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pao

A Banqi Game Server

Installing Pao

  1. 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.
  2. Get the pao source: go get github.com/arbrown/pao go get
    You can fork this repository and go get your own version to contribute changes upstream.
  3. Go to the path where the source was installed, and run pao.go go run
    The server should begin running on port 2015. Go to http://localhost:2015/ in a web browser to see the lobby.

Joining a game

If no games are currently running, you can join a new game by clicking the button: join
Then, another player can join your game and it will begin. join
Have fun! game
Banqi Game Notation

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
2
3
4

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 (;).