Battle,
I don't recall providing a material point analysis. In fact, I'm not sure what that is exactly. So I wouldn't be much help in analyzing your new pieces.
I learned the moves almost 55 years ago! And I still haven't mastered how the original pieces move and interact.
Are you HGMuller? =D
Not in this time line.
Let one remember, time lines, hense the plurality, are simultaneous.
The other you's fill this universe.
Let one remember, time lines, hense the plurality, are simultaneous.
The other you's fill this universe.
Ewe's correct!
Just think. You could be me in a neigboring dimension... O.o
It reminds us all that we are one after all. ^-^
p. s. Where is HGMuller (of this dimension) anyways? lol
Battle,
What if the game that you're creating is really the standard version of chess in a parallel universe? And your inspiration is really a bleed-through from the dreams of the other 'you' there.
Well that's very flattering, my kind man.
I wish I can get people to feel such a positive inspiration for it in this universe. xD
Nah, it's fine. The fact that it attracts a minor crowd is good enough for me. Dan MacDonald's Omega Chess invention is famous now, and still, it only has some followers while recieving a lot of criticism from a whole lot of others for what it is. It's just the nature of chess variants in this dimension, I guess.
:)
Battle,
It is the nature of creativity to take what exists and modify it to suit your needs and wants.
Most people do not venture beyond their comfort zone for fear of failure or ridicule. The greatest discoveries are found by those who are not afraid to be wrong. In fact, they see failure as a necessary step on the road to success.
Amen to that; especially seeing that I will be a future educator.
I just hope I don't hurt my students too deeply that they will never forgive me. That's one of my major fears in life.
Sorry for the tardy response, I had not visited here for some time. I will try to set up some testing with Fairy-Max; that should be able to handle this piece. Some hand-waving interpolation from tests with similar pieces I have already done, would guesstimate the value of this piece indeed around 7:
I did many tests with somewhat handicapped versions of the piece that could reach the Q2 + N squares, removing one (or a symmetric pair) of the moves as capture, non-capture or alltogether. From this it turned out that captures contributed about twice as much to the value as non-captures (which was confirmed by measuring the value of pieces that moved as Knight and captured as King, or the other way around), and that forward moves contribute about twice as much as sideway or backward moves. The latter is not of relevance for a totally symmetric piece like the Telepath.
A piece that would have all the 24 moves as direct jumps would be worth about 11, when Q=9.5. I have not directly measured how much a range-2 move would suffer from being blockable ('lame') on this piece. On a Bishop the power to jump to the 2nd square turned out to be worth as much as all moves beyond it; on a Queen it was worth as much as all moves beyond the third, so the jumping power can be pretty valuable. If we would deduct 1 Pawn for not being able to jump from the full Q2+N piece we would get to 10, which is 7 more than the Knight. If we then discount the extra moves compared to Knight by a factor 2/3, because they can only capture, we end up with 7.66-7.9 (depending on whether you count Knight as 3 or 3.25).
So it seems sensible to test the Telepath against Q or Q minus P, or perhaps Archbishop.
I only started testing today, so no definitive results yet. But when I replace Q of one side by Telepath, the Queen seems to be winning, and after 175 games leads by ~59%. That isn't very much, classical Pawn odds (deleting f2/f7) usually results in 65-68% score. That points to just half a Pawn less than Queen. I started another test startup where I gave the Queen side additional Pawn odds, but it has only 56 games so far, and the Telepath+Pawn side is leading there by 61%. That does not contradict the estimate Q-0.5P.
Thanks again for taking the time to do this, GHMuller.
So, from my understanding, the following hierarchy of power, from strongest to weakest (though, none of these pieces are weak!), is your finding:
1) High Priestess - ~9.75 points
2) Queen - ~9.5 points
3) Telepath - estimated to be ~8.5 points, which is ~.75 points higher than your original estimation
Is this correct?
I believe that a substantial promotional piece should be at least 2.5 points stronger than the piece it's upgraded from. Since the Magician, according to your analysis, is ~5.5 points (Ever so stronger than the Rook, the way a Bishop is ever so stronger than the Knight), sounds like it maybe so.
After the Queen vs Telepath test ended in about 59% advantage for the Queen after 500 games, I did the ultimate test by handicapping the Queen side by another Pawn, and playing 800 games from 16 different start positions (also those whith Knights and Bishops swapped for white, black or both) to create more game diversity. The Telepath won this by 56%. The statistical error in this is about 1.4%. So it seems the Telepath is about halfway between Q and Q minus P, perhaps somewhat closer to the latter. If Q = 9.5, that would set the Telepath at 8.9.
So how do you guys mind your P's and Q's?
It's been a long time since you and I have spoke about my Magician's Deathmatch variant. And, I want to continue to thank you for your input.
I had recently added a new promotional piece to the 4 existing in the variant: the Telepath. The one difference between it and the High Priestess is that the High Priestess's moving power is the Queen's power limited to a range of 2 squares, whereas the Telepath's moving power is that of the Knight's. Both of their capturing powers combine both the Knight's and range-limited Queen's powers, and both can leap in order to capture. (Though, the High-Priestess cannot leap just to move). Players now have a wider range of options to choose from for promotion.
Telepath:
High Priestess:
This piece was created amidst my decision to omit the Prime Minister (moves like Queen with unlimited range, captures like Queen and Knight combined), Archbishop and Chancellor. I came to understand that they're too powerful for the 8x8 board. The rules were then revised accordingly.
The Magician is still promoted to High Priestess upon a pawn reaching the 6th rank. Only now, enemy Knights, Bishops, Rooks, and Queen are no longer considered.
My decision to revise the rules into this was in part on your material point analysis of the High Priestess, which ended up being slightly more powerful than a Queen. This benefit lead me to realize that the Prime Minister wasn't necessary anymore, since the High Priestess itself is basically another Queen added to the board. Along the way, I discovered that I could add another promotional piece that took on the opposite moving power to the HP.
We have since come to an understanding that the Hight Priestess (~9.8 points) is slightly more powerful than the Queen (9.5 points), the same that a Bishhop (~3.2(?) points) is slightly more powerful than a Knight (~2.875(?) points). I would like to know where the Telepath would stand amoung them. I estimate that it would be worth 8 or 8.5 points approximately.
Would you be willing to do a material point analysis on this new piece?