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Catapults of Troy. Large variant with a river, catapults, archers, and trojan horses! (8x11, Cells: 88) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

💡📝Gary Gifford wrote on Wed, Mar 15, 2006 05:36 PM UTC:

Sam Wrote: This game seems too drawish; it is too hard to launch an attack
and too easy to defend. The fact that three out of eight games played on
Game Courier ended in draws seems to support this contention. 

Response: I think the draws indicate that (a) the game is somewhat
balanced.  (b) no one has yet mastered the game.  In fact, in 1 of those
draws I was very lucky to avoid a loss.  I was about to lose but I
Catapulted my King onto Carlos Carlos's side of the board where my King
was safe.  So, that little oversight created a draw. And, if we used the
Sam T. idea of archers over there not being able to shoot... guess what,
that makes the game more drawish, not less.  But anyway, remove my lucky
draw and we have only 1 out of 4 draws.  Also, I have played a large
number of games against Antoine Fourrière's ZRF.  And guess what?  No
draws for me.  Not one.  I win or I lose.

I watched a USCF chess expert play the ZRF... he was amazed by the game
and he lost over and over again.

Also, it must be remembered that the CoT games at CV are played with time
delays, usually of several days.  In such games outright blunders (seen in
over-the-board play) are much less common.

As for the ideas to improve the game, I appreciate the comments but do not
care to implement any changes.  I think the game works well as it is.... in
fact, I think it works extremely well.

Note that the ZRF does have a setup option which was suggested by 
Antoine Fourrière.  I had no problems with Antoine's idea (see the ZRF)
and think he did a great job with the Catapults of Troy zillions program. 
If you play it at a decent level I doubt very much that you will see lots
of draws.