Comments/Ratings for a Single Item
A variant that well serves the inventor's aim of a western chess style version of Chu Shogi.
[Ed. note: I've been deleting them as they occur. As far as I know none of the scripts have changed, so I don't know why this would be happening. This post didn't duplicate either.]
the Valient Knight is too strong for being 2 of them. One should be replaced by some other piece.
I try to rate it, but it didn't work...
This is one of the "closed" category of large chess variants, that is, there are a lot of weak pieces, so the game develops slowly. If you like such kind of games - i do - this is one of the best. It usually begins with a kind of vanguard skirmish involving pawns and alfils (and maybe one or two dabbabahs), in case both players try to advance in the middle or on the same side. This phase is quite pleasent and interesting. Next comes a longwinded phase of consolidation and defining the front lines, advancing the rest of the pawns and the weak pieces like knights, camels, zebras and the 1-step-sliders. This phase may be tedious for some, it requires strategic thinking rather than tactics. I like this phase and also the next one. In the 4th phase the players try to break into the enemy's line-up, usually with the weak pieces backed up by the strong one's from the rear. Far reaching minor pieces like zebras and bishops are becoming quite prominent now and often manage to get traded with more powerful pieces. After most of the weak pieces are traded, the game becomes very tactical. For dull players like me here the game is getting arduous. The initial set-up is a good solution, but why are the knights closer to the rim than the camels and zebras? The logical order should be: zebras on the rim, then the camels, than the knights, isn't it? Initially I also thought, that ferz, wazir and guard standing on the rim are misplaced, too. But thats ok. They are flank fighters, only slowly getting to the middle of the board, so they don't disturb the opening game. Or they stay at home to protect the king.
I made preset: /play/pbm/play.php?game%3DMacrochess%26settings%3DMacrochess I think, name 'valiant knight' is better for languages, where (1,2) leaper from FIDE chess is called 'rider' or 'knight', but bufallo is better for languages, where it is called 'horse'.
The player with the White pieces in Leaping/Missing Bat Chess has 4 Alfils (which can reach every square on the odd-numbered ranks) and 2 Dababbas (which can reach every square on the even-numbered ranks). Reverse 'odd' and 'even' for the Black pieces. This variant makes it impossible to trade an Alfil for an Alfil (or a Dababba for a Dababba).
For another approach to covering the chessboard with colorbound pieces, see my Shatranj Kamil (64) page. The Elephants in this variant may move like an Alfil or a noncapturing Dababbah. This results in a weaker version of the Alibaba, visiting 16 of the squares on the board. Thus the two White Elephants control the 32 light squares between them, while the White General (Ferz) controls the 32 dark squares. An Elephant is intended to have the same value as a General, so it would be reasonable to trade one for the other.
why do you have to have just one letter for a piece? (i don't like the name 'valiant knight' for the buffalo, because the buffalo is a very established name for that piece.)
knight + camel + zebra is a buffalo http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/buffalo.html
16 comments displayed
Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.
MacroChess