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Eurasian Chess. Synthesis of European and Asian forms of Chess. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Tony Quintanilla wrote on Sun, Feb 16, 2003 12:08 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Fergus, this certainly sounds like an interesting game. I like the fact that many of the Chaturanga pieces are retained. This game has a unique feel to it, both ancient and modern, western and eastern. The piece mix should work well. As usual, the graphics are great. I'm looking forward to trying it. Very nice!

Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Mon, Feb 17, 2003 01:48 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Fergus, I see that we are equally minded. I, also, feel attracted by
gathering east and west (that's the driver of my Shako, check it out).
Also, I had proposed to use the 'Vao' long time ago in my Gigachess
:http://chessvariants.com/large.dir/gigachess.html
I called it 'crossbow', you call it 'arrow'. Les grands esprits se
rencontrent !

David Cannon wrote on Mon, Apr 21, 2003 01:21 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I've enjoyed reading about your new game, Fergus. As a Westerner married to a Korean woman (who introduced me to Changgi, the Korean national Chess variant), I appreciated your combination of Eastern and Western pieces and movements. Well done!

Mark Thompson wrote on Wed, Jun 23, 2004 03:18 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
Fergus, a Pawn cannot move to the last rank if there is not a captured piece to which it can promote. In that situation, can a Pawn on the second-to-last rank give check?

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Mon, Jul 5, 2004 12:45 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
This is one of the best mixtures of 'Oriental' and 'Western' Chess variant I have seen, not only the setup but the rules seem to be carefully designed. The result is a very strategic and positional game in which dynamics can be explosive after some point. Material advantages seem to be much less important and decisive than in Fide-Chess, but position is definitely much more important. The density of power is perhaps a bit high, but it is correct for the concept of the game, and it is one of the reasons because little material advantages are not decisive many times. I have one OBSERVATION on the Board used in Zillions implementation and in the Courier Preset: It is beautiful, but somewhat hypnotizing, and can confuse the player in some moments (Well, this is perhaps a very personal appretiation that is influenced by my ocular limitations: I´m very close to the line that divides, speaking about visual capacity, the more or less normal people, and functionally invidents. I expect I´ll be over the line for some years, but I don´t know how much time). Regardless the beauty of the board, I´ll suggest Fergus add any other set with a new plain board, perhaps using light colors, but just squares. I´ll appretiate it, much more than many other players, you must be sure.

Roberto Lavieri wrote on Fri, Jul 30, 2004 01:25 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
It is not easy stablish the value of pieces in this nice game, because it depends strongly in position and in the total amount of pieces in the game. Cannon and Vao are very powerful pieces when there are many pieces in the game, but its value diminishes a lot once the game is becoming sparse. Queens are not very powerful in the initial moves, in fact, it is an uncomfortable piece when there is a high density of pieces in the game, but its value increases progressively when the game is going to simplified stages. This is a game with an initial high density of power, because Cannons and Vaos are very powerful at the beginnings. Kings are vulnerable enough, and many pieces can be tactically attacked soon, and by this reason material advantages are not as important than positional advantages. I am not going to give a table of values for this game, I think it would be of little help as orientation, the value of pieces is a function of position and the pieces in play in any moment. This criterium applies to some other games like Chess in a Larger Board with no so Few Pieces Added and Symmetron!112, between many others.

David Paulowich wrote on Wed, Mar 1, 2006 04:03 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
A fascinating blend of east and west! The 'sufficient mating material table' came as a shock to me, since I was unfamiliar with the 'Kings may never face each other' rule in Chinese Chess. In FIDE chess, [King + Knight + Knight] cannot force mate against the lone King - not unless the lone King blunders into a mate in one. But there is a famous endgame where it takes over 50 moves to mate a King accompanied by a Pawn. Still using FIDE rules for the Kings: [King + Cannon + Cannon] or [King + Cannon + Arrow] will also be an exercise in frustration. See the Comments to Antoine Fourrière's Bilateral Chess and my own Mir Chess for some examples of forced mate involving [King + Cannon + another piece].

sydney wrote on Sun, Jul 16, 2006 04:43 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
cool

Charles Gilman wrote on Wed, Sep 13, 2006 06:43 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
While submitting my list to the new 'What's your favourite' page I realised that I had yet to post a rating of Excellent for a variant that I have recently found very inspiring. So here it is.

George Duke wrote on Thu, Sep 20, 2007 12:44 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
One on my short list with Switching is Eurasian, because this is the CV Fergus Duniho himself held highest of his own in the 'replacement' category. The rationale is to keep the three sliders RBQ. Then add Cannon and Canon(Vao here) that are more related to Knight in their screen-capture mode. So, three of one category and three hoppers/jumper for balance. To Westerners, the River here or in Xiangqi itself may indefinitely be a distraction for facile play, but there is always a balanced logic, if not extreme novelty, in a 'Duniho'. It may make sense to keep Eurasian in top 10 for radical reform of FIDE-type. Game Courier same story as with Switching Chess: frequent play of Eurasian through 2004, one game completed almost two years ago, and nothing since.

John Smith wrote on Sat, Nov 22, 2008 03:04 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I hate Grand Chess. It's like having Rook connection spoon-fed to you and the Pawn promotion is terrible. It's called promotion for a reason. It's not called rescuing. And if you do have that rule, why make the Pawns able to check? They cannot consummate the capture. I understand that modifying you setup's Rooks will give an undefended Pawn, but please understand.

George Duke wrote on Fri, Dec 11, 2009 09:02 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Dawson's Vao, sparsely used, needed further implementation beyond such as Fourriere's Jacks & Witches. Good work and one of the nominees at just-for-fun threads NextChess.

Anonymous wrote on Tue, Aug 2, 2011 01:15 AM UTC:Average ★★★
The game is far too cluttered with so many pawns. It should only have half the number of pawns, which would resemble Chinese Chess a little more closely.

Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Sep 19, 2016 01:51 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

This looks like a great game. A 10x10 board perhaps is as about as big a board one can hope to fit on a coffee table (e.g. as a decorative board), and still use fairly standard size chess pieces with.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Sun, Dec 15, 2019 09:30 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

About Vao: maybe Dawson gave that name because it was phonetically from the same family than Pao, and the V because this letter is made of diagonal strokes. Maybe it is not that, but it can be used as a mnemotecnic mean. Remark, it could have used Xao as well, that would have been looking more Chinese.

 


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