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Hello, David. Like your numbers and basic concept for piece numbers and
placement. Following is the URL for my testbed 24x24:
http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DFortress+Chess%26settings%3Dfortresschess1
The setup is basically just weak pieces so far [still need several icons
made for this], and sketches in the general outlines of the force sizes
and dispositions. Currently I plan to put small, powerful forces in the
corner forts, weak and medium-strength pieces in the corps flanking each
army, maybe add a few pieces immediately behind the army on the board,
keeping them short and medium range pieces, and put the high king, his
marshall, guards, and the elite troops and reserve behind the steward
wall. This setup minimizes the initial effects of unlimited sliders, and
will have about 80-100 pieces/side, of which about 25-30 or so pieces will
be 'fortress' pieces, ie: formations of wazirs and stewards, and their
leaders. I will also add an alternate frontline setup, with only one
flanking corps per side, on opposite flanks. Finally, the formations of
wazirs and stewards are the forerunners of a new type of 'piece',
consisting of several mostly shortrange pieces and a leader unit specific
to them that they must be in 'contact' with to move. These would be
'Autonomous Multiple Pieces', or AMPs. While the 2 examples I've
discussed so far are simple and slow, if these amps evolve a bit [a 3rd
piece would be 6 forward-only ferzes and their leader - to make it a
better attack piece, up the number of its components allowed to move each
turn], their natural habitat would likely be on boards of side 30-50. I
see them evolving specific organs [pieces] for attack, defense, and
movement. But they are for later, larger games. I'd call those variants
'Amoeba Chess', but that name is taken by a game [by Jim Aikin; preset
by A. Sibahi] that has a board that changes shape slowly, so maybe I'll
go with something like 'Puddle Chess', where 2 groups of 1-celled
critters fight it out for control of a splash of water on a city sidewalk.
First, however, I have to finish this 'proof-of-concept' 24x24 game.
[Anybody taking bets on how the game comes out? I got a couple bucks to
put down... ;-) ]