Comments by avunjahei

If that's the Manual written by Hodges, I do know it. And you are RIGHT when you say it is first mentioned 100 years EARLIER than I claimed. I apologize. That makes it still younger than Sho and Dai Shogi EXCEPT when you argue that the Heian Dai Shogi was really a kind of Chu Shogi and The later Dai Shogi was the novelty. Dunno, you tell me!

But that the Yamashina family had a faible for Chu Shogi is meagre evidence for Chu Shogi ever being more popular than the smaller variant. On the other hand  the carpenter Minase Kanenari tell us  that between 1590 and 1602 he produced 618 sets for Sho Shog but only 106 sets for Chu Shogi (that's from the web). That also doesn't prove very much. Or does it? But I admit, I just thought that it was commonly accepted among scholars that at least in the 16th century and later Sho Shogi was dominant, and for earlier times we lack proper information. I never claimed Chu Shogi was not a popular game. Just that Sho shogi was more so.

I think when Hodges states, that Chu Shogi was the more popular game in the Kamakura period he overstretches the (few)sources we have about the game in this time. Historians do that very often. You should always reckon with that and being published by a University unfortunally does not prevent them from doing so. 

That the first tsumes and game scores come from Chu- rather than Sho Shogi I really doubt. But i cannot argue against, for I'm on holydays and the web is a very bad source for chess history. If it is right I would be very surprised.

Chu Shogi has never been "the dominant form of chess in Japan", let alone "for centuries". This is perhaps a mistake caused by confusion with Sho Shogi (Small Shogi), the 16th century name for the predecessor  of Modern Standard Shogi (still without drops), to distinguish it from Dai Shogi (Great Shogi) and Chu Shogi (Middle Shogi). These larger games were popular, but Sho Shogi was the dominant game, even before the introduction of drop rules. Also Chu Shogi is the youngest of the three (15th century), it didn't even have the time to be dominant for centuries, for at the beginning of the Edo period (around 1600)Standard Shogi, promoted by the shogunate, began to oust the larger forms, even though many large variants were invented (and certainly played) at this time

The nonsense book of the week.

That chess ever was a dice game is wrong, let alone the other points

But actually there is no need to alter that game at all. The Swapper is the weakest piece above the pawns and that's it.

But it's always funny to find varitions to existing games.

1. Rococo IS an Ultima variant. You somehow misunderstood me.
2. The Swapper destroys an adjacent piece, not one in line with it. So letting it destroy more than one adjacent piece is only a slight enhancement
3. Ok, so you quit the mutual destruction completely. Your swapper is a positional swapper, a colour swapper and a type swapper. That's actually not a bad idea.

Hey, it's not my game! I,m just playing it for the first time.

A Conversioner ("missionary")fits quite well into Ultima-derived games. But this game is good as it is. Just the Swapper may really be too weak.

Since the swapper already is a bomb, enhancing its explosional abilities seems to be the best way to make it stronger while changing as little as possible to the original game.

No, please not!

But acting as a bomb, how about destroying all adjacent pieces, including friendly ones. This would give more attacking force to the swapper without altering or complicating this piece so much

That was quick! Thanks!

 Great game!

can a swapper, used as a bomb, capture more than one enemy piece?

But not all such varieties would be equally valuable.

Daniel is probably not the first to make a large board variant by just doubling the number of pieces. To have a whole cavalry of knights and to have bishops that can protect each other is a very interesting feature. I also like that he 1. didn t double the queen and 2. has the double step of the pawns retained in every position, though forgetting that twice caused me to lose the only game I played untill now.

For my taste there are, maybe, too many rooks on the board. I even would try out to boldly replace two of them with yet another pair of knights. Then the number of each sort of pieces on the board would reversely correspond to their value: 6 knights, 4 bishops, 2 rooks, 1 queen. Could be a stupid idea, though.

I have read the rules of all three games but never played them. I think Aronsons introduction of square fields to improve the attacking power of the Long Leaper is quite ingenious.

I also thought about some ways to handle the difficulties of attack in Ultima, but didnt try them out seriously. Maybe one experienced game inventor of this site can evaluate my idea better than I do. It goes like this:

Your army is subject to some kind of promotion. This promotion happens, when your king manages to advance to the opposite half of the board.

The power of chameleon, long leaper and pawns stay the same.

Your withdrawer gets the additional power of an advancer, promoting it to a pushme-pullyu.

Your immobiliser gets the additional power of a swapper.

Your coordinator gets the additional power of a triangulator.

Does that make sense?

