pao
A Banqi Game Server
Installing Pao
- Install Go and set up a workspace - Make sure your
$GOPATH
and $GOROOT
environment variables are set, and that the appropriate directories are added to your PATH if you want to run executables without using go run
.
- This is the hardest (but probably most important) step. Make sure to follow the instructions in the links.
- Get the pao source:
go get github.com/arbrown/pao
You can fork this repository and go get
your own version to contribute changes upstream.
- Go to the path where the source was installed, and run pao.go
The server should begin running on port 2015. Go to http://localhost:2015/ in a web browser to see the lobby.
Joining a game
The game code uses a character-based notation to store and transmit piece information.
Pieces
Pieces are represented by the letters in the following table
Piece |
Red |
Black |
King |
k |
K |
Guard |
g |
G |
Elephant |
e |
E |
Cart |
c |
C |
Horse |
h |
H |
Pawn |
p |
P |
Canon |
q |
Q |
Uncovered pieces are represented by '?' and empty squares are '.'.
Board
The board is represented as an 8x4 (8 columns, 4 rows) board with coordinates as follows:
. |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
1 |
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2 |
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3 |
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4 |
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A location is referred to by its letter/number coordinates, for example, A1 or F3.
Plies
A ply consists of a piece identifier, a location, an action (moves '>', or becomes '=') followed by a piece identifier, and a location. If a piece was killed in this ply, there is then an 'x' followed by the piece identifier and location of the killed piece.
For example, if a black guard at C2 killed a red pawn at D2, the ply notation would be:
GC2>GD2xpD2
If a player turned up a red cannon at B4, the notation would be:
?B4=qB4
Theoretical variants
In theory, in some game variants a ply could involve more than one piece (on either side) or multiple moves (as in double-move Banqi.) In this case, multiple pieces (and their locations) are separated by commas (,) and multiple moves are separated by semicolons (;).