another new piece: the trebuchet

hey.

I was thinking about new piece ideas for some odd reason, and i thought of this.

the trebuchet: [graphics provided by musketeerchess]

Movement: Moves like a king.

Captures: It fires a projectile in a straight line (diagonal, vertical, or horizontal) at a peice. Its' projectiles can jump over pieces (friend or foe). 

Important rules:

1. It takes time to load and aim.

what that means is that you have to wait turns so that it can go farther.

one turn waited= 1.5 squares (you don't actually fire to one and a half squares, you just fire to the number, rounded down, so 1 turn goes 1 square, and two turns goes three squares, 3 turns goes 4 squares, etc.

you can do other things while your trebuchet is being loaded.

2. THE TREBUCHET CAN CAPTURE A KING. THIS WINS THE GAME. IT IS THE ONLY PIECE THAT CAN DO THAT 

what the part about aiming means is the trebuchet can only fire in a certain direction (the direction the arrow is aiming at. it takes one turn for the trebuchet to aim in any direction (but the direction has to be straight: vertical, diagonal, or horizontal . the trebuchet starts aiming backwards, towards the edge of the board. the other thing you can do whilst aiming your trebuchet is loading your trebuchet, because you can do that anyway, in the background on any move. 

Notation: the notation for trebuchet is T.

the notation for moving to a square would be T[coordinate]

example: Tb5

the notation for firing at a square would be: T>[coordinate]

example: T>e3

The reason why it's different than just Txe3 is, well, because it's not really a capture. also, the ">" looked like an arrow pointing at the square, so i thought that was cool.

The notation for aiming at a square is Ta[farthest coordinate that trebuchet can aim at(remember, it can jump, so it's always going to be on an edge of the board)]

example Tah1 

the reason why it's a for aiming is because a stands for aim.

ok im done. lol that took me like 20 minutes to write lmao

Nice idea.

Very interesting piece for Bulldog! =)

Just for clarification: does the Trebuchet take over the captured square, like any other piece capturing an enemy piece, or does the move simply delete an opponent's piece while the trebuchet stays stationary?

Also, just a curious thought: have you entertained the idea of introducing check back into the piece, where the King isn't in check when the Trebuchet's ammunition can't reach him? And put him in check, when it can?

I think that ^^ might limit the Trebuchet to the point where, in many positions, its weakened powers might make it ineffective; not to mention that players might have a hard time keeping track of where a Trebuchet can and can't fire, while their minds are already focused on strategies/tactics

Of course, why couldn't the seige engine fire high above barriers and walls? Couldn't archers do this? =)

The graphics aren't mine.

https://musketeerchess.net/tools/boardpainter/index.php?bs=chess

The musketeerchess image site has a vast variety of icons for chess pieces which variant inventors might conveniently match with their variant pieces. The developers there thought up many ideas of icons that people might want to use; due to a history of people wanting these icons in the past and perhaps just random things that people might possibly find convenient.

It's weird that the OP here also mentions "Trebuchet":

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess960-chess-variants/bull-dog-chess-theory-comments-etc

At the very bottom of the OP

I think that the Trebuchet should look like the tower with shooty things or the cannon

But idk if that is already a piece that someone made and that would be copyright...

No need to worry about copyrights in BulDog chess.

And there's already a piece called the Cannon, but like they said, no copyrights about piece names.

(It's possible that I misunderstood.) I think PNJbravozulu was talking about the design he/she was proposing being too related to something that already exsists, not about what the piece is called. PNJbravozulu suggested that, on a real board, MR_McCHESS's Trebuchet piece should look like a Tower with Cannon; but fears that copyright issues might clash with the good interest in design, since the Cannon's design for the Cannon is already used.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a tangent which stevehinkle10 (and MR_McChESS) was similarly on, I say: the names we give our pieces are almost always not original. I think MR_McCHESS is a very creative guy/gal. With that said, sadly, someone in the history of chess playing humans has already invented a piece with the name "trebuchet"; and all the seige weapons that has ever existed.

One of my pieces in the most current version of Clash of Mythic Titans is the Oxybeles, the hand-held predecessor to the Ballista. As "original" as I thought I was for using such a name for a piece, someone in the history of chesss has already used the Ballista, Oxyleles, Gastrophetes, other Ballistic seige weapon etc., for the name of their invented chess piece. And, that goes for the Battering Ram, which is another seige weapon title that I used for another piece in my Xiangqi variant.

That aside, MR_McCHESS is the very first person that I have ever known to use the name "Trebuchet" for a piece. I didn't think anyone would use something interestingly different from more "common" names as the Magician, Dragon, Imposter, Wizard, Bowman/Archer, Prince, Princess, et cetera. Because of that, I think he's very "unique" and "innovative". Doesn't matter if some mysterious historically known/unknown figure has used "trebuchet" as the name of his/her piece. MR_McCHESS is the first that I've known. That's good enough for me. =)

Percicley what I was talking about and the tower with shooty things is one of the pieces on the side of the website Musketeer Chess. I was worried that having a cannon while there was a cannon piece on the side would result in copyright. I was talking about the spider piece on this page https://www.chess.com/blog/Ebinola/an-introduction-to-musketeer-chess

What does that have to do with what I wrote

SO you would have to make something based on the spider but not exactly the spider

I was basing the trebuchet on the spider saying the tower with the shooty things is a good model for the trebuchet but you could only take the tower with shooty things

In truth, Musketeer's 2d art icons are used for a variety of pieces, and no one can always know what Musketeer was originally intending for those icons. That's the beauty of providing a bountiful number of artwork for very different potential pieces; which Musketeer has very nicely done.

His spider design which uses a Bishop's strapless miter with a cross has been used by me for my "Immortal Priest" piece in my Xiangqi variant. I didn't know that was really the spider piece.

None of these variants are official, and neither are Musketeer's icons; they're not copyrighted. Don't quote me, as I could be incorrect, but from my understanding, you should be free use to those icons without having to fear copyright (or even familiarity) conflict. Use the Tower with Cannon icon, if you choose.

On the other hand, I think MR_McCHESS already uses the Catapult icon for his trebuchet 2D display.