Comments by graeme
I have been running ZoG on 64bit Windows for about a year now
My System:
Manufacturer LENOVO
Model IdeaCentre A310 10056
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 64-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 2
I have started to recast the wiki page in wiki-syntax - hopefully this will speed up the page-loading. The descriptions are intentionally brief as for the most part I would otherwise be repeating the descriptions from Eurasian Chess. The pawn image clearly shows a white pawn that has crossed the river.
I will allow that the description on the chessvariants wiki might be a little terse, but I think it at least adequate, with each non-compound piece having a movement diagram.
They need not be team games. The command/control structure may be used to determine movement of non-command units/pieces. Have a look at Joe Joyce's Chieftain Chess for an example of an hierarchical game. Whether or not the term "wargame" is sufficient by itself is debatable. In the context of CVs it probably is.
In game theory Hierarchical Games model conflict systems with a structure of control levels ranked in a certain order. Thus in a wargame there might be an overall commander, several sub-commanders, and many unit commanders, per side. Troop movements and performance would depend upon the placement and movement of these commanders.
Fergus Duniho writes:
What kind of performance issues are there? With a composite primary key, will it search individual keys until it finds a match instead of directly knowing where to go?
It is quicker to traverse a numeric key than an alpha or alpha-numeric. But it is not just a question of machine performance - development time including code production (manual and automated) and testing can be less efficient with composite primary keys. There is also the question of maintenance and the persistence of natural composite keys when compared to surrogate primary keys.
But this isn't the place to conduct a seminar in database design and I have already declared myself guilty of misapplying enterprise practice - it isn't easy, sometimes, to put aside work practices gleaned over 3 decades.
Relational Database terminology:
- Candidate Key - a column or set of columns providing data that is unique for each row. Where a set of columns is involved the term Composite Candidate Key is used.
- Primary Key - the Candidate Key that is the main index for a table and which will be used as a Foreign Key in other tables. For performance purposes a Primary Key will usually not be Composite.
- Foreign Key - the Primary Key of another table.
- Key - when used without qualification will normally be understood to be shorthand for Primary Key
Self-rating - personally I would be wary of such a practice, not because I think inventors are always going to give maximum marks to their own games, but because they are too close to their own games to provide a disinterested assessment.
Overwriting of data due to revision of values leading to loss of historical data strikes me as being what would be called 'bad practice'. But I guess I'm guilty of trying to apply corporate standards in a non-corporate situation.
Just a few thoughts about the Likes table:
- It might be useful to include an ID for the item's creator. I know this can be found by joining through the ItemID but keeping it in this table as well would enable faster queries concerning games inventors. It would also make it easier to stop creators rating their own games (UserID != CreatorID)
- Will a user be able to revise their ratings? If so the table will need a timestamp field and possibly either a binary current/superseded field or a status field. Or previous ratings might have their own table - LikesHistory
'The single defining quality of 'Chess' is that the winning condition is predicated on one (the royal) of two (royal and non-royal) classes of pieces If a game exhibits this quality it is a Chess Variant, if it doesn't it isn't.' (http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/chess-variants)
Enthronement
The intention is that this is allowed only with respect to your own Regents.
Randomness
The use of cards or dice to determine the final landing square is certainly worth exploring.
Yes, Charles, castling is only allowed with Rooks on the same rank. And the comparison with your variants is certainly interesting - particularly so with my newly added 10x10 subvariant.
Hi Nick,
Zillions develops Knights and Archbishops first, eventually moving Pawns to attack encroaching enemy pieces. Hopefully my Zillions file will be posted here soon.
Cheers
Graeme
Hi Nick,
I'd thought about the 3-step first move for a pawn, but decided to leave it at 2-steps as I was trying not to move too far from FIDE.
Cheers
Graeme
Charles: I respect your right to your opinion, but please leave me out of your squabbles. If you have a comment to make on my variant or its presentation then kindly do so in the appropriate comment area.
Graeme.
Yes I played chess before discovering chess variants. I played for my school team and at university, and when I got my first job for a London based insurance firm I played for them in the London Insurance Chess League. I also played in some local leagues and chess tournaments.
These activities came to a halt with the arrival of children and a career change from insurance to IT. Although I still play chess, my real passion is for wargaming (also started way back in my school days) and much of my gaming time is taken up with perfecting my own set of rules for my own particular circumstances.
Most of my CV designing is inspired by ideas from other activities - like my degree studies with the Open University - and tend to be very conservative in terms of pieces used.
