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Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Oct 24, 2017 01:55 PM EDT:

Hi Aurelian

After sleeping on it, I think my idea for a variant doesn't quite work. The Boat (if not the Archer) is a clear case of being too powerful for the board size, as it seems one might often lift a Boat to the third rank and then harass a castled enemy K with checks perpetually, at the least. After my initial post I did something I ought to have done first: I looked up Cannon in Piececlopedia, and saw upon inspection that all of the many games that use it all have huge boards, such as Eurasian Chess. That's apparently so that an enemy K (or other piece) has plenty of room to often hide from a Cannon. Still, my Boat and Archer piece types might be interesting concepts. Also, I could try to salvage the game by making them weaker pieces somehow, without going back to Capablanca Chess. A catch may be that I desired no unprotected pawns in the setup, yet wanted two different piece types added in.

In Capablanca Chess I put a K's fighting value at 3.2 by a formula I worked out once. In Eurasian Chess (10x10) I put a Cannon at 3.75 (about what Lau values it at in Chinese Chess) [edit: I'd suppose a Cannon should be 2 instead for an 8 rank game with a more normal king than in Eurasian Chess, based on discussion in my next post in this thread] and a Vao at 1.75. To get the values for a Boat and an Archer, it seemed reasonable to use my values for a Cannon and a Vao in Eurasian Chess, add each seperately to the fighting value of a K in Capa Chess, then add a pawn's value seperately to each (like Q=R+B+P in Chess). Thus T(Boat)=3.75+3.2+1 is approx. 8 [edit: this should be T=2+3.2+1, or approx. 6.25, instead] and A=1.75+3.2+1 is approx. 6, getting rid of an uglier fraction than 0.25 in each case. For Capablanca Chess I previously mentioned somewhere on this website that I put N=3.5 approx., B=3.75, R=5.5 and Q=10.25. I've also given values for such pieces on 9x8, 8x8 and 10x10, always keeping R=5.5. Note that I value a N as about 3.5 on a 10x8 or 9x8 board than 8x8 since it has more near-central squares to enjoy, but also IMHO the value of a N goes down on a 10x10 board compared to 8x8 since it takes it so long to cross from any side of such a huge board to the opposite side. A N in Eurasian Chess would be an exception to this overall devaluation in my eyes, as, due to the properties of the kings, a N works well with any second piece in basic mate endgames in that variant. A Cannon also works well in this respect, so I put it around a N in value in that variant.


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