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Lemurian Shatranj. 8x8 variant that features short-range pieces. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

💡📝Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Jul 15, 2007 05:07 PM EDT:

The king is what I called a pony in the Shortrange Project. Thanks for the preset, Jeremy ['Do you want to play a game?']; that's a very basic piece design you've got there, with the virtues of simplicity and instant recognition. Whose move is it? 
You want assassins, don't you? Nobody moves, but a piece next to the ww just happens to drop dead, and poof, it's the next turn! Well, I gotta tell ya, the Atlanteans just might sneak that piece into the game as a change of pace, but the Lemurians wouldn't. They were more conservative in many ways*. The Temple version is supposed to be the original version; the 'new' Lemurian Shatranj with the bent hero and shaman was actually strongly influenced by their colony and rival's Barroom Shatranj, which was the first to introduce the bent pieces. In fact, Temple is also influenced by the new version, as the first Temple version had the hero in the corner. ;-) 
* You didn't bribe the priests. Ya want assassins, ya gotta pay for 'em.
Finally, and seriously, to compare power in the 2 games, you have to look at what is stronger in Temple - the Q analog has greater reach, the king is stronger, and there is only 1 pair of colorbound pieces per side, instead of 2 like LemS. The 50% colorboundness of Lem dilutes its pieces' power compared to the standard 25% of Temple or FIDE. 
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