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Thanks for the comment Joe. I'm planning to shortly make a preset for this game (perhaps it may then get playtested), and I may next give more thought to making a thirty-seven boards 37 hex 2D board 4D Hexagonal variant version (though this may prove to be clearly too ambitious, if further reflected upon).
Kevin
I've now submitted a preset for this game, and it's awaiting editorial review.
In spite of my finding at least two possibly interesting setups, a thirty-seven boards 37 hex 2D board 4D Hexagonal variant version of this game seems to be an undesirable goal. In favour, there is the clear Pro that knights would have more scope, allowing for a knight's tour of a single 2D board, when moving on just that board. There seems to be many Cons against though. A diagram for it, say on Game Courier, would have the pieces very small, or else the board taking up more than a whole screen (at least on my laptop), either of which I'd be uncomfortable with as a player (let alone whether a modern CVP editor might find small pieces acceptable). In the setups I've thought of so far, pawns take too long to promote, and/or a king lacks pawn protection on his 2D board in the setup (seems worse than is taken into account for in Hyperchess4). The pieces to empty hexes ratio would also be large (about half as dense as for Hyperchess4 in one setup I'd thought of, one that has a large number of pawns, which seems undesirable in itself) and other than making knights happier I'm asking myself why have such a very huge 4D board. Then there's the time, effort and aches that might go into submitting such a large sized variant. All in all, I think I'm content to rest with the effort I put into 4D Hexagonal Chess, at least for now.
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I like this idea. It's a natural extension of the easy version of 4D (said very tongue in cheek.) This does imply that with a little work the game is playable, and probably won't exhibit chaotic behavior, unplayability, generally through chaos, being the bane of many 4D efforts.
I'm guessing the knight will not be as relatively powerful in this as in H4 because the board is a bit tight for knight moves. But the knight is the only fully 4D piece in either game, so I think it gets a significant boost in power from that, compared to FIDE. Conversely, the bishops lose some power, I believe, since they are now restricted to 1/3 of the board, rather than 1/2. And yes, I know they aren't really restricted, but for each move, they hit proportionally less of the entire board.
Finally, the pawns. In H4 they are forward-sideways wazirs, which effectively makes them (very) minor pieces. I'm not familiar with Glinski's pawns, though I prefer them (and thus the board grain orientation) to other versions. The board orientation and pawn moves seem to cry out for Glinski's interpretation. But this means the pawns cannot get to the outside columns of big hexes without capture. And that means they can be (and are in some sense?) flanked without the pawns having any preventive recourse.
All in all, I like the idea, but suspect it could use playtesting to work out the rough edges. The designer in me wants to increase the size of at least the 3 central coulums of big hexes, and spread pieces as well as pawns across the backs of the 3 central big hexes. Or mess with the knight's move, making it 2 ortho moves and a diagonal out finish (or the diagonal part first, and then finish on the same hexes "from the other side".) Or even add a row of 5 big hexes across the middle of the board, and keep everything else the same. While 2 of the 3 increase the pawn distance, they might mitigate enough other things to be worth looking at.