H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Sep 24, 2018 12:57 PM UTC:
Indeed, I addressed this this inconsistency in a follow-up comment, at the time. Paper-Sciccors-Rock situations are very uncommon with piece values; usually the empirically determined value of a piece is highly independent on what you play it against. (Except for extreme situations such as 3 Queens vs 7 Knights; it has to be a mix of pieces of different value.) I guess that this is why 'piece value' is a useful concept in the first place.
It could be that the Clobberers are composed such that they can better exploit the most important weakness of the Nutters, namely that they cannot quickly pull back. The Clobberers have only one major piece, but they have several combinations of two minor pieces that together can force checkmate (through repetitive checking) on an unprotected King. As Kings tend to stay on the back rank until the late end-game, it is rather tempting for a naive Nutters player to abandon its King while aggressively attacking (possibly gaining significant material), to discover that a counter-strike expedition of two pieces will unescapably kill its King. I don't think any of the other armies has the ability to inflict mate with such a small force. (In FIDE there is the pair of Rooks, but that already fails when there is a Pawn to shelter behind, while the FAD can jump.)
So it seems it is more important for the Nutters to have some strategic knowledge (which Fairy-Max utterly lacks), namely that it should always keep a 'sweeper' piece near the back rank to defend its King against sudden break throughs. That the opponent also doesn't know that this is a weakness, and won't intentionally lure the Nutter pieces forward (e.g. by forcing them to make a forward distant recapture) only partly compensates this ignorance, as it will happen enough that the Nutters will just accidentally (unforced) move their pieces ahead. This is actually statistically likely, as the Nutter pieces in general have more forward than backward moves. So they tend to 'drift' forward when they would wander around aimlessly. In an engine with the required strategic knowledge the Nutters should do even better, though, and they were already one of the strongest. So if the method has a systematic error here, it is in the wrong direction.
The reason I was not so worried about 'disadvantaging' the Nutters by denying them the opportunity to promote to Queen / Marhall / Archbishop is that they already seem to have too strong an army despite this 'handicap'. Also, the disadvantage for the Clobberers that they cannot do better than Archbishop is not nearly as large as what Betza thought, as the Archbishop is unexpectedly strong. And also with this handicap, Clobberers seem stronger than FIDE. So I thought it entirely acceptable to limit promotion to each army's own super-piece.
If it would help, it would not be a bad idea to limit the Rookie's promotion choice to { Fibnif, Short Rook, Half Duck }, or perhaps even just to Fibnif. But such promotion limitations seem actually ineffective in altering the strength of an army.
Indeed, I addressed this this inconsistency in a follow-up comment, at the time. Paper-Sciccors-Rock situations are very uncommon with piece values; usually the empirically determined value of a piece is highly independent on what you play it against. (Except for extreme situations such as 3 Queens vs 7 Knights; it has to be a mix of pieces of different value.) I guess that this is why 'piece value' is a useful concept in the first place.
It could be that the Clobberers are composed such that they can better exploit the most important weakness of the Nutters, namely that they cannot quickly pull back. The Clobberers have only one major piece, but they have several combinations of two minor pieces that together can force checkmate (through repetitive checking) on an unprotected King. As Kings tend to stay on the back rank until the late end-game, it is rather tempting for a naive Nutters player to abandon its King while aggressively attacking (possibly gaining significant material), to discover that a counter-strike expedition of two pieces will unescapably kill its King. I don't think any of the other armies has the ability to inflict mate with such a small force. (In FIDE there is the pair of Rooks, but that already fails when there is a Pawn to shelter behind, while the FAD can jump.)
So it seems it is more important for the Nutters to have some strategic knowledge (which Fairy-Max utterly lacks), namely that it should always keep a 'sweeper' piece near the back rank to defend its King against sudden break throughs. That the opponent also doesn't know that this is a weakness, and won't intentionally lure the Nutter pieces forward (e.g. by forcing them to make a forward distant recapture) only partly compensates this ignorance, as it will happen enough that the Nutters will just accidentally (unforced) move their pieces ahead. This is actually statistically likely, as the Nutter pieces in general have more forward than backward moves. So they tend to 'drift' forward when they would wander around aimlessly. In an engine with the required strategic knowledge the Nutters should do even better, though, and they were already one of the strongest. So if the method has a systematic error here, it is in the wrong direction.
The reason I was not so worried about 'disadvantaging' the Nutters by denying them the opportunity to promote to Queen / Marhall / Archbishop is that they already seem to have too strong an army despite this 'handicap'. Also, the disadvantage for the Clobberers that they cannot do better than Archbishop is not nearly as large as what Betza thought, as the Archbishop is unexpectedly strong. And also with this handicap, Clobberers seem stronger than FIDE. So I thought it entirely acceptable to limit promotion to each army's own super-piece.
If it would help, it would not be a bad idea to limit the Rookie's promotion choice to { Fibnif, Short Rook, Half Duck }, or perhaps even just to Fibnif. But such promotion limitations seem actually ineffective in altering the strength of an army.