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by lucasmullens 749 days ago
It might be worth considering just changing the rules for the pawn to deal with this. It's hard to tell what it means to move "forward" on a board like this, even after understanding the indicators.

Maybe pawns could just move horizontally/vertically and attack diagonally, regardless of color?
1 comments
frading 749 days ago
That's an interesting suggestion.

The pro is that it will simplify things, remove visual and cognitive clutter.

The con is that we stray away from classic chess rules, which I'd still like to avoid as much as possible.

I will think about it. It may be possible to allow as an option.

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paipa 749 days ago
Your constraint should be that if the board is the special case of regular chess, the game should play exactly the same. Allowing the pawn to move towards any side is too much because it would violate this principle.

Perhaps define forward as the direction(s) which, when extrapolated as a rook, would reach the opponent's backrank. If it doesn't exist, the direction(s) which, when extrapolated, terminate on the opponent's half. This would allow extra freedom to pawns in some funky topologies that can occur in your game, but generally follows the principle of least surprisal.

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frading 749 days ago
yes, GP reached the same conclusion as you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40550176

I'm still unsure, as I describe in my reply there, an issue I see is that you can't know the path a pawn would take, unless you know where it comes from.

But since both of you reached the same solution, I'll keep thinking about it.

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paipa 749 days ago
I get the dillemma, but I don't think it's a problem that the string of squares used to define "foward" isn't always the same as path the pawn will actually take if it chugs along.

This only happens when there's no straight path to the opponent's backrank, so you are allowed to go "sideways-foward" until you hit a square from which there is a clean forward path again.

Agreed that the past should not matter, only the current position.

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frading 741 days ago
Thanks a lot for insisting of this, and that end up convincing me. I describe the change in the sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40634675

That was super useful. So don't hesitate if you have any other feedback.

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