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Infantry Chess. Small chess variant with short range pieces. (9x9, Cells: 43) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Carlos Martín-Fuert wrote on Mon, Jun 30, 2003 03:12 AM UTC:
I don't see why the alfil being able to move to only 5 squares is a
problem. In XiangQi, the elephants are THREE TIMES colourbound (i.e. they
would only be able to reach 1/8 of the positions of the board) and besides
they cannot cross the 'river', so both elephants are confined to only 7
positions within the board.

They are simply weak pieces, that are more likely to be used for defensive
purposes. I don't understand why pieces being weak is a problem at all,
and don't think that all pieces of a game must necessarily be strong.

It must be, as Mr. Kuschinski puts it, 'a matter of personal taste'.

Erez Schatz wrote on Wed, Apr 9, 2003 12:48 AM UTC:
Thank you for your comment, the alfil can access each of the optional three
squares (D3, D5 and D7 for the white alfil) in his first move, and once it
is located in the 'middle square' it can move to any other of his
designated 4 squares. It is purely a limited defensive piece.
The Tank, Assassin and Knight were added to the game as support for the
infantry units, which are the main force and the main army, in the same
manner that infantry units are aided by artillery and tanks.
The Tank is a strong piece, but it has a weakness when it comes to
protecting its adjacent area. The Tank can only attack pieces located 2 or
4 squares away from it, and so it is very vulnerable to the attacks of the
Pawns and the Foxes.

Nicholas Kuschinski wrote on Tue, Apr 8, 2003 09:10 PM UTC:
You have entertained me very much with your variant. I was almost certain it was flawed upon my first reading of the rules, but upon thinking really hard and thinking up a lot of possible situations in which I would expect the game to collapse, I have found only two problems with it, and they are both a matter of personal taste, rather than serious flaws. The first is the alfil, which is twice colorbound. The alfil will never be able to move onto columns A,C,E,G and I, and will never be on a black square. There is also the problem that the spaces that an Alfil can move to before he chooses to move to his 'additional square' for the first time, can never be moved to again for the remainder of the game after it has made such a move. In order to have things well balanced, each player would really need FOUR Alfils, as opposed to one, in order to cover the whole board. Although I guess it might not seem like a problem to some, I find this rather disconcerting. The second is the opening: The tank, which begins the game outside of the central array, wrecks havoc on the openning, which could be extremely interesting if it was primarily composed of interactions between infantry units. A piece as powerful as the tank being thrown in the middle there seems to screw things up. Also, since the alfil, the assassin, and the knight are all jumping pieces, these pieces also interfere with the beautiful and pure sort of openning that the infantry units could produce.

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