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H. G. Muller wrote on Sun, Feb 18 03:34 AM EST in reply to Bob Greenwade from Sat Feb 17 09:22 PM:

Indeed. The Ko Nets are problematic, as are other Gorgon type of pieces. Because the don't really cast the spell as a fixed zone, but as a sliding move that can be blocked. So the zone doesn't only change on their own move, which is what the Diagram's implementation of spellZone assumes. The Gorgon effect is similar to the rule that you cannot castle out of check, which is again related to e.p. capture; one could say that the latter is en depart capture. Castling creates e.p. rights not only on the squares the King passed through, but also on the square it came from. And any piece type can use those rights, not just Pawn. This is how the Diagram's AI implements the ban on castling out of check; it makes it look like exposing the King to (e.p.) capture.

Gorgons could be implemented in a similar way, by adopting the rule that a Gorgon move to the origin of the preceding move must be scored as an immediate win. The square of origin becomes a kind of e.p. square for exclusive use by Gorgons, while a thus captured piece counts as absolute royal. I guess this could be specified in the captureMatrix as a new symbol, so that you could specify in a type-selective way which pieces are paralyzed by a Gorgon. An alternative is adding 'Gorgon capture' as a new mode to XBetza.

As to the spell zone: pieces are always immune to thir own spell, specifying a zone of only the square they stand on would have no effect. How would you imagine a piece that (passively) burns itself? Or freezes itself, or brakes itself, or protects itself? The latter three already exist as pieces without moves, steppers and iron pieces.


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