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#Post#: 167--------------------------------------------------
The Huygens chess piece
By: chilipepper Date: January 21, 2018, 10:51 pm
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Here's an interesting study of the huygens.
[attach=1]
The huygens is a chess piece which jumps prime numbers of
squares in orthogonal directions. The unusual features of the
huygens is most evident when played on very large boards - or
even better, on an unbounded chessboard. :)
One of the interesting aspects of the huygens is that it is good
at escaping attacks by other leaping chess pieces. Since a prime
number is not a multiple of any number (except for one and
itself), this means that every leaping chess piece must make at
least one "non-optimal" jump when chasing after a huygens.
The diagram below illustrates this. In the initial position, the
black huygens on (6,0) is being attacked simultaneously by 6
hawks and 4 knights. (A hawk jumps 2 or 3 squares in orthogonal
and diagonal directions based on the Musketeer game definition).
[attach=2]
For the huygens to make an escape which frustrates these
attackers, in can make a jump of 13 squares (one example). Every
other piece can continue to chase the huygens, but in every
case, the attacking piece makes at least one "sub-optimal" jump.
This means the attacker makes a jump shorter than it's maximum
allowed jump, or jumps in a direction which is not most-directly
towards the huygens.
Have fun if playing a game with the huygens - but use caution!
Nobody knows the complete set of all prime number, so we don't
know yet the full capability of a huygens! ::)
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