap.'  But also it is important
to note that the 'move/relocate' aspect does not mean the relocated piece
has to land on the start square of the Valkyrie [or King acting like a
Valkyrie]  it can be any square in that Valkrie piece's travel.  Someone
might then wonder, 'Couldn't the one Valkyrie relocate the other to a
square other than its start square?  Or the Valkyrie King relocate the
other King in the same manner?'   As for relocating the second Valkrie
[to other than the 1st Valkyries' start square] this would be the same as
if we simply moved the 1st Valkyrie to that relocate square, so it makes no
sense to do such a swap. Technically that move would be allowed; but there
is no point in it. 

Michael stated 'In most CV's the answer is 'No', so I have coded
accordingly: a Valkyrie cannot swap positions with the other Valkyrie and
a King using a Valkyrie move connot swap positions with the other King.'

Yes, that is the correct assumption.  But for other pieces note that it
need not be a position exchange.  The relocate square can be any through
wich the Valkyrie traveled, plus its start square. 

Another issue may need pointed out.  If one side cannot move, it is not a
stalemate.  The non-moving side simply losses. - gkg

An excellent and very enjoyable game!

A couple of questions, though.  Addendum item #2; I thought I understood
what was being said here, until the sentence 'Because of this rule, of
course, a King cannot do a 'move/relocate' function with the other
King.'  Why is this?  If King #1 is adjacent to a Valkyrie, can it not
make a move/relocate move like a Valkyrie?  And if the other King is
in-line, why can it not move/relocate that King?

Also, I assume that the Forest Ox cannot use it's optional riffle capture
to capture a friendly piece.  Correct?

Thanks!

This is to answer Greg Strong's good questions.  

Q1 ... a King cannot do a 'move/relocate' function with the other
King.'  Why is this?  If King #1 is adjacent to a Valkyrie, can it not
make a move/relocate move like a Valkyrie?  And if the other King is
in-line, why can it not move/relocate that King?
A1: The answer is that these would result in meaningless or 'null'
moves.  For example.

Imagine this set up on a certain file: Where '-' = space and
1 = King 1 and 2 = King 2 and V = Valkyrie.  

- - - - 2 - - - 1 V    Here, if a King (next to a Valkyrie) could relocate
the other, we could get:

- - - - 1 - - - 2 V    It is as if no move was made.  Or, we could get

- - - - 1 - 2 - - V    But this is positionally the same as 

- - - - 2 - 1 - - V   Inwhich we just moved King #1.

Note that Mike Nelson deserves the credit for initially realizing the
redundancy and null factors.  He discovered this while working on the
Odin's Rune Chess Zillions .zrf.  I agreed 100% with his conclusions and
his zrf rule implementations.


Q2:  I assume that the Forest Ox cannot use it's optional riffle capture
to capture a friendly piece.  Correct?
A2: Yes.  The Forest Ox only takes down the enemy, even when using its
horns for the optional adjacent square capture factor.

Note the the Odin's Runes Chess ZRF plays correctly by the rules so one
can get a good feel for the game using that (if he or she has a registered
copy of Zillions).

Thanks for commenting.

I have just completed a non-enforcing pre-set for Odin's Rune Chess.  It
can be reached via the following link.  The pieces retain the correct
orientation for black and white when the board flips.  This is important
because the pawns move in their depicted vector pattern.

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DOdin%27s+Rune+Chess%26settings%3Dodin-runes

However, when king's move/relocate move is a null move it might be useful
to get out from stalemate-but I cannot give an example.
The game is really good!