Kevin Pacey wrote on Sun, Oct 11, 2020 03:59 AM UTC:
That's where perception may come in. Archbishops or Chancellors at least have a long-range component (besides their knight component). Centaurs are purely short-range leapers, that have a knight component. That's how I see things at the moment, anyway.
P.S.: I'd note once again, that at least Centaurs are not minor pieces (like knights) though - one can deliver mate with just the aid of its King, vs. a lone King.
P.P.S.: So, a better example might be the WD and NWD piece types (as used in CV[s] invented by Joe Joyce, even though the rest of the armies in these do not include all FIDE pieces). Both have mating potential by themselves with the aid of their king, and both are short-range leapers with a WD component. Still, one might quibble that a NWD is a major piece and a WD is not, but that doesn't seem a striking enough difference, to me anyway (at least at the moment); others might argue that at least a NWD is a clearly superior version of a WD.
[edit: A possible counter-example to my ways of thinking about similarity of piece types is that archbishops and chancellors would need to be considered similar, and yet games featuring at least one of each are quite popular (e.g. Capablanca Chess); one CV that exists is EuChess by Carlos Cetina, in which there are in fact two pairs of archbishops and chancellors, besides the FIDE armies, per side(!)]
That's where perception may come in. Archbishops or Chancellors at least have a long-range component (besides their knight component). Centaurs are purely short-range leapers, that have a knight component. That's how I see things at the moment, anyway.
P.S.: I'd note once again, that at least Centaurs are not minor pieces (like knights) though - one can deliver mate with just the aid of its King, vs. a lone King.
P.P.S.: So, a better example might be the WD and NWD piece types (as used in CV[s] invented by Joe Joyce, even though the rest of the armies in these do not include all FIDE pieces). Both have mating potential by themselves with the aid of their king, and both are short-range leapers with a WD component. Still, one might quibble that a NWD is a major piece and a WD is not, but that doesn't seem a striking enough difference, to me anyway (at least at the moment); others might argue that at least a NWD is a clearly superior version of a WD.
[edit: A possible counter-example to my ways of thinking about similarity of piece types is that archbishops and chancellors would need to be considered similar, and yet games featuring at least one of each are quite popular (e.g. Capablanca Chess); one CV that exists is EuChess by Carlos Cetina, in which there are in fact two pairs of archbishops and chancellors, besides the FIDE armies, per side(!)]