🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Mar13.114342.139660@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> ucgadkw@ucl.ac.uk (Dominik Wujastyk) writes:
>I am forwarding the following query from my friend Harry Falk.
>- begin forwarded query ------------------------------------------------------
>From: harry <FALK@DE.UNI-FREIBURG.RUF.IBM>
>a collegue asks me to put his question before this audience:
>is there a computer program playing chess according to (ancient) Indian
>rules: queen only moving one step diagonally, bishops not much brighter etc.?
>If not: would it be possible to write a new or patch an existing program
>to implement the necessary rules?
>Harry
>- end forwarded query --------------------------------------

I am not sure what you refer to as "ancient Indian chess". If my
memory is correct, they have quite a lot of variations. (No wonder,
chess was invented there...).

Now, as to modify an existing source code to change the moves of the
pieces, that can be easily done IMHO. Beside some careful screening of
the whole code for "embedded" rules (like captures en passant and
castling), you should be able to make straightforward modifications to
specific arrays that describe the moves. Gnuchess has (if I recall
well, again), 2 such arrays: 1 for directions, and 1 for steps.

Of course, the patched code will play incredibly bad, since the
evaluation function that contains all the heuristics will be no longer
valid. That also can be changed by code screening, and by modifying
some arrays (in Gnuchess again).

Overall, the skeleton of the program and the search algorithm should
be ok, even though they have been specifically engineered and
optimized for European chess (timing considerations, etc...).

I think it might be as much time-consuming to reverse-engineer the
code of a chess program and adapt it to your needs than to build it
from scratch, with the benefit of the accumulated experience in
European chess programs.

The people who wrote Gnuchess will surely be of better advice. 

gilles