'I think your image of the contraction capture is off...also I'm not sure I understand the Drop rule. Can you get the queen before placing the remaining four pawns? Are captured pieces droppable?'
Sorry, but I'm unclear what point you're making about the contraction capture image. Can you elaborate please?
There are 4 drop levels, and each side begins the game on the first level. At this level only Pawns can be dropped. On dropping the fourth Pawn the level for that player advances to the second. On the second level Knights and Bishops can now be dropped as well as Pawns. The third level is reached when the second Knight or Bishop is dropped. Rooks may be dropped at the third level. Dropping a single Rook advances that players drop level to the fourth level. Once the fourth level is reached the Queen may be dropped.
Captured pieces are removed from the game. They cannot re-enter the game by being dropped again.
Another board of pentagons that might be of interest is this:
And why the colours? I just think it looks nicer when presenting a board
with no game context.
Of course if the board were to be used in a variant, the number of colours
and their placing might need more careful consideration.
Thanks for the comments, Joe. I was thinking of adding a note on using random assignment of the final destination hex as a variant, but in the end decided that the Quantum concept was already radical enough in itself.
Play testing has been minimal. I used Zillions running a non-quantum version to test and refine the transfer of Ultima to a hex board, but have not yet been able to get a working Quantum version. I have just finished constructing a non-enforcing pre-set and would be happy to push a few pieces around at a leisurely pace.
The zrf has been uploaded but the page is currently hidden
Hi David,
Sure, though the file needs some tidying up before being published.
Should be ready in the next day or two.
Cheers,
Graeme
Thank you for your comment and your rating. And thanks for mentioning the poor link design - a bad habit I am trying to break. I have removed the deprecated target=_blank property from the links to return browser control back to the user.
Your understanding about the connection of the poles with their adjacent cells is correct. It should be noted that from the starting position the Horses, although appearing under threat, cannot in fact be captured by the Cannons as this would place the General (King) in check.
I agree the use of the twisted knight for the tusker is not ideal - but they do both begin with t. I'm not sure what to do - there is no other Icon in the set used that is any more appropriate and I do not know how to add a new Icon even if I could design one. I am open to suggestions as how best to proceed
'... One question: are the routes a1-d1, b1-e1, and c1-f1 also barred?'
No, they are not barred. I've added an explicit statement to this effect under the description for the Bishop.
Thanks for the input Jeremy. I've adopted your berolina pawns and leo - and also have increased the board size further - to produce these 2 related variants, described more fully here.
I feel the board may be a tad small, and think increasing it to 6 hex on a side might be better. Also the problems with the rooks could be resolved by moving them to the back rank and turning them into crowned-rooks (dragon kings). To complement these and to complete the second row I've added a couple of crowned-knights (centaurs). Here's my suggestion.
Thanks for the info and pointer to MaxQi. I've downloaded the source for MaxQi - if I get anywhere with adapting the code I'll make the source available on my magpies site.
Is Fairy-Max still being developed? I am using it as the engine in my MAGPIES project, and was wondering if the 8-rank restriction was likely to be removed in the near future. If not then no matter, I'll try adapting the code myself.
Sam Trenholme wrote:
'Would you be open to me modifying your Zillions' file ...'
Please feel free to modify the file as you wish.
I think Game Courier only supports square or hex boards though it may be possible to upload a custom graphic.
The code is in a zip file here.
Not sure how clear it is but I'll try to answer any questions you may have.
Basically it uses a transparent image that overlays the board as an input type in a form that returns a set of co-ordinates.
Point-n-Click can be done entirely in PHP - see here
Joe, I think your knight-slider is kin to my Marauder
Joe Joyce said
I'd like to thank everybody who participated...
And I would like to thank all the judges for their time and effort with special thanks to Joe for holding things together and guiding the competition to its conclusion.
Following Michael Nelson's suggestions, I have attempted to further clarify the losing scenarios.
Although I have altered stalemate from a draw to a loss (a personal preference), in line with my second design aim 3-fold repetition remains a draw.
Thanks to all for their comments.
I have added a paragraph to the end of the rules section in an attempt to answer Doug Chatham's question.
With regard to the 'no pawns' loss condition, I see it as akin to the 'bare king' state which is used as a loss condition in several variants. It seems reasonable to me that a side without attacking potential should be deemed to have lost.
