This is an introduction, to help you get started. A team game is, of course, two teams competing at one chess game, one side as white and one side as black. Moves are discussed by each side and each person can vote on what move they like.
When enough people want to move, the majority move is chosen. In the event of a tie, one of the winning moves is chosen at random.
These games can be a great learning experience, and also a very exciting challenge. If you are a stronger player please consider attempting to help the weaker players understand your thinking and see what is wrong with theirs, without putting them down. Always try to be considerate to your teammates.
Three "bot" accounts handle the team game process. These are automated accounts and have (TD) after their name, just like the "Mamer(TD)" account handles tournaments.
The bots are "Whiteteam(TD)", "Blackteam(TD)", and "FicsTeamBot(TD)".
If you are using a chess client which lets you talk to different users in different windows or tabs, you should tell "set full on" to ficsteambot. The bots will then talk to you in a way that will work better with your client. Alternatively, if you are using a single-window client, you might find it convenient to set up some aliases to reduce the amount of typing that is needed.
You use three simple commands to "talk" to these bots. We currently don't have system-wide aliases set up, so it would be helpful if you could type the following 3 commands at the 'fics%' console prompt:
alias tw xtell whiteteam $@ alias tb xtell blackteam $@ alias ta xtell ficsteambot $@You only need to do that once; they will be remembered by the fics server once you type them.
Everything told to "Whiteteam" gets passed on to the white team as a message. Everything told to "BlackTeam" gets passed on to the black team as a message. And everything told to "FicsTeamBot" get passed on to *both* teams, and all observers.
You can either play as the white team, play as the black team, or passively observe both teams struggling through the battle.
The two teams cannot observe each others' messages, so all discourse is private (until the end of the game, when a log of all the moves, and all the team talk is uploaded to a website. You can download the PGN file from the website and view it in your chess client.
You vote on moves by telling your robot captain the move you would like, prefaced by "vote". For example, you vote on e4 as white by "tw vote e4" and e5 as black by "tb vote e5". Then, when you are ready to move you vote "go" by "tw go" or "tb go". Once enough people want to move, the move is made. "vote" can be shortened to "v" if you like.
You can join and leave teams at any time, but if you are the ones starting a team game please be considerate and try to stay for the whole game. "tw join" joins the white team, "tb join" joins the black team. The "join" command isn't necessary. Simply telling your vote to a team captain is enough to join his team. The "leave" command can be used to leave a team (if you tell it to the captain of the team) or to leave the game altogether (if you tell it to ficsteambot) . "info" gives information about the current teams.
Typical output from the "info" command looks like this:
: Use 'observe 256' to see the game board. : whiteteam (2) : [27.3%]-metal(1623), [72.7%]-dollock(1791) : blackteam (3) : [50.0%++]-Jello(1469), [25.0%]-zap(1942), [25.0%]-sinx(1924) : spying (1) : dooglus(1911)It tells you the board number on which the team game is being played, and lists the members of each team. The percentage in brackets before each name is an indication of how strong that player's vote is. The more you contribute to the discussion and voting, the higher your percentage vote grows. The number in parentheses after each name is the players standard FICS ranking. The ++ marker inside the brackets indicates that the player has been active on the current move, and so will be rewarded with a higher percentage at the end of the move.
Notice also the 'spying' line. If you would rather watch the game than participate in it, you can tell "spy" to ficsteambot. You will then see the private communction of both teams. If you do chose to observe the game in this way, please don't pass information between teams, offer analysis, or be a nuisance in general. To stop observing the game, tell "unspy" to ficsteambot. You will not be allowed to join either side for at least 5 full moves after you stop observing. This is to so that anything you learned about the teams' plans will have more chance of being out of date by the time you join the game.
There are two different ways in which the bots can speak to you. You can chose between having them use a full "tell" command, which looks like this:
FicsTeamBot(TD) tells you: whiteteam (1) : dooglus(1911) (total 1) FicsTeamBot(TD) tells you: blackteam (0) : <empty> (total 0)or using a shorter version of the command, which looks like this:
: whiteteam (1) : dooglus(1911) (total 1) : blackteam (0) : <empty> (total 0)The full version is switched on by telling "set full on" to any of the three bots. It is a good idea to use the full version if you are running a multi-tabbed chess client such as BabasChess, because then a separate chat tab will be created for conversation with your team captain (and hence also with your team).
The shorter version is switcher on by telling them "set short on". It produces nicer looking output if you are running in a single windowed client, such as thief (or telnet).
Occasionally when playing a team game, one or more of your partners may wander off without leaving the team. This can be a problem, because the remaining players in the team might not have enough voting power between them to be able to get their captain to move for them. The solution to this problem is to wait; once a reasonable amount of time has passed, you can simply tell your captain to "go", and it will make the move which is currently the most popular, even if there isn't a clear majority. When this happens, the captain will also remove any inactive players from your team to stop the same thing happening on the next move. The removed players are welcome to rejoin the team again at any time. To find out how long you have to wait, tell your captain "timeout".
If you add a notification for the teambot, then the bot will tell you whether there is a team game in progress every time you connect to FICS. Type "+notify ficsteambot" to add the notification.
Tell your captain... When you want to...
join join the captain's team. the captains are called
'whiteteam' and 'blackteam'
Hi team! say "Hi team!" privately to your team mates
vote e4 vote for move "e4"
go tell the captain to make the most popular move
timeout find out how much time must pass before no
clear majority is needed in the voting
leave leave the team
Tell the ficsteambot... When you want to...
Hi all! say "Hi all!" to everybody involved in the team game
leave stop getting all team game messages;
leave the team game completely
spy listen in on both teams' private chat;
warning: this will stop you joining either team
unspy stop listening in on both teams' private chat
Tell any of the 3 bots: When you want to...
info see who is in which team
start start the game
set tell on ask the bots to use full "tell" commands.
this is useful in BabasChess and other tabbed clients
set tell off ask the bots to use short commands.
this looks tidier in thief and other single window clients