Thanks, I use Zillions currently. I saw the winboard engine for Ultima, but there could use better pictures ... What's your opinion about that game? I was thinking that the only reason that you have double chamaleons and long - leapers is that is needed the same equipment that you have in chess , but if you're playing on the the computer you could have just one piece x type (except the pawns) and maybe use the advancer , the swapper or why not the FIDE Queen to replace the doubles
Regards
The game is interesting, but I think it is a bit too complex for human play. Tactics is difficult to grasp because every piece captures in a different way, so that concepts like defending a piece do not exist. Adding more piece types, which capture in yet other ways, might just make this worse.
I admit that there is no real reason for having the duplicates in Ultima. In Chess it is actually very functional that there is a single Queen, two Rooks and four minors. It anticipates the large probability that equally valued pieces will be traded against each other, so that you need more light pieces to lower the probability that you run out of them while the heavy pieces are still on the board. So that at any stage it is still possible to trade a heavy piece for two lighter pieces. I think this highly contributes to the variety of the game. In Ultima the duplication serves no such function: although no piece values are known, it seems clear that a Withdrawer is one of the weakest pieces. So it would be much more logical to have two withdrawers, and only a single Chameleon, (say). Likewise, a Coordinator seems worth less to me than a Long Leaper, so perhaps a better array would have been Coord-Withdr-LongL-Imm-King-Cham-Withdr-Coord (assuming the Immobilizer is by far the strongest of all).
About the piece symbols: I guess this is much a matter of taste. The WinBoard symbols were chosen to resemble the 'woodware', which again was supposed to symbolize the piece properties (which at an early stage was not yet perfected). E.g. the speheres used for Chameleons represent spherical mirrors in which every piece sees its own reflection, a dish antenna is used for the Coordinator to symbolize capture at a distance, the Withdrawer is represented by a rocket that destroys what it moves away from by its jet exhaust. The Long Leaper was represented by a cylinder as a reminder to the Queens in International Draughts on which they are based, which are usually represented as stacked draughts chips.
Personally I think the Zillions representation is awful, as bad as playing Xiangqi with the traditional oriental equipment. IMO one never should use inscriptions on pieces to identify them, but they should be identifiable by shape.
I think you could add one Advancer and one Swapper because they're used in Abbott's Rococo in this way you have one piece x type and the combinations are richer.
The only reason the designer chose to have two Chamaleons and two LL IMO it's because you can't put upside down the bishops and the knights ...
Actually you defend all the time in Ultima Ex: A long- leapers attacks a pawn, and you put a chamaleon on the other side border ready to recapture ...
The Withdrawer is useful to attack non isolated pieces. Same with the Coordinator and to a certain extent the King .
Actually I think Ultima's complexity is an asset, I mean if you want a clear game you have Chess already so there's no need to change.... Ultima is very good for puzzles that's for sure.
The Zillions rapresentation is as ugly as it is functional BTW there is the classical rapresentation but IMO it could be misleading.
Regards
Thanks, I use Zillions currently. I saw the winboard engine for Ultima, but there could use better pictures ... What's your opinion about that game? I was thinking that the only reason that you have double chamaleons and long - leapers is that is needed the same equipment that you have in chess , but if you're playing on the the computer you could have just one piece x type (except the pawns) and maybe use the advancer , the swapper or why not the FIDE Queen to replace the doubles
Regards
The game is interesting, but I think it is a bit too complex for human play. Tactics is difficult to grasp because every piece captures in a different way, so that concepts like defending a piece do not exist. Adding more piece types, which capture in yet other ways, might just make this worse.
I admit that there is no real reason for having the duplicates in Ultima. In Chess it is actually very functional that there is a single Queen, two Rooks and four minors. It anticipates the large probability that equally valued pieces will be traded against each other, so that you need more light pieces to lower the probability that you run out of them while the heavy pieces are still on the board. So that at any stage it is still possible to trade a heavy piece for two lighter pieces. I think this highly contributes to the variety of the game. In Ultima the duplication serves no such function: although no piece values are known, it seems clear that a Withdrawer is one of the weakest pieces. So it would be much more logical to have two withdrawers, and only a single Chameleon, (say). Likewise, a Coordinator seems worth less to me than a Long Leaper, so perhaps a better array would have been Coord-Withdr-LongL-Imm-King-Cham-Withdr-Coord (assuming the Immobilizer is by far the strongest of all).
About the piece symbols: I guess this is much a matter of taste. The WinBoard symbols were chosen to resemble the 'woodware', which again was supposed to symbolize the piece properties (which at an early stage was not yet perfected). E.g. the speheres used for Chameleons represent spherical mirrors in which every piece sees its own reflection, a dish antenna is used for the Coordinator to symbolize capture at a distance, the Withdrawer is represented by a rocket that destroys what it moves away from by its jet exhaust. The Long Leaper was represented by a cylinder as a reminder to the Queens in International Draughts on which they are based, which are usually represented as stacked draughts chips.
Personally I think the Zillions representation is awful, as bad as playing Xiangqi with the traditional oriental equipment. IMO one never should use inscriptions on pieces to identify them, but they should be identifiable by shape.