Carlos, I don't mind creating a new userid, but am not sure how that helps. Can't the games be reassigned to grayhawke?
Carlos, I can view the games but cannot play them. The userid seems to be grayhawke2 - it should be just grayhawke, without the 2.
Cheers
G.
'... I would like to hear someone explain why draw rate of 60% or higher is a good thing ...'
I don't believe anyone has claimed it to be a good thing.
What I do not comprehend is why some think it to be a bad thing.
Between equally proficient opponents I would expect a high percentage of draws.
Changed my games
Replacing TriMac HexChess
with
Circular Chess with Crooked Bishops and Queen
An as yet unpublished preset for TriMac HexChess is available here
That's everyone named their initial set of games - the full list is here
My games:
- TriMac HexChess
- Modern Courier Chess
- Save the Standard 13x13
Joe, I've added a comments section to the Named Games page thinking that it could be used for any negotiations, questions etc.
Joe, I've hooked it into the Welcome page (page name start).
The quickest way to find the name of a page is to go to that page and then look in you browser's address bar - the text after the final '/' is the page's name.
... what fixed set of rules would be needed to still identify the game as chess, and allow for infinite variations? ...
From the CVwiki we have
The single defining quality of 'Chess' is that
the winning condition is predicated on one (the royal) of two (royal and non-royal) classes of pieces
If this statement is accepted then for a game to be a chess variant it must have these 2 rules: one to define the royal and non-royal classes; and one to define the winning condition in terms of the royal class.
.. so this would not be conventional gating.
Yes, it would seem to be a combination of (c) and (e)
1. Tell me where you can acquire the pieces to do this? Saying, 'Well we
can make our own' isn't something someone you introduce the game to, will
actually do
The future of chess, I suspect, is on computers and the internet within the virtual cyber-realms created by software. Any initial lack of physical pieces should not hinder the popularity of a variant.
2. If people thing adding two pieces between queen and rook level is too
powerful, how is having a rook fly down to the other side and promote, and
the other pieces going to not be overpowered?
Surely a Rook promoted to RN is a less powerful outcome than a Rook and newly dropped RN ?
3. Is the main concern 'congestion'? ...
The main concern is surely playability? Unless a variant plays well it is unlikely to gain a following, however well it is promoted.
I will say the point about gating is that it is a useful way to integrate
new pieces into older games. As is promotion.
If you don't happen to like it, or anything drop related, you are forcing chess to follow the same way it has always been, that being fixed positions
I am not forcing chess into anything, merely suggesting a way for using RN and BN within an 8x8 board. Besides, neither 'drop' nor 'promote' will change the fixed nature of the starting position. The only solution to that is to introduce non-determinism.
I have never been a fan of the drop, feeling it to be an alien addition to the mechanics of chess. Promotion on the other hand is not, being a well established chess mechanism.
I therefore suggest using promotion as a better means of introducing the RN and BN. Thus, for example the Rook could promote to RN on making a capture, and the Bishop likewise but to BN. The idea could be extended further allowing the Knight to promote to, say, a Nightrider.
Using promotion also goes someway towards relieving the piece-density and power increases associated with dropping; more so if the number of each of the new pieces is restricted to one.
Your example piece is a red herring.
My example piece may well be called a herring, red or otherwise, but it illustrates that topological equivalence, though necessary, is not sufficient for game equivalence. That having been said, I agree that for the pieces actually used in Penturanga there is game equivalence between the pentagonal and the hexagonal boards.
... but this is a mathematical problem with a definitive answer.
Exactly! A square has 4 sides, a hexagon has 6 sides, a triangle 3 sides, and a pentagon 5 sides. A board with 6-sided cells is termed hexagonal, so surely it is correct to term a board with 5-sided cells pentagonal?
Cheers
Graeme
'Topological equivalence also does not lead to equivalence in game-mechanics.'
Create a piece whose move is defined as:
a series of steps away from the starting cell exiting each cell via a short side.
Such a piece can be moved on the Penturanga board but not on the topologically equivalent hex-board.
'...the fact remains that Penturanga is just a funny-looking hexagonal chess variant.'
I'm afraid that is not a fact, it is, like mine, just an opinion - so may we just agree to differ?
Cheers
Graeme
Thank you all for taking the time to examine and comment on Penturanga.
Charles, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'despite the presentation', but I admit it to be somewhat sparse. In order to meet the competition deadline I published the basic description without a supporting Notes section. I hope to add this and publish a zrf shortly.
