Ratings & Comments
Giving the opponent two moves, knowing that he has those, is too costly, though. In the opening you might get away with it, but in a typical middle-game position the opponent would use those to make a hit-and-run capture.
To be fair, Fergus' solution to that issue is quite elegant imo, and even just restricting two consecutive moves by a single piece alleviates hit‐and‐runs per se. It may be getting away from the intended point of this variant to introduce a whole nother idea but it seems like a usable way of introducing multi‐moves into a mostly‐single‐move game without breaking things too much
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There is nothing wrong with the mechanism of summoning itself. What wrecks things is that you automatically get the Demon back in hand when it gets captured. That effectively makes it an 'iron piece'. Giving the opponent two moves, knowing that he has those, is too costly, though. In the opening you might get away with it, but in a typical middle-game position the opponent would use those to make a hit-and-run capture.
Furthermore, summoning a Demon for free seems too easy; in horror stories one typically has to make some sacrifice as part of a summoning ritual. Using this concept the following might work: to summon a Demon, the Mage should first capture a friendly piece. That will then 'activate' him for summoning a Demon in the next turn. But depending on what the opponent does in his turn, you might pass on the opportunity to summon, and do something else. That would waste the opportunity to summon, and you would only regain it by capturing another friendly piece.
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This is looking better now, and I have unhid it.
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“I am starting to suspect that this summoning business will sort of spoil the game. Because you get the Demons back whenever you lose them, at the cost of only a tempo.”
One thought I have been having is to make a summon cost two tempo: You can summon a piece, but when you do, your opponent gets an extra move.
Let’s imagine, for the sake of simplicity, a Seirawan Chess variant where instead of the “add the piece when moving a piece in the back rank” rule, the knight can summon the Elephant (Seirawan’s nomenclature for the R+N Cardinal/Marshal) next to it, and a bishop can summon a hawk (B+N, i.e. Archbishop), but each time a summoning is done it costs two tempo.
Here’s how a game could start out:
- Nf3 d5
- E@g3 e5,Nf6
We could write the score like this too, if preferred:
- Nf3 d5
- E@g3 e5
- (Tempo lost after summoning) Nf6
Here, White opens with Nf3, Black responds d5
Next, White summons an Elephant on to g3 (I’m using Crazyhouse notation, which is fitting because Seirawan himself frequently plays Crazyhouse on Lichess). Because White has performed a summoning, Black now gets a bonus move, so Black moves e5 then Nf6.
If the other player responds to the summoning with a summoning as their first move, they don’t get the second bonus move. If they respond to the summoning with a summoning on their bonus move, the other player gets a bonus move, e.g.:
- Nf3 Nc6
- E@g3 E@b6
or
- Nf3 Nc6
- E@g3 d5,E@b6
- e4,d4
I think the summoning mechanic is very unique and creative, but it might give White a won game, but maybe we can hobble it to keep it usable.
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I am starting to suspect that this summoning business will sort of spoil the game. Because you get the Demons back whenever you lose them, at the cost of only a tempo. The most effective strategy thus seems to simply keep summonig them in a developed location, and immediately send them on a kamikaze mission against whatever opponent is in their path. Even a Pawn is usually worth more than a tempo. You would not even care whether the square you summon them on is in a location that the opponent attacks once, as when the Demon(ess) gets captured you recapture with the Mage or Sorceress, and would still have traded the indestructible Demon for some opponent material.
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The Pieces section is slightly awkward to read since the promoted forms sometimes show up before the unpromoted pieces and they aren't arranged in any obvious pattern.
OK, I cured this by sorting the piece descriptions from weak to strong, and by putting the promoted versions near the end. For each unpromoted piece it now also mentions what it promotes to.
The rules are clear to me. The Pieces section is slightly awkward to read since the promoted forms sometimes show up before the unpromoted pieces and they aren't arranged in any obvious pattern.
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It's not clear what the rules of promotion are in this game.
Since about three quarters of the article's text is devoted to explaining just that, this is a bit disappointing. The Rules section is almost entirely devoted to explaining when you must promote, and explains contageon; and both the Pieces and the Notes section both mention what promotes to what. So what exactly is not clear about them? Is it that it should be stated explicitly that there never is any choice what to promote to?
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It's not clear what the rules of promotion are in this game.
I corrected some of the formatting of this page. However, the graphics need to be fixed. The setup diagram appears to be incomplete, and it looks like you tried to paste graphic images onto the page. This will not work. What you need to do is upload each of your images and add proper links to them. There is a link for this in the Edit menu when you are logged in.
