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Maxima. Maxima is an interesting and exiting variant of Ultima, with new elements that make Maxima more clear and dynamic. (Cells: 76) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]<p>Maxima certainly seems to be a very interesting game. The powers of the pieces, board configuration and winning conditions seem to have been well considered. Particularly the use of Goal Squares in addition to checkmate seems to give the game more fluidity. <p/><p>The Ultima inspired powerful pieces are well balanced and quite interesting. They do not seem to overwhelm the relatively 'small' (actually, larger) board. For those of us brought up on 'orthochess', pieces like the Mage are consoling!<p/>
David E. Whitcher wrote on Tue, Jun 10, 2003 08:03 PM UTC:Good ★★★★I am not familiar with the history of bombalot or thornschach. The goal feature of this game appears in the jumping game Camelot which was invented in 1882 and was quite popular in the 1930's. For more information visit http://groups.msn.com/WORLDCAMELOTFEDERATION
<p>Maxima is quite interesting and clear. Its subtle, has a lot of variety, and is quite innovative. I particularly like the long move of the Mage and the traditional move of the Guard. </p><p>The Mages' reach makes it a very active piece early in the game. </p><p>Although it has the single step move, the Guard proves to be surprisingly strong and important for attack. Its interesting that among relatively strong pieces, a traditional piece like the Guard should play such an important role. </p><p>The Coordinator comes into play very selectively but can be surprising and cannot be ignored. </p><p>The custodian capture powers of the Pawn make the dynamics of the opening much more positional than in games using FIDE-type Pawns. </p><p>I wonder what the theoretical piece strength density of Maxima is compared to FIDE?</p>
Roberto, Maxima is a very fine game. With respect to the value of pieces, I wouldn't even attempt to calculate the values in an Ultima Variant--the multiplicity of capture types means that this will be far harder than the value of Chess pieces. But I believe it is doable in principle. The reason I'm interested in the value of Chess pieces is for game design. I want theoretical values so I can have an idea what an unfamiliar piece should be worth. I particularly have an interest in Chess With Different Armies and most especially the 'build your own army' variants. The ideal value won't and cannot be perfect, but it should be a decent starting place--practical values will always be empirical, and will vary by game context. For example, play a lot of Chess using Berolina Pawns--do the Bishop and Rook have the same values relative to each other as in FIDE Chess? Zillions values are about useless for pieces that are even slighty unorthodox--even the Bishop is overvalued compared to the Knight. That's why Zillions programmers have techniques to inflate piece values.
LOTS of excellent ideas, the equine King, its cylindric ability, fewer Pincer Pawns, the second way to win, and a piece which is immune to Immobilization. But why should that piece be the Mage, and not the less powerful Guard?
The Rating 'excellent' is for Antoine, once in a while I can hear brilliant observations, I haven`t tested the game with Guards that don´t freeze, but my intuition says to me that this idea is really interesting to be considered. My decision of select the Mage as the piece immune to Immobilizer was because the different and long movement of Mage (Gryphon movement), making the work of the immobilizer less effective many moves. One of the problems with ULTIMA is the overpower of immobilizer, many times a game of ULTIMA is almost-blocked by the effect of immobilizers, because the lot of pawns in the game are a strong defense against the other pieces, unable to attack the injuring immobilizer. But the dynamics of a game of MAXIMA with immune GUARDS would be really interesting. Actually, Guards are surprisingly strong in this game when they act in conjunction with other pieces, the effect is that the game tendence is to be more open, due the danger of action of Guards in closed positions. If they are immune to immobilizers, the effect should be higher. Guards are dangerous in the ends when they survive, if a Guard acts at least in conjunction with Coordinator, a Chameleon or a Mage, because the danger of construction of a checkmate net against the enemy King, a King that is not in fact easy to be put in checkmate!. Thanks for the suggestion, it is not other random idea, it is a very good idea to be considered.(a variant?). I`ll test it for MAXIMA v1.4...
A better embodiment than Ultima, to whose family Maxima belongs. Yet does Maxima have one or two too many features(rules), such as its multiple winning conditions? Or maybe it has one more piece-type than optimum for natural play.
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Mar 30, 2006 03:48 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★A very nice balance between chess and Ultima, with a nice twist in goal squares. The capture-by-replacement pieces allow direct assaults on a position but are limited in number and movement capacities and are vulnerable to counter-attack by the Ultima pieces. This is a nice balance of direct and indirect actions, with a 'capture the flag' aspect; a successful fusion of two very unlike games, with style.
This game sounds really fun! the guards make it very dynamic and exciting along with the wizard it's like ultima meets thronschach meets rennchess. I at first actually hated ultima! but when i started liking it i then favored rococo as an alternative ultima. and then i favored maxima now i like both of them. its like a father having two sons that do not get along. beacause rococo goes ont hte similar ways of moving but different ways of capturing path where as maxima goes down the optimizing ultima. but it has however lost on thing that ultima had the similar ways of moving. but i like the displacing pieces. and tha the king can move as a knight that treats the bord as if it was cylindrically and the mage moving as the griffon but what about tthe bottom squares how do those figure in with the cylinder. This decreases the vulnerability of the king opposed to other royal knights and the bare king rule is also very interesting and you can not fortresed as in orthodox chess. but what about stalemate? is that a win? anyway it is ALMOST completely drawless
Mage of Maxima is another Gryphon -- before Aurelian Florea's Apothecary.
Here Lavieri claims Guard resists accurate valuation: Piece_Value.
Understand that before Muller we used to do these things in more of a ballpark way.
This cool variant plays well once one gets used to it.
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