Ultima is a puzzling game in more than one sense. It seems to violate all rules for game invention. Even its inventor called it a flaw and his reasons are all pretty true. yet it is one of the most successful chesslike games, and its also one of my favorites.

First point, he says, it lacks clarity. Of course it does. Playing it does not feel like playing chess at all, its more like solving a puzzle in every turn, so for every move you need much much time. Does that make it a bad game? No, it doesnt. Its exactly what we like on it.

The other big point is, that it favors the defender. And so it does. This should lead to draws, at least at a high level of competition. But thats okay. Draughts and Morris are even more drawish, yet they are not bad games. If following an interesting fight it does not matter that much if it finally leads to a draw. 

Maybe it is even the lack of clarity that makes the game playable despite the strong defending power of its pieces.

I cant see that it is bad to advance your pieces rather than stay at home. The more space youve got the more mobility you have. And what is the biggest advantage of that? To be able to bring your immobilizer in a strong position.

That may be the only ugly thing of this game: that the immobilizer is too important. As far as my experience goes, he is the central piece in every successful attack. Immobilize the king and capture it with the chameleon. I rarely succeeded in winning in any other way.

But yet not ugly enough yo reduce my rating.

The opposing Genschers can get exchanged in the starting position. That's ugly.

Shouldn't they better be put behind the sea?

"Whenever a piece leaves its initial square, one of the extra pieces can
immediately be introduced to the vacant square. So this is a double move,
comparable to castling. Should a player refrain from inserting his extra
pieces at these occasions, then he has forfeited his chance of introducing
them." - Ok. - "When castling, one of the extra pieces can be placed on
either of the squares left vacant" - Isn't that a contradiction?

Before you castle you have to move two pieces at least. That means to me,
you have already defeated your right to insert them.

What do I misunderstand

Well... i try to play my first game on this site (Wildbeast Chess) But it doesn't work. i make a move, the preset shows my move, but it's not remembered. Don't know what I do wrong-

I thought that over now. I try to describe the problems I observed with this game in detail.

To have a piece and a lion against a lion in the endgame you must happen to get one piece ahead somewhere in the course of the game. Exactly that turns out not to be so easy. Of course you can win a piece by some hidden combination or by blunder of your opponent, but in serious gameplay tactical possibilities usually occur if you first got some strategical advantage. But to get such an advantage this game offers little opportunity. It may be allways possible to outplsy the opponent tactically, but to be playable games like this must offer ways to outplay the opponent strategically, too.

The problems begin as soon as one player tries to pass the river. The river in itself creates a great advantage for the defender, so trying to pass it usually ends up in trading off the pieces ivolved. This goes on until most of the pieces are traded and the remaining armies on both sides are not strong enough to defend the lion on one side and still run a powerful attack on the other side. If you haven't got a certain advantage during the river fights the game is dead now, but to get such an advantage I couldn't find any strategy. Though that doesn't mean that there is none.

But I'm sorry to have called it a flawn game. I would increse my rating by 1 step, but I don*t no how to change it.

I really tried many games some time ago. This situation never happened. As soon as the number of pieces was reduced, it ended in a deadline.

Anyway, I would love to be wrong. I for my part would be ready to see my theory challenged by playing a game at the MindArena.

I try to rate it, but it didn't work...

This is one of the "closed" category of large chess variants, that is, there are a lot of weak pieces, so the game develops slowly. If you like such kind of games - i do - this is one of the best.

It usually begins with a kind of vanguard skirmish involving pawns and alfils (and maybe one or two dabbabahs), in case both players try to advance in the middle or on the same side. This phase is quite pleasent and interesting.
Next comes a longwinded phase of consolidation and defining the front lines, advancing the rest of the pawns and the weak pieces like knights, camels, zebras and the 1-step-sliders. This phase may be tedious for some, it requires strategic thinking rather than tactics. I like this phase and also the next one.
In the 4th phase the players try to break into the enemy's line-up, usually with the weak pieces backed up by the strong one's from the rear. Far reaching minor pieces like zebras and bishops are becoming quite prominent now and often manage to get traded with more powerful pieces.
After most of the weak pieces are traded, the game becomes very tactical. For dull players like me here the game is getting arduous. 

The initial set-up is a good solution, but why are the knights closer to the rim than the camels and zebras? The logical order should be: zebras on the rim, then the camels, than the knights, isn't it?
Initially I also thought, that ferz, wazir and guard standing on the rim are misplaced, too. But thats ok. They are flank fighters, only slowly getting to the middle of the board, so they don't disturb the opening game. Or they stay at home to protect the king.