Jeremy Good wrote on Mon, Jun 19, 2006 09:55 PM UTC:
The Dev appears to be a lot less vulnerable than two other well known multiple occupancy pieces, Peterson's Cobra and the wall. The rule for capturing the Dev is this: 'Devs can capture devs directly. However the other pieces of the opponent can capture the dev, if all of the four squares that dev is standing on are under threat ...' In the case of the wall and Peterson's Cobra, the entire entity is destroyed if any part of it is attacked without the whole being threatened. So the Dev suffers from weaker movement ability but this is partially compensated by greater invulnerability.
Mark Hedden should be mentioned here as having made significant contributions to this genre of variants using multiple occupancy pieces (as well as multiple occupancy squares).
The Dev appears to be a lot less vulnerable than two other well known multiple occupancy pieces, Peterson's Cobra and the wall. The rule for capturing the Dev is this: 'Devs can capture devs directly. However the other pieces of the opponent can capture the dev, if all of the four squares that dev is standing on are under threat ...' In the case of the wall and Peterson's Cobra, the entire entity is destroyed if any part of it is attacked without the whole being threatened. So the Dev suffers from weaker movement ability but this is partially compensated by greater invulnerability.
David Howe has written an essay about pieces of differing size - Growing and Shrinking: Playing with the Size of Chess Pieces. The notes to that page reference a few more such pieces.
Mark Hedden should be mentioned here as having made significant contributions to this genre of variants using multiple occupancy pieces (as well as multiple occupancy squares).