Also , while I agree with you that that the board is topologically equivalent to the hex-board you describe, this does not mean the pentagons are anything else other than pentagons - the number of surrounding cells is irrelevant as can be seen by the usual square board where each cell is surrounded by 8 others. Topological equivalence also does not lead to equivalence in game-mechanics. In short it is my opinion that Penturanga is indeed truly pentagonal.
Gary, the piece graphics were derived from a Chinese set published on this site. Full accreditation will be given in the Notes.
Abdul-Rahman, I have uploaded the now 2 empty boards to the graphics directory for this page.
Board1
Board2
The piece icons are also there.
The three Gyro's on a given side cover 35 trigs, the missing 11 trigs are those covered by the opponent's central Gyro.
Hi James, glad you liked the board. Not sure if you had a look at the links under 'child pages', but you might be interested in Features of a trigonal board and Fide pieces for trigonal boards
There's also my trigonal version of FIDE chess Delta88 Chess
Cheers
Graeme
edit: I've used snowflakes before - see Antarctic Chess (for 2 to 7 players)
Now all we need is some entries. I'm happy looking after the cross-referencing and navigation if people just want to add items/pages; or if anyone prefers they can send the info to me for inclusion in the Wiki.
Cheers
Graeme
I'd always thought the main idea behind the pawn positioning was to have them start the game equi-distant from a promotion hex.
Always happy to see a new hex variant. Would it infringe any patents if I produced a zrf for this?
BTW here's a not-quite-so-ugly graphic:
Perhaps the best games aren't invented; maybe they just evolve.
'...:The most successful chess variants were invented by people who did not care if they would become rich or famous with their variant;...'
Sam, much as I would like this CV-Catch-22 to be true, I'm afraid we have no proof that it is. The fact of our present ignorance is no guide to the motives of the inventors of the past. We cannot even be sure that they were not rich and well-known in their day since wealth and fame are at best fickle and fleeting friends.
Cheeers
Graeme
Jeremy, I've added a section called Child Pages to the side-bar. Hopefully this will help a little with the navigation.
Jeremy, previous contests seem to have had about a 5-month submission period. As this is a 'pre-contest' contest I would suggest a 3-month period - a deadline of 30-November.
This should give sufficient time for the 'contest' contest details to be decided, which could then have a 5-month submission period running from 01-Dec to 30-April
Joe, I've had a quick look at my calcs again -
- Q = 11.508
- T = 10.297
Cheers Graeme
Joe, the piece values were derived using my PERK method. This is still being developed and I have not checked the calcs thoroughly yet, hence the term guesstimate.
I think the downgrading of the Bishop is due, as you said, to it being colour-bound.
As for the Tower, in comparison with the Queen it suffers on 2 counts:
- It attacks in only 6 directions (Queen attacks in 12)
- It moves more 'slowly', taking 15 steps to cross the board (Both Spire and Bishop take only 7 steps)
I take it that, in line with previous n-square design contests, the term square is to be interpreted as meaning cell, and is not meant to exclude, for example, hex, trig or multi-dimension based boards?
3 more suggestions:
- Simultaneous moves
- Incorporate non-chess gaming element(s) - e.g. dice, cards, quiz questions, gaming chips
- Boundless boards e.g. Circular, Toroidal, Spherical
I'll try...
Suppose the contest has three themes - call them t1 t2 and t3. Each contestant may enter a game in each theme. This could be a different game for each theme (contestant designs 3 games) or a single game thst meets the conditions of all 3 themes (contestant designs 1 game that is entered into t1 t2 and t3) - or somewhere in between (designs 2 games, one for entry in t1 and t2, the other for t3). Of course a contestant does not have to enter all 3 themes - they may just design 1 game for entry in a single theme (t2 say).
Within each theme those contestants entered in that theme will vote for a theme winner (see my other comment on a suggested voting system). Of course you may NOT vote for your own design.
The theme winners will then participate in a second vote by all the contestants apart from those winning the theme, to determine an overall contest winner
Might I alsso suggest a contest with more than one theme? Say have 3 themes e.g. one Piece based (no FIDE pieces say), another special Criteria/Rule based (restricted King, say), and the third Conceptual (sci-fi/fantasy)
Each contestant could then enter any or all themes with the same or different games and have a vote in each theme entered. The theme winners would then be voted on by all contestants other than the theme winners to decide the overall winner.