The Diagram below implements summoning for entering user moves. (The AI doesn't understand it yet.) It appears I had already built in some provisions to promote a piece on a locust square through the user-supplied WeirdPromotion routine: if the '256' bit of the promotion piece that is returned by the function was set, it doesn't promote the piece on the destination, but the piece on the locust square. I still had to fix some bugs in relation to handling of the pieces in hand, though. (Swapping with a piece increased the number of pieces in hand, and promoting at the locust square did not decrease it.) So refresh your browser cache!
In this Diagram there is one unorthodox piece, the Lady. It moves and captures like a Rook, but it can also swap with friendly pieces that are a Rook move away. In addition it can summon a Queen on an adjacent square, if you have one in hand. (And initially you do have one!) To do that just move the piece to such a square, and then back. A second click on an adjacent square would move the the piece there, rather than summoning.
I will also note that some people would have religious objections to pieces with demonic names. When Hans was running this site, he would not allow some Shogi variants that included demon pieces. While I don't share his religious beliefs, and I assume Japanese demons are not quite the same thing as Christian demons, I see more of a problem with a game that allows for summoning demons in the more usual western sense. I will also point out that the pieces called Demon and Demoness are more commonly known as Dragon King and Dragon Horse, these being the names they have in Shogi.
I am a Christian but I see no real problem with these names. I do think Dragon King and Dragon Horse are better names, both because they are established and because they are less likely to offend, but if the author wants to stay with Demon and Demoness, I don't personally think that is a sufficient issue to veto publication. It is, after all, a game. (And one of my own inventions would be problematic! I now notice that page doesn't have the introduction where I described the origin of the name and the theme of the game -- an M. C. Escher drawing called Circle Limit IV -- I was working on that game and apparently never finished the rewrite...)
While H. G. Muller and Jean-Louis Cazaux have qualified their criticisms by saying they are not editors, they are among the regular contributors who are most qualified to be editors, and their criticisms are valid. This page needs to be fixed up a lot, and I will wait for appropriate changes to be made before publishing it.
I will also note that some people would have religious objections to pieces with demonic names. When Hans was running this site, he would not allow some Shogi variants that included demon pieces. While I don't share his religious beliefs, and I assume Japanese demons are not quite the same thing as Christian demons, I see more of a problem with a game that allows for summoning demons in the more usual western sense. I will also point out that the pieces called Demon and Demoness are more commonly known as Dragon King and Dragon Horse, these being the names they have in Shogi.
Zillions of Games is a commercial program, and not everyone has it. It is a pity the AI of the Interactive Diagram doesn't do drop moves yet. In general variants with drop moves (such as Shogi) are very hard for a computer, because of the huge branching factor. In this case drops (for summoning Demons) are limited to just a few squares adjacent to the Mages, while most of the time there wouldn't be anything to drop because the Demons are already in play. Implementing the Demon summoning as a regular drop, which would try any square, and rely on a user-supplied BadZone routine to reject any drop that doesn't land adjacent to a Mage would still be a very inefficient implementation, though.
I guess it would be possible to abuse the XBetza 'unload' modifier u for summoning. Currently this is defined as putting the piece that was captured by the move at the origin square of the leg that it labels. But a back-and-forth move where the second leg unloads (e.g. abuK) would never capture anything, as it would end where the piece itself was (and the first leg per default has m mode). But if the Diagram's AI would simply ignore the u in such a case, effectively making it a turn pass, a user-supplied routine WeirdPromotion could be used to specify a new piece for the unload square rather than the overall destination of the move. Promotion choices are automatically taken from the 'hand' already (to implement promotion-to-captured-only). This would then selectively generate drops on squares adjacent to the pieces capable of summoning (which have the abuK move component specified on them).
I think one thing the author may do until when and if this variant gets formally published here is to make a Zillions of Games implementation of it, then send an email to Ed van Zon to get the implementation published. There can be a long delay before a submission and its publication here, but Ed’s pretty good about publishing a submission within a week of its submission.
The hard part is taking all these rules and converting them in to Zillions’ quirky language. I enjoy doing it myself; it converts rules in to unambiguous machine-readable rules, and it allows people to play the variant themselves.
I would also change the name of the summoned pieces in to something like, oh, Dragon Horse and Dragon King, the Anglicized form of these pieces’ names in Shogi. I like the summoning tactic, but it’s an open question whether having it makes the White advantage overwhelming. People seem to enjoy Crazyhouse a lot over at Lichess, so I think this summoning mechanic can be very usable.
