pt0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Percival Tieng) (03/19/88)
Ralf Brown has posted some rules for the game on March 4 in comp.sys.ibm.pc. As sort of a rehash and a little more clarification, let me try to retell the rules. I'm sure you've figured out how to start the game by now so I'll restrict myself to the rules of the game itself. First of all, you have to recognize the pieces. 1--2--3--4--5--4--3--2--1 ------------------------- ------6-----------6------ 7-----7-----7-----7-----7 ------------------------- The 5 rows represent one side of the board ( one side of the territory ). Similar numbers indicate similar pieces ( just like on a chess board ). 1 => chariot ( rooks in chess ) 2 => horse ( knights in chess ) 3 => elephant ( sort of like bishops ) 4 => mandarin ( no equivalent ) 5 => king 6 => cannon 7 => foot soldiers ( pawns in chess ) Note that these terms are not from any official rules but let's stick to them so that we can understand each other. ( I tried to make them literal translations from Chinese characters. ) Now that you recognize the pieces, you have to know how each can move. The CHARIOTS are just like rooks in that they can either move horizontally or vertically on the lines ( roads ) with no limit as to the distance - except that it cannot jump over anything in its path. When it is blocked by an enemy piece, it can "eat" ( for lack of a better term ) it, just like in chess. The HORSES move just lke knights in chess, two horizontal one vertical or two vertical one horizontal. It can jump over almost anything. I say almost because in the first direction, either horizontal or vertical, it can't move if there's some other piece right in front of it ( blocking it's path ). So, if you have this situation, where H is the horse, X and Y are any other pieces, - - X H - - - - - - 4 - - X 3 - - - - - 1 - 2 - - - - you can move to 3, 1, and 2 but not to 4. Again, if there is an enemy piece at it's new location, that piece can be "eaten". The ELEPHANTS are like bishops in the sense that they move diagonally but they can only move TWO spaces at a time. They may not cross the boundary between the two kingdoms ( river ). They may not jump over any other pieces but can also "eat" any piece in their new position. The MANDARINS can only move diagonally, one space at a time and are limited to within the 3 x 3 court space alloted to them. They can also "eat" any piece that happen to be in their new position. The KING can move horizontally or vertically, one space at a time, only inside the 3 x 3 court space. It is very possible to trap a king on one end of the 3 x 3 space or give him no possible moves by "guarding" the two other ends he's not on with CHARIOTS. Of course, these CHARIOTS can always be blocked by other pieces. One more thing that's important is that my KING can never come face-to-face with your KING. A move that results in that situation is considered an INVALID move. Kings can also "eat" whatever happens to be in the postion they move into. CANNONS are a weird object. They move just like CHARIOTS but they "eat" only when there's a piece in the middle. In the following situation, - 1 - - - - - - 4 C 2 X - Y - - - 3 - - - - - - C can move to any one of 1, 2, 3, or 4. ( Or farther beyond 1 and beyond 3. ) It can also choose to "eat" Y by jumping over X. Cannons are very powerful pieces ( as you can imagine ) A common checkmate technique involves aligning two cannons in front of the KING ( making sure no other moves by the KING is possible. Any piece the opponent puts to block the check will always result in another check. FOOT SOLDIERS are like pawns in chess but they can move only forward within their own territory, but once they cross to the other side, they can also move horizontally. There are no rewards for soldiers reaching the end of the board. I guess this is all there is to it. The rest involves developing technique in manipulating the pieces. Please let me know if this has helped or what other problems you run into.