| Author |
Message |
Gregory Topov (Gregtopov)
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 4:03 pm: | |
Is there a Zillions implementation of the "Dark Chess" variant on itsyourturn.com. I don't know what the official name of this variant is. It's a terrific game, and I'm hoping I can find it for Zillions. |
Gregory Topov (Gregtopov)
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 4:42 pm: | |
Here is some more info on this variant:
http://www.chessvariants.com/incinf.dir/darkness.html
http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/darkchess.html
http://www.itsyourturn.com/t_helptopic2020.html#helpitem1275
It's basically a simplified version of Kriegspiel, and is a totally awesome chess variant! If an implementation doesn't exist for Zillions yet, it would be great to have one!!! Hopefully someone will take up the challenge! - I'm guessing it shouldn't be too difficult, because the regular rules of chess apply, the only thing is that you cannot see all the opponent's pieces except those squares that your own pieces can move to. |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Monday, December 30, 2002 - 11:38 am: | |
The game looks very interesting, but I am not sure if Dark Chess can be implemented with Zillion. The problem is that in this chess variant you don't see the anemy pieces. This seems to be not supported by Zillion rule description language. |
Fergus Duniho (Fduniho)
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2003 - 9:53 pm: | |
Yes, Zillions cannot be used for games with hidden information. Although it would be possible to implement a game where the computer's pieces would be invisible to the human player, it is impossible to hide information from Zillions. The program always plays from an omniscient perspective.
But it may be possible for two people to use Zillions to play Kriegspiel or Dark Chess on-line. The trick is for each player to use different piece sets.
In Kriegspiel, for example, each player would use transparent dots for all the enemy pieces, and turn off all the features that would otherwise indicate what pieces are where. To give partial information on what pieces are moved, all coordinates could be translated into some common character, such as *. Although information on what piece is what could be found out, two honest players may be able to play a game with hidden information over Zillions. |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 - 1:55 am: | |
Since I last posted on this topic I figured out how to make pieces invisible to the human player. It is very simple actually, you create a bitmap completely filled out with a green color.
Using this idea I implemented Kriegspiel and Dark Chess for Zillion. I submitted them to Free Games area, they should appear soon.
No magic, the computer player still sees all your pieces. This is only you, who plays Kriegspiel or Dark Chess, the computer plays standard chess.
This makes playing against computer very difficult in Kriegspiel. So, I created variants, where the computer plays without Queen or Queen and two rooks to make the chances equal.
However in Dark Chess you have enough information to be able to compete with computer player. May be this is because AI is puzzled by all those special moves to make pieces visible/invisible.
Actually it is possible also make that computer plays fair, i.e. don't use information of invisible pieces. To implement this, you need create a .dll engine and write in C++ algorithm for playing this game. |
David Eugene Whitcher (Dralius)
| | Posted on Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 7:29 am: | |
On the same subject. Is there any way to write a general engine to handle games with hidden information or is it a matter of writing then for each game. |
Andreas Kaufmann (Andreas)
| | Posted on Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 2:34 pm: | |
The question is here if you really need to create an engine to handle hidden information. Will this make playing with a computer more interesting?
At least for Dark Chess I don't think so. I would rather play against computer, which uses hidden information and plays good because of this, then play against weak, but fair playing opponent. |
David Eugene Whitcher (Dralius)
| | Posted on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 6:57 am: | |
I think that having the option of hiding information from the your opponent, Human or Computer would allow for many games that just can't implemented well with the current system. For example in "Stratego" it would be an unfair advantage for the computer to know the value of your pieces before they have been exposed. Any game is much more interesting when you have a chance to win. |