(I should also point out that Betza called what is the Jester here the “Waffle”)
I'm not an editor either but I fully agree with H.G.'s comments. I think they are good advices if the author is open to modify, and thus improve, his page. I also thank him for referring to my own work.
Concerning the very annoying issue of names, I also agree with H.G. @ Aurelian, with a smile I would say that nobody has never seen a fight between a gryphon and a dragon to be sure which one is the strongest. After all, who knows, the gryphon is maybe x5 times bigger in scale than a dragon. We are biased by Hollywood movies.
Seriously, H.G. is right. There is too much confusion already. I admit that I am guilty to have contributed to the confusion too much. But we shall do all what is possible to convince new creators to change their mind. Of course the creator has the freedom to do what he wants. But even for him, if he wants some success to his invention, he will increase his chance by trying to respect legacy and heritage of those who invented CVs before him. One valid exception I see is if you need some specific names to fit with the theme or the consistency of your game. But if you have no precise reasons or constraints what is the interest to call Dragon a Gryphon and Gryphon a Manticore? You are just confusing your potential followers.
There are plenty of sources that can be consulted. The Wikipedia page on Fairy Chess Pieces. The Piececlopedia here. Or this page from 2001, https://www.chessvariants.com/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html where Derzhanski was calling F-then-R a Gryphon and W-then-B a Dragon!!!
The Jester (WA) is the Phoenix (from chu shogi).
The Warrior Prince (KAND) is the Lion (Metamachy) or Lioness (A.King).
The Princess is the Amazon. Princess is often a BN.
The Minotaur is the Centaur (is it really needed to change a Greek's monster by another one?)
The Pegasus is the Buffalo. Pegasus is often used for something else.
And Griffon, Dragon, have been commented enough.
Kindly, I believe that the author will be well inspired to follow the advices of the veterans who are dwelling here.
I, too think Dragon and Gryphon are better names than Gryphon and Manticore. That is because of strength of pieces first (it is logical for the dragon to be stronger than the gryphon). Also the dragon it is a well established fantasy creature, where the manticore is a creature used in fantasy works to a lesser extent. That is for a fantasy setting at least. The usage of eagle and rhino is fine, too though! Those being the names Jean-Louis uses! But your argument is historical, and for that it carries some weight. I'm not sure what to say about that. In my Grand Apothecary Chess variants I have changed the names presented here for the bent riders to fit Fergus's proposal, which is more widely accepted. And by the way there is also a natural selection process at hand here. Maybe people would like more the dragon/gryphon style names. We cannot know for sure.
I am not an editor here, so my words carry no official weight. But I think the article is annoyingly verbose and digressing. E.g. the introduction section contains no information related to the variant at hand other than the e-mail address of the author (which people can already get from the author's profile) and two external links. The remaining 85% discusses the history of Chess, what other chess variants the author likes etc. I don't think an article about a specific chess variant is the proper place for that.
Dwelling on the obvious, such as "The unique units seen in chess variants are called fairy pieces" is just diluting the information one would be interested in. OTOH, in the Setup section it would be more useful to write the coordinates of the starting squares of the pieces, rather than their number. Most readers will likely be able to count, but it would be nice if they could unambigously associate the names with the images at that point. Although I admit that (perhaps with the exception of Prince / Princess) most images speak for themselves. But if the image is supposed to be selfexplanatory, why waste words on the fact that the pieces of a player occupy 3 ranks?
There doesn't seem any need to explain what e.p. capture is, and why it was introduced during the evolution of chess to its current orthodox form. Scrolling through pages and pages of diagrams containing only information everyone knows is pretty annoying. Most articles on CVP would simply state "King, Queen, Rook, Bishop and Pawn move as in orthodox Chess, including the initial 2-step move for the Pawn and e.p. capture". The same applies to castling, where if you want to be truly elaborate you could still mention that the King moves 2 squares towards the Rook, if you think "moves the same as in orthodox Chess" was too difficult to understand. This would get rid of 17(!) diagrams, and gets the reader to the interesting stuff immediately.
There isn't any need to explain what checkmate or stalemate means. Spending a diagram (3 times!) for illustrating what you mean by "adjacent square" also seems overdoing it.
