#19
Yes, the engine does understand whether it has castling rights in a position, and while I would not trust the exact number, 1.94 is quite convincingly greater than zero.
If a new variant is to be added, this is probably a good choice, partly because it should not take very much new interface programming to add (very much less than for bughouse, for example), as drops already exists in crazyhouse, so much of the code can be reused.
All that is needed is to repurpose the pawn slot for the king, force the first eight moves to be drops, allow drops only on the first rank, set castling rights after move eight, and disallow a non-bishop drop that either:
(1) Leaves only squares of one colour empty when neither bishop has been placed.
or,
(2) When one bishop has been placed, covered the last remaining square of the opposite colour.
Of course, captured pieces must not go back to the drop pile.
Yes, the engine does understand whether it has castling rights in a position, and while I would not trust the exact number, 1.94 is quite convincingly greater than zero.
If a new variant is to be added, this is probably a good choice, partly because it should not take very much new interface programming to add (very much less than for bughouse, for example), as drops already exists in crazyhouse, so much of the code can be reused.
All that is needed is to repurpose the pawn slot for the king, force the first eight moves to be drops, allow drops only on the first rank, set castling rights after move eight, and disallow a non-bishop drop that either:
(1) Leaves only squares of one colour empty when neither bishop has been placed.
or,
(2) When one bishop has been placed, covered the last remaining square of the opposite colour.
Of course, captured pieces must not go back to the drop pile.