I also opt for a voting method of judging, that way no-one need be excluded from entering. I would suggest each entrant should pick 3 games ordered 1st,2nd,3rd - 1st gets 3 points, 2nd 2, 3rd 1.
Additional theme suggestions:
- incomplete knowledge
- no FIDE pieces (including King)
- winning condition other than mate
I also support Abdul-Rahman Sibahi's suggestion of having a confined King (or other Royal piece)
I'd like to suggest a multiple-board theme, either a set number (2,3,4 etc.) or perhaps just any number more than 1.
While finding the calculation of RPVs a fascinating theoretical challenge, from a practical, playing, perspective the RPV or quantative piece value is only part of the story. In play the qualative value of a piece has also to be considered. This being so it might be said that assigning RPVs to accuracies beyond 0.5 is spurious. It is enough to know that a Rook in FIDE chess is worth 'about 5 pawns'.
My apologies, I should learn not to post during a sleepless night. I reacted (over-reacted?) to your statement 'Should one really waste energy studying an inferior variant?', without paying due attention to the context.
Again let me ask for the avoidance of judgemental terms. I am happy for variant A to be described as 'more drawish' than variant B, but feel that the jump from such a statement to the judgement 'variant A is inferior to variant B' is unsupported. The most that can be said is that 'variant B is to be preferred to variant A if you dislike drawn games'
Please, please, please try to avoid the use of judgemental terms such as better or inferior. Descriptive terms such as sedate or aggressive are objective and helpful, but to equate sedate with worse, or aggressive with better is purely subjective and unhelpful.
'Mage - Since Magi is plural, it doesn't seem quite appropriate. But I like the name Mage quite a bit.'
My mistake - of course the name should be singular - and I also like Mage a fair bit, certinly preferring it to the other possible singular of Magus. The soft 'g' sounds so much better.
The Camel+Bishop confluence puts me in mind of the Biblical Wise Men, which leads me to suggest Magi as a possible name for this piece.
'The only thing I don't like about it is the Elephant. It probably would be better to have the Alibaba instead. (So that the Courier can be a combination of the Guard and the Alibaba as well.)'
Absolutely agree with you, the Elephant had been nagging at me as being slightly out of kilter - extending it to an Alibaba seems so obvious. Thanks, as always, for your comments and insight.
And 'no', the rule is that a Pawn's initial move may be 1,2 or 3 steps, thereafter it is restricted to just the 1 step.
I agree - it certainly looks very interesting. I must admit though that it took me some time to understand the bishop moves. I finally resorted to recasting the board using hexes (see here) before realizing that the bishops were moving through the edges of the prisms.
This system can only be applied to 2D square games.
You are quite correct, this formula applies only to 2D-square boards. I have tried to generalize it here
I would argue that an 8x8 in 2D is also a small board, ...
A result of this suggested classifcation is an assignment of an objective size-category or size-index number. The descriptions, on the other hand are subjective. Thus an 8x8-2d-squared-cell board is classified as a category-3 sized board - whether you want to describe category-3 boards as small, standard, or maybe even glè mhòr1 is entirely a matter of persional preference.
1. very big
Might I suggest the following system for classifying the size of a variant?
Min Cells | Max Cells | Size Category | Description |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 9 | 0 | tiny |
10 | 19 | 1 | very small |
20 | 39 | 2 | small |
40 | 79 | 3 | standard |
80 | 159 | 4 | large |
160 | 319 | 5 | very large |
320 | 639 | 6 | super large |
640 | 1279 | 7 | huge |
1280 | 2559 | 8 | extra huge |
2560 | 5119 | 9 | super huge |
5120 | 10239 | 10 | enormous |
10240 | 20479 | 11 | extra enormous |
20480 | 40959 | 12 | super enormous |
Where the upper limits are based on the simple formula
(10 x 2(size category)) -1
Have you applied 'Rule 50' to any of the shogis or western large-board variants yet?
Not yet. I have, however, applied it to XiangQi. See TriMac HexChess
I grant you that the donkey may have certain strengths when compared to a horse: sure-footedness; endurance; intelligence; but not swiftness. However, I find it impossible to imagine a donkey being capable of standing, let alone moving, if asked to carry a fully armoured knight weighing 200 pounds or more.
Even the horse was unequal to the task, leading to the breeding of the great horse or destrier for use by knights in battle or tourney.
...The donkey *is* actually stronger than a knight, and therefore the name is proper, I think...
