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I am skeptical that game has been playtested, and also skeptical that pieces have been chosen for play balance purpose. Too many piece types and too many short range mean steep learning curve and long slow game with no sharp tactics.
Hi, Andy. I, too, am skeptical that this game has ever been played; I seriously doubt it. That's why I didn't rate it in my first comment. Had I, I would have given it a 'good', because until it's played, a game cannot really be judged, and to me it looks like it would range from average to excellent. On play balance: I think Charles is paying great attention - he doesn't overcrowd the board with pieces like so many big games. That alone indicates a lot [or that, like me, he couldn't come up with any more pieces... :-) ] You say: 'Too many piece types and too many short range mean steep learning curve and long slow game with no sharp tactics.' I also agree there are a lot of piece-types, certainly more than I would normally tend to use. But many of the pieces are forward-only versions of the standard pieces. Even his odd pawn is a forward-only ferz. I don't see much learning curve here. Also, I am familiar with shortrange pieces, and I have to say I think you completely mischaracterize them when you say they give a 'long slow game with no sharp tactics.' To demonstrate my position, I would like to offer to play a number of my own games, all shortrange. Specifically, we could play 2 games each of Great Shatranj, Grand Shatranj, Lemurian Shatranj, Atlantean Barroom Shatranj, and Chieftain Chess. In Great Shatranj [8x10], no piece moves more than 2; in Lemurian [8x8] and Chieftain [12x16], no piece moves more than 3; in Grand [10x10] and Atlantean [10x10], none more than 4. Okay, I'm not completely serious and I'm not really trying to put you on the spot, I'm just trying to win a point in this discussion. But I do want to make 2 serious points: that Charles does have a good sense of design, he just needs to make his games available to be played to refine his designs and prove it; and that shortrange pieces can easily be as good as longrange ones. Heck, a CWDA game on a 10x10 with Grand Chess vs Atlantean Barroom pieces would be a slaughter! ;-) Enjoy. Joe ps: if you wanted to, we could play the games anyway...
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