Typographically, the article now uses headers for the descriptions of the individual pieces of the same 'level' as those used site-wide for the article's main sections (Introduction, Setup, Pieces, ...). While they are all supposed to be sub-sections of the Pieces section. There is an extra redundant header "Unit Moves and Captures", which repeats what "Pieces" is already supposed to convey. Rules and Notes sections seem to be missing entirely; one would have expected description of the check / checkmate / stalemate (if it would have to be given at all) to appear in the Rules section, not in the description of the King's moves. Other draw conditions than stalemate (repetition, 50-move) are now not mentioned at all. It would probably suffice just to mention that all these rules are the same as in orthodox Chess.
As to the variant itself: it always saddens me when people use a well-established piece name (such as Griffon) for another piece. As if there isn't already enough confusion.
When a Sorceress, Mage or Archmage swap a Pawn to last rank, does that Pawn promote? Does the swapped Pawn count as having moved? Would a Pawn swapped back to 3rd rank regain its two-step move? BTW, it also seems a bit superfluous to have practically the same diagram for illustrating the swapping in 3 places. It would be better to discuss the swapping once (e.g. in the rules section), and then just refer to that from the descriptions of the pieces that can do this. It is not clear to me why the description of the swap has two side-by-side diagrams. On supposes that the second diagram shows the position after the swap, but then it is illogical that it still has an arrow in it. I would think that a single diagram with a two-way arrow would suffice. In general people can be expected to know what 'swap' means, so devoting a diagram is already quite generous.
My submission for the rules of ArchMage Chess are ready for review and publication. Please let me know if there are any changes to the page you would like me to make.
The Heroine and Popess piece types in this variant arguably (nicely) complete the combination of compound pieces I used in my own (earlier) 10x10 Sac Chess variant.
On the topic of piece names, I've noticed that in some languages the name for a chess rook translates to ship (or to boat, also). Thus 'Admiral' (or my choice of 'Sailor', in Sac Chess) gets bonus points as a choice of name, perhaps (for the piece type in question, a promoted rook in shogi), i.e. a person who uses a watercraft's power.
Maybe there's a slightly related argument that a real-life knight, in the past, is a person who uses a horse (arguably knight is a more elevated title than horseman, which would also work).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_(chess)#Name_translations
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This page is done. I believe it can be opened up for the public. Thanks.
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In my opinion, respect for the original doesn't matter when making a derivative of something (in this case, a chess variant). What matters most is to have fun designing it, and ideally, for others to have fun playing it as well.
Chess is not sacred, we do not need to protect it.
Which of the two possible stepping Fortnights do you mean?
- The one taking one each of wazir, ferz, and viceroy steps? Given that Gilman starts from the various bent/crooked pieces which only have two kinds of step, this is probably a bit out of scope (corkscrew pieces with one kind of step aside).
- The one taking three Ferz steps, two in one direction and one at 60° (dual to the hex Shearwater)? That'd match the two‐of‐one‐and‐one‐of‐the‐other pattern of the Falcon, and arguably as a Shearwater extrapolation could be nameworthy (I'd've suggested Fulmar, a family of birds related to shearwaters beginning with the F of fortnight as shearwater begins with the S of sennight, but it's already taken (albeit with unclear etymology) for Zephyr+Lama; perhaps Petrel, the group including the fulmars and still beginning with a labial consonant, would suit it?), but presumably he either didn't consider two diagonal directions different enough without the AltOrth‐ness, or it just didn't occur to him. And there are also Nonstandard Diagonals at small enough angles (35°) for more Falcon‐like pieces there too
For a stepping‐Trison component I'd probably choose the former, but individually both are interesting enough imo. There's still a few bird‐of‐prey names unused I think so if one were keen to name them in Gilmanesque fashion all that'd remain would be finding a game to use them in…
A 3d version of the Falcon that would make sense, would also incorporate root-3 diagonal “Unicorn” moves. A combination of Duke’s Falcon with Gilman’s Vulture, Kite, and a piece Gilman surprisingly didn’t name (I think it would be a “Multipath Stepping Fortnight”, if my Gilmanese is correct). Gilman calls the leaping version of this piece a “Trison”.
The Falcon is a generalization of the Korean Elephant.
I Fixed a word
Promotes to 'Scepter' -> Promotes to 'Kangaroo'
This is my attempt to put a chess variant on a non-standard tiling. While the hex tiling has been fairly extensively explored for chess variants, and there are a few games using a triangle tiling, and Tony Paletta has explored the rhombille tiling, and George Dekle has explored a few tilings, this is the first chess variant I know of that uses a demi-regular tiling (Onyx, a Hex-style connection game, uses a similar archimedean tiling).
