[HN Gopher] Can Chess, with Hexagons? [video] ___________________________________________________________________ Can Chess, with Hexagons? [video] Author : miiiiiike Score : 94 points Date : 2023-07-12 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com) | nubinetwork wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36679545 | TheDudeMan wrote: | Yesterday it was lasers, today hexagons. Tomorrow, hexagonal | laser chess. | jedc wrote: | Great Wikipedia reference about this here: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagonal_chess | wirrbel wrote: | There are multiple hexagonal Chess variants, there is a Wikipedia | article on that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagonal_chess | | I am implementing a chess engine for Polgar star chess for fun | currently | Mountain_Skies wrote: | In the almost Chess domain, I loved the 3M/Avalon Hill game | 'Feudal', which was Chess-like but with more types of pieces, | more complex movements, and terrain types. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_(game) | jmiskovic wrote: | The Duke is another chess variant I'm fascinated by. It's still | on rectangular grid, with more varied rules for each piece | movement and attack patterns. What I find interesting is that | these rules are inscribed on game pieces themselves. Some pieces | even change their patterns after their action, by flipping over | their tile and exposing the alternate pattern. I find this | concept of game rules moving around the board alluring for some | reason. | | https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36235/duke | kevinpet wrote: | It doesn't make sense to me why pawns attack on a file (adjoining | hexagons) rather than diagonal (hexagon pointed to but separated | by the side between two others). | mkehrt wrote: | A youtube comment points out that this allows pawn walls which | protect each other and block on file moves, just like in real | chess. | wakamoleguy wrote: | In the final state where white resigns, it looks like the king | could simply capture the queen instead. Wasn't it unprotected? | amflare wrote: | Yes, he mentioned in a comment[0] that he got his hex diagonals | confused. | | > My brain was clearly too melted by that point -- I got my hex | diagonals confused. CURSE YOU DIAGONALS! [0]: h | ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgR3yESAEVE&lc=Ugz_oSLguMoeaVkug | GN4AaABAg.9s-LI3bFJ389s-M7pcbfF2 | 1lint wrote: | This brings back memories of first playing civ5, which used a | hexagonal grid | Aerroon wrote: | I really don't like the diagonal moves. | hammock wrote: | One of the earliest computer games I played was 3-level chess | (https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/article/288.2f44...) | on like a Tandy PC computer (DOS) | mikewarot wrote: | Why aren't there 3 players? It could be scaled that way. | wirrbel wrote: | There is a hexagonal shogi variant with 3 players | | The problem is that 2 players kind of would team up to get the | third player out of the game which is imbalanced. Than you have | a 2 player game .. | mr_toad wrote: | But there is the possibility of betrayal and switching sides. | In a winner takes all game as soon as one player looks like | they're winning the weaker players have an incentive to gang | up on them. | globular-toast wrote: | Is the title a joke that I don't understand? | TheRealPomax wrote: | No. It's literally what if chess, but hexagons. | _nalply wrote: | Now let's design chess variants on a hyperbolical plane! | hinkley wrote: | Red Queen problem? | rini17 wrote: | Or aperiodic tiles. There you can have every game with | different "map". | apendleton wrote: | I've also seen several different variants for chess on a torus | (imagined -- still played on a flat board, but you play as if | each edge is connected to the opposite one). Pieces end up | having basically the same allowed moves (IIRC the only required | change is that a piece making a move where it loops around the | board and back to its original position is disallowed), but a | different initial setup is required, because given the regular | one, both sides start the game already check-mated. For further | brain-bending, you can do a Klein bottle instead of a torus. | jerf wrote: | Whenever you think to yourself that Chess, but X, would be | interesting, you should just pop it into a search engine: | https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40511/hyperbolic-chess | | I say this not as a "you should have searched", but because | it's _fun_. There are thousands of chess variants in the world | ( https://www.chessvariants.com/Gindex.html ) and it's amazing | where this simple game can be taken. | qsort wrote: | The problem with those variants is that they force the usual | chess pieces in contexts where they don't really belong. | | Rooks and bishops follow the obvious geometry of the square | chessboard. Knights are the natural complement of rooks and | bishops: they move to any of the closest squares neither a rook | nor a bishop could reach. | | Pawns defend each other and form the game's "structure". | | Queens are rather arbitrary (you could have rook+knight or | bishop+knight instead of rook+bishop), but a strong piece is | needed to allow for dynamic play. | | On an hexagon they don't really make sense. Is there a more | "natural" set of pieces that's built on the geometry of an | hexagon rather than being an awkward translation of the usual | chess pieces? | TheRealPomax wrote: | If you watch the video, you'll find that on a hexagon, things | make no less sense than on a grid and the folks who worked out | hexagonal chess actually did a pretty great job preserving all | those roles. Your brain just isn't use to hexagon logic. | runarberg wrote: | I find it kind of hilarious that whites first move can be 1. | Qb4, past their beginning pawn wall, and staring right that | blacks queen through blacks pawn wall, and where it is | immediately taken by black's first move: 1... Qxb4 | hyperhopper wrote: | Not specifically "hexagonal chess, but a very tactically | similar hexagonal abstract strategy game called "Hive"[1] is | very well regarded in the board game community and relevant to | this discussion for anybody even tangentially interested. | | Personally, I think it's more worth spending your time looking | into that than yet another variant of chess. Also if you get a | hankering to play it, it is available on boardgamearena online. | | [1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive | Lyngbakr wrote: | Hive is fantastic fun. I found it easy to learn, but that | there was some strategic depth that really gave it replay | value. An interesting aspect is that there isn't a board as | such, rather the pieces together constitute the playing area | which morphs as the game unfolds. It's a great on-the-go game | since the pieces are tough and it's a convenient size to be | chucked in a bag for the beach, train journeys, etc. | jjnoakes wrote: | The moves described in the video seemed like they were decent | analogues to me. The bishop moved along the same color and | could attack rooks and knights from safety and could slide | between pieces. Rooks could attack bishops and knights safely. | Knights could attack rooks and bishops and queens safely. | | What specifically did you think was way out of context? | user070223 wrote: | Interested in an engine piece valuation and "novelties" (like | capture towards the edge, or perhaps overpowered openings) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-12 23:00 UTC)