✓ WoF ︱ Spy Party

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bsrti

Timecontrol

2 min

Gamerules

Teams, 1-99-check, Fog of War, Any Capture, Bare Piece, Stalemate Wins

Promotion

Transparent Brick on the 13th rank
bsrti

So, let me elaborate a bit about the concept and its implications: the concept itself features no mathematical strategy whatsoever, just avoiding to lose immediately or get discovered, that said this is out of MTDPS classification for having no move depth. Variants of this type have not been accepted for 1.5 years; let me enumerate variants of this type so it's more clear:

Mathletics Cup, King of Escape, The One Ring, Permafrost, The Knights Templar, Anti-Leader, MRBLKN Navigation, Lone King War, Green Invasion, Fairy War, Fields of Gold, King of the Cyclone, Zombie Apocalypse, King Rivalry.

The common thing for all of these WoFs is that they do not feature any strategy theoretically speaking, and are decided by zombies/other players. But let's be honest, theoretical strategy is not equal to practical strategy, that said these things are hard to calculate in real-time:

Zombie Manipulation, Move Orders, Probability Calculation, Psychological Decisions, Retrograde Move Analysis. 

Things above are really hard to calculate in Bullet, so a WoF "completely decided by other players / zombies" may actually yield a higher win rate for a stronger player compared to the more "balanced" WoFs. On this assumption I'm starting a series of WoFs "completely decided by other players / zombies", with all the concepts being prepared in a certain fashion. These WoFs will be classified outside of MTDPS classification (i.e. Fortune classification, pure luck mathematically speaking), will usually be ultra-closed (absolutely minimal / no player interaction outside of drops). Hopefully these variants will showcase that WoFs of this type are possible to get right.

bsrti
kevinmiles2 wrote:

One thing: I don't get what the goal of this game is

Red sees the fogged squares, and knows when blue moves and when green moves. Based on that, red must deduce the location of the green king and give them a check to checkmate them.

Trento007

Green should place the king and pieces in the center areas, along the paths of red/yellow will result in a loss for them typically. Green needs to hide in the board among their pieces, red can tell them apart from blue, so they should attempt to use pieces as a decoy for the king by taking and deploying them elsewhere.

Some moves are needed before red can see the board by use of the amazon and this allows red a "shot" at green's king, however more moves should be used to determine the location of green as opposed to blue.

I have an extra map or two on the same concept, it is a favorite of mine.

TTY_500

CGAbot? It's been a day

ChessMasterGS
TTY_500 wrote:

CGAbot? It's been a day

CGAbot will not be back for a while; there’s a scheduled maintenance 

KingOfK2Lounge

CGA is on vacation until January

Trento007
bsrti wrote:
kevinmiles2 wrote:

One thing: I don't get what the goal of this game is

Red sees the fogged squares, and knows when blue moves and when green moves. Based on that, red must deduce the location of the green king and give them a check to checkmate them.

I may have found an alternate goal for red which seems to force a stalemate without interacting with green, it also allows red more moves to 'guess' where green is, although doing so is not necessarily the goal. The true goal is to stalemate yourself as red which can happen if yellow chooses to take red's pawn as it advances forward to waste moves, and if red is forced to take yellow's piece red wants to sacrifice it to blue immediately for stalemate. Perhaps the only way for green to win this exchange is to take yellows royal wazir after the intended end of the game. Example:
https://www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/33497342/71/1

At least the easiest fix for this issue I am using is to change promotion to duck and set reds pawn as a royal, even when executing this strategy red will lose as yellow forfeits on bare piece rule.

bsrti

@Trento007 That behavior is intentional: green can disrupt all of the red's plans by dropping a piece on the c2 square, this mechanic actually incentivizes green to keep at least one piece in the bank, and this is the exact mechanic that red should play if red is sure green didn't capture any piece, so it is possible to disrupt. 

 

Trento007

I find that to be valid, however green must be quick to stop reds amazon or it will gain enough tempo for yellow to place the pawn and not lose to bare piece, overall I feel it detracts from the theme even if adding some variety in strategy. Promoting to duck and changing reds pawn to a royal 99 check removes the strategy. Keeping the strategy in play may limit the ability to make some maps with the same template as often green can be more at risk of losing to bare piece.

bsrti
Trento007 wrote:

I find that to be valid, however green must be quick to stop reds amazon or it will gain enough tempo for yellow to place the pawn and not lose to bare piece, overall I feel it detracts from the theme even if adding some variety in strategy. Promoting to duck and changing reds pawn to a royal 99 check removes the strategy. Keeping the strategy in play may limit the ability to make some maps with the same template as often green can be more at risk of losing to bare piece.

Red can always go for a quick stalemate instead of prolonging moves, and, that said, there's no need for red to not take the immediate win were green not able to interfere. So, changing the promotion to wall doesn't really change anything if red is playing for a tricky win.

If red's pawn is made royal, green just checkmates it on move 1. Though, changing the promotion to a wall seems like a very good idea as to make yellow lose even if amazon isn't captured.

Trento007
bsrti wrote:

If red's pawn is made royal, green just checkmates it on move 1.

yes I fixed that by also making it a sergeant though now i begin to question if that opens up other strategies for red

CGA
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Status: Accepted

Reason: Quite an interesting WoF! Despite it having no theoretical strategy aside from immediately losing, it's really hard to keep track of probabilities and zombie move preferences, thus giving red a lot of chances. Despite the occurrences of 50/50s present, it is complex enough and there is still enough skill involved.

Trento007

royal pawn is a mistake as it opens up forcing lines for green to take it, similarly I believe red's first move is forced to push the pawn

Trento007

https://www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/34371161/48/1

https://www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/34371332/41/4

here I have two extra maps for this template for those interested

xxPlayer1014xx

Absolutely love it!!! 100/10!

zisal2029

I think I know what Zombie Manipulation means, but can you clarify its exact meaning, which I cannot find an answer for anywhere?