Any comments or civil criticism is welcomed.
Until this variant gets published, guests can see a Zillions implementation of the game is at Zillions of Games; that zip file includes a PDF with full game rules.
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@Bn Em: thank you for your comments. Quite informative. About Heroin, drug or female hero, I was sure that it was a link. According to WP:
The head of Bayer's research department reputedly coined the drug's new name of "heroin," based on the German heroisch which means "heroic, strong" (from the ancient Greek word "heros, ήρως").
To be back on this debate on BWN and RFN, I hesitate between Popess/Heroin which are a bit generic or Pythia/Valkyrie which are more strongly culturally marked.
At this moment, although I like the second pair, I prefer to stick with the first couple because it will be easier to use in an other CV where a Greek or a Viking reference could be awkward. I think that Popess and Heroin do carry what I wanted them to carry, the idea of being at the top of a pyramid, being feminine, one link to spiritual, one link to physical strength. They are immediately understandable.
Sure, they are not very common words, but BWN and RFN are not very common in CVs either.
No I disagree. Popess is a word that can be used to designate someone, feminine, with a dominant position in a given domain. For instance I heard just today on radio someone speaking of a lady working in the shade for foreign affairs in France, saying she was the popess of the diplomats in her time in Paris circles. Even "pope" is used sometimes with this type of speech.
Maybe you don't know. You didn't know what a pythia is, so you don't know everything.
So, I have no problem at all to use Pope or Popess, not less than using King, Queen, Emperor, Guru, Emir, Shah or I don't know what.
On the contrary when you use the name of one person, many may think that you represent this person. Imagine I would want to honour Macron in chess, and I say, this piece is a Macron. Then if we have 2 Macrons on board, it is strange. There is no difference, if it is about Macron or Sissa.
Now, I don't care at all if games are using 2 Sissa, or 3 or 10. It's really fine with me. I understand the reference, I like it.
but as Jean‐Louis notes, if we can have two Sissas…
Sissa is a name borrowed from a person's name, in this case a mythical inventor of Chess. Presumably, the piece is not understood to be this very mythical inventor of Chess but is just named in his honor. This is different than a title for a rank that is allowed to only one person at a time within a given hierarchy.
If we're talking prior usage, it's worth mentioning that Valkyrie has at least three distinct usages already: A queen that can also relocate friendly pieces, Bishop capturing as Queen, and a 3D‐specific piece moving as Rook or jumping two steps on either kind of diagonal. Conversely Heroine (albeit perhaps due to potential Drug associations) is afaict only used by Gilman for a Hex‐prism‐specific compound
Fwiw, Gilman also uses Hero on that last page, and there's also a Hero in Hero Chess. Surprisingly, Gilman seems to lack names for the two pieces under discussion (Knight+Chatelaine/Primate, to use his terminology) though. I suppose one could suggest Catholicos for BWN, as a rank above cardinal that starts with Ca‐ (for the usual extrapolations: Zetholicos ⁊c), but besides the long and awkward Archchancellor (note the double ⟨ch⟩) idk what he'd've used for the RFN
Pythia seems to be unused (understandably, given its relative obscurity); arguably it falls afoul of Fergus' objection to multiple ‘popesses’, as there was only one Pythia at a time, but as Jean‐Louis notes, if we can have two Sissas…
Imo Popess feels a bit awkward as a word, and I share Jean‐Louis' reservations re unnecessary loanwords; Pythia, Valkyrie, Heroine, and Baroness all sound fine to me
For anyone who's interested, I wrote up a rulebook PDF for Bombalot.
The rules are based upon the Sir Bombalot ruleset, that I have fond memories playing back around 2000, but I mention the differences breakout boxes throughout.
Paul
Hi Jean-Louis.
For what it's worth, 'heroine' is often used over here in movie reviews, to describe a character that's the leading lady (and/or helper of some sort to the male 'hero'). I mentioned Joe's 'Hero' piece type since he chose the name for it in spite of any misgivings that it might possibly be a bit generic.
Sometimes it's easy to be over- (or under-) critical of one's own ideas, especially on second thought. I think 'heroine' is just fine for RNF type.
Thank you for all your feedbacks.
To Greg, python and heroine carry the same meaning in French and other languages as well. In French is even worse for Heroin, as héroine is the word for both the female hero and the drug.
To Joe, even if I'm French, I'm reluctant to use French words. It is not a solution, it is not good if two different pieces are named with the same word but in two different languages. Although there are (famous) existing cases (Ferz, Alfil, Cavalier, Chevalier, ...)
