George Duke wrote on Fri, Oct 4, 2013 12:14 AM UTC:
Shogi Lion(Shishi) reaches twenty-four squares within certain restrictions, the 24 close in, overlapping (Queen+Knight). Burroughs' Jetan from 100 years ago has three different pieces that must move two squares, the maximum for Shogi Lion: Jetan.
Diagonally Padwar two steps, and orthogonally Warrior two steps, both free to change direction. Western Pawns could use more versatility against Shogi Lion, and those two Warrior and/or Padwar could be used as Pawn replacements, which can retreat to hem in Shogi Lion.
The third Jetan two-stepper, Thoat, goes one diagonally, one orthogonally either order and so reaches 12 squares, half of Shogi Lion's 24, but having at least twice the point value of either Warrior or Padwar -- since Thoat is a strict jumper.
Why not strengthen Pawns one of the above ways, making them one or two chosen Jetan piece-types rather than Western Pawn of awkward en passant and artificial one-time two-step? Further just let Shogi Lion be the supreme piece by restricting all of Bishop, Rook and Queen to maximum of three spaces Jetan-like? This would be for the small boards 8x8, 8x10 launched by adding versatile strong Chu Shogi Lion to Western ware. The Queen, now having all her destinations close in duplicated by Shogi Lion, should just abdicate and become the second most powerful piece -- the way She does when Amazon's on board.
At least Chu Shogi of Shishi lacks ugly drops of conventionalized rules-ridden Shogi, and the above enhancing options for Pawn would keep the western look to all the rest of pieces as well in playable CVs.
The key to the concept is just not to think of Jetan as having low-value pieces, but being each one good Pawn potential. All original Jetan pieces are better than dozens of Shogi-family pieces. The classic Jetan types are easily descriptive, not just exhaustive as that more than a hundred Shogi-variant piece-types could be characterized: piece-type production exhaustively for its own sake in the historical large shogis. Most of them from large shogis are not as much worth singling out for further study than the excellent versatile Chu Shogi Lion. (For follow-up, to place Chu Shogi Lion, there are near examples than already mentioned other comments CVs using Squirrel, Mastodon, Pasha...)
The third Jetan two-stepper, Thoat, goes one diagonally, one orthogonally either order and so reaches 12 squares, half of Shogi Lion's 24, but having at least twice the point value of either Warrior or Padwar -- since Thoat is a strict jumper. Why not strengthen Pawns one of the above ways, making them one or two chosen Jetan piece-types rather than Western Pawn of awkward en passant and artificial one-time two-step? Further just let Shogi Lion be the supreme piece by restricting all of Bishop, Rook and Queen to maximum of three spaces Jetan-like? This would be for the small boards 8x8, 8x10 launched by adding versatile strong Chu Shogi Lion to Western ware. The Queen, now having all her destinations close in duplicated by Shogi Lion, should just abdicate and become the second most powerful piece -- the way She does when Amazon's on board.
At least Chu Shogi of Shishi lacks ugly drops of conventionalized rules-ridden Shogi, and the above enhancing options for Pawn would keep the western look to all the rest of pieces as well in playable CVs. The key to the concept is just not to think of Jetan as having low-value pieces, but being each one good Pawn potential. All original Jetan pieces are better than dozens of Shogi-family pieces. The classic Jetan types are easily descriptive, not just exhaustive as that more than a hundred Shogi-variant piece-types could be characterized: piece-type production exhaustively for its own sake in the historical large shogis. Most of them from large shogis are not as much worth singling out for further study than the excellent versatile Chu Shogi Lion. (For follow-up, to place Chu Shogi Lion, there are near examples than already mentioned other comments CVs using Squirrel, Mastodon, Pasha...)