Sorry for being slightly off-topic, and I may be missing the point entirely (I often do), but I fail to see why the term donkey would be suitable for a piece stronger than a knight. The term carries overtones of stupidity, and the actual animal is surely weaker than a knight's war-horse?
From an ancient warfare standpoint a better name might be Cataphract; or from a modern military standpoint perhaps Tank?
I agree, at least in part. Removing either or both is probably necessary to prevent Scrabblization, but may not be sufficient.
I would guess, though, that their removal would prove sufficient as I suspect the causes of Scrabble's Scrabblization are not to be found in Chess.
Scrabblization is surely the fate of any game that is deterministic with the players having complete information - given that it is played and studied long enough and widely enough.
If so, and if it is a problem, the only long-term solutions are to either restrict player information or remove the determinism. But is the game we are left with still chess?
Hi Joe - Warchess is already taken I think! ;O)
What about Chessgaming?
I am wondering how far Chess can be pushed towards Wargaming without losing the essential Chess features you list. The wargaming areas where Fortress seems a bit light are melee and missiles. I'm currently exploring the possibility in my own designs of replacing the chess 'replacement capture' with a Diplomacy like melee phase where captures result from non-random assessment of a pieces attack/support. Such a system would also enable the introduction of missile pieces that can attack/support from a distance (possibly needing a screen as with the Cannon?).
As for the initial set-up I think mimicking a traditional ancient wargame battle array with a line of skirmishers backed by central infantry and cavalry wings might be worth exploring. And maybe a central fortress?
Another, as yet totally undeveloped idea, is the introduction of 'terrain' via offboard multi-cell static pieces dropped prior to the first proper movement phase.
And I just couldn't resist the invite - even though I'm a pretty poor chess player and an even worse ancient wargamer.
I've been following the development of Fortress Chess with great interest and eagerly await it being played. It seems to me that this variant is actually going someway to bridging the divide between Chess and Wargaming.
Wargaming rules usually include elements governing missiles, movement, melee, morale and command. Fortress Chess can at a stretch be said to incorporate 4 of these: command through its hierarchy of leader pieces; movement through its short-, mid-, and long-range pieces which can be seen as cognates for (ancient)wargaming's troop types of infantry/cavalry with light/medium/heavy armour; melee through the usual replacement capture; amd morale by the ladder of promotion with pieces getting stronger as they achieve success in battle.
In fact I think Fortress Chess may well mark the start of a new gaming genre - not merely another Big-board CV, but the first example of 'Warfare-Chess'.
I'm looking forward to future developments
The literal translation would be staircase chess, but like the phrase on which it is patterned esprit de l'escalier the literal translation does not convey the full meaning of the phrase.
A more apt translation might be 'Should really have been thought of before Chess'
Thanks for your comment, David. I had my own younger son partly in mind when designing this game. He graduated last year with a degree in Biological Sciences and has always been crazy about Penguins.
I'd be really interested in seeing your playing board in action.
---
Graeme
Rules file updated to version 3.0.
This now includes the new default Star Palace variant.
Thanks for the comments. On reflection I think your interpretation of 'forward' is closer to the spirit of XiangQi than mine. You are also right about the ability of the rook to cross the river.
As with pawn-movment I think I may have over-complicated matters and made 'crossing the river' too restrictive. I'll be making modifications to this variant shortly so as to include both the one-way only meaning of 'forward' and a less restrictive river crossing.
-- Graeme
Mats, thanks for the improvement suggestion - I've added the 'move-priorities' directive, updated the version to 2.1, and revised the zip file. Thanks again
--
Graeme
Rules file updated to improve play. Thanks to M. Winther whose method of tweaking the piece values was adapted.
Also a new piece-set has been added using images based on graphics by Fergus Duniho.
I usually use 3 different methods of assessing piece values and then take an average. Here though I must admit to merely rounding the values calculated by Zillions of Games.
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Hi Malcolm,
Thanks for your interest in this variant. The move to the 3rd / 6th ranks for the Pawns was the last modification made to the starting array, and was an idea taken from Makruk (Thai Chess).
It was done to balance the loss of the Pawn's initial 2-step movement and the loss of castling. I did not see the undefended a, e, and l pawns as detrimental to the game.
The number of pieces for each compound type was based upon my estimates of their relative strengths - one of each for the more powerful and two of the least powerful Courier. In naming the piece types I try to ensure that the initial letters of the names different from each other.
Cheers
Graeme