HG's Pythia is very good. Not all religions are Christian in the span of mankind history and geography. The Pythia was an important person in Greek religion in the Antiquity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythia
Yes, Heroine is kind of generic and yes, not very common in usage. I'm not very happy with it.
All that demonstrates that we have progresses to make for the gender issue :=)
If I may intrude into the discussion of how pieces are named and refer again to my variant 'Chess 66'. We have discussed Chess 66 and clarified inconsistencies. For my part, I have taken up the suggestions in my description by adding explanations and clarifying examples. The functionality of the switches as I imagine it is not compatible with Fergus 'Reroute 66' (occupied switsches can be skipped, switching between fields of switches is possible). This should be discussed. Therefore I would have the request to publish my variant 'Chess 66'. Are there any reasons against it?
While I'm pretty inactive these days, I do play the occasional game, and when I check for moves, I check what's new. First, thank you Kevin for pointing out names I've already used for pieces.
For your tentative 'high priestess', I think "grande prêtresse" is possibly a good choice.
Similarly, for 'hero' I think "héros" with both the accent and ending "s" is a decent choice.
The accents in the names mark them as non-English, and the spellings maintain the separation of your and my pieces without really changing the names you wished. I admit that I am naming deficient and no one except me may actually like the alternates, so feel free to ignore or delete this post.
For what it's worth, 'Hero' is already a known Fairy Piece on this website (Joe Joyce might have invented).
In general, hierarchical Christian religions of the sort that have bishops do not have very high ranking positions for women. So, if you want a piece that is a high-ranked female religious figure that fits with bishop, you're not going to find one. Alternatives include using a neologism like Cardinaless or abandoning one of your requirements for naming the piece. Mixing religious titles from very different religions doesn't work well, because Christianity, from which we get bishops, doesn't easily mix with other religions. Diagonal moving pieces do not always have religious names. For example, the Queen moves diagonally but doesn't have a religious name.
The drug is heroin. Heroine is the feminine form of hero, but its usage has become less common.Supergirl used to be called a superheroine, and now she and other superheroines get called superheroes. My main issue with the name heroine is that it is kind of generic.
I don't know what a Pythia or a Pythoness is, but the latter brings to mind a lamia rather than something religious.
Pythia is good. Pythoness sounds like a female python (a type of snake). I realize that's not what is meant but I think most English speakers will know of python but not this word so they will think of a snake.
Valkyrie is a good name. Heroine is not a bad name but unfortunately is also the name of a dangerous drug and that usage is probably more common.
I had thought of Abbess but it doesn't sound high enough, and there is an Abbott (F4N) which is less than a Cardinal, so it would be strange to have the Abbess as Cardinal+King.
I like Baroness for the phonetics. But it lacks the religion field, and baron/baroness is a low noble rank.
Pythia is exactly the kind of word I was looking for!!!!
If Popess hurts people too much, why not Pythia. According to WP, Pythoness is also used. What is the best for English-speaking players?
As we are there, what do you think of Heroine for RKN (RFN actually). I wanted a feminine, warrior-like name. Isn't too vague? At a moment I was thinking of Valkyrie.
Do you have an opinion?
Another suggestion I would make is Baroness. It has the B for Bishop, the N for Knight, and while it lacks a K, it is a royal title, and it has an R for roi, the French name for the King.
For what its worth, I like this idea a lot
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Since I didn’t make this clear: The opponent wouldn’t get to keep their extra move “in pocket”. When a summoning is done, the opponent then makes two moves immediately afterwards.
It’s true an extra move is very powerful, but having a replaceable piece which is only fully removed from the game when the summoner is captured is very powerful too. [1] If the two moves end up being too much compensation for the summoned piece, we can hobble that too (the extra move can not capture, one piece can not move twice, etc.)
I agree we need some playtesting to here to find out how much compensation we give the other player for the summoned piece getting placed on the board. It’s like changing the king’s move or how the pawns move: It changes the nature of the game enough that extensive playtesting is needed to see if it unbalances the game to the point it’s a forced win for the first player, or (especially if making the king too powerful) if it makes the game an easy draw.
This is also why I still like Zillions, some two decades after the program was last updated: Zillions is a relatively easy way to playtest game mechanics like this one.
[1] A game with summoning and drops can make the summoning less unbalanced too, since we can come up with some way of combining those mechanics to balance the summoning. Another option is to go the Seirawan route and only allow a summoning of a piece to be done precisely once.