Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

this is just for 16Chess with Updated Rules

@Kevin, Have you seen the last comments I have made to this topic?

Yes, all 4 are interesting diagrams. While the N-like pieces you've added can't all be developed in one move to attack on the opponent's side of the centre (as was my theme), you've gone instead for the theme of balancing the augmented knights in terms of one type gaining an orthogonal power, and the other gaining a diagonal power.

I'd also worried that I had no true minor pieces in my setups (for the CV ideas of Hybrid Chess and Hybrid Decimal Chess), but I comforted myself with the thought that on infrequent occasions I could see 3 pawns being at least a match for one of the augmented Ns, or of the BDs. Personally I prefer a nice straight 2 (or greater) rows of pieces or pawns in a CV's setup, but the classic Unicorn Chess is one example of a fine-enough exception to my preference in this regard. So, I can see your thinking in adding in super-Alpaca-style pieces that are truly minor ones in terms of their value (as you've calculated it).

Testing Again

I'm thinking of doing this setup so the non royal major piece is like guarding the royal ones but I just realized the b and i pawns are unprotected I was thinking of switching the Man and Unicorn in this setup but I don't know yet

EDIT: I think I'm doing this setup instead even though it looks weird to me

Here's another version of my (10x8) Officer Chess variant idea, which I may have rejected too fast - I'll study it at my leisure. It might be called (12x12) 'Brawl Chess', and again is a kind of extention of my popular (10x10) Sac Chess variant. Castling would be done on a player's second rank with either unmoved rook, with the unmoved king going 3 squares sideways. Pawns would move as in Omega Chess, i.e. initial double or triple step allowed (as are en passant capture possibilities). Pawns would promote on the last rank, to any piece type in the setup (except for king):

Just testing whether I can include, with a quote, a diagram (an old one I made).

While exploring the same concept (see Very Heavy Chess), apart from the difference Queen vs Amazon, I have been testing the relative position of BKN and RKN with Zillions. My first idea was also to have BKN on the 2nd row, like in your variant, but then I had the feeling that it is very difficult to develop the RKN. Then, I changed and put the RKN on the 2nd row and the BKN on back row.

Maybe it is because in VH Chess, RKN and BKN are set at the extreme wings, a/l, and not in a more centred position d/i like here.

I tried (in the quoted 12x12 diagram of my last post in this thread) to have the diagonal-content pieces not diagonally hitting (i.e. even by X-ray) anything of equal or greater value in the enemy camp in the setup - I also did not want two diagonal-content pieces doubled on a diagonal that would lead to anything in the enemy camp, even an enemy pawn. Looking back, I don't think it's possible to satisfy all my wishes, e.g. for rook-content AND diagonal-content pieces, in a setup if the board is only 12x10. However, 12x12 has the possible drawback that it may take a while in a game for the two armies to come into significant contact with one another. The Knights and Judges (Centaurs) in particular will get off to a slow start (true no matter where they may have been placed in a 12x12 setup with all pawns on third ranks).

On my Chess Federation of Canada Discussion Board blog entry that covers Sac Chess, I mentioned the ideas of NBW and NRF pieces sometime before 2019, but I'm sure both were conceived of long before that. I called the former a 'Freemason'(F) and the latter a 'Ship'(H) [with RF being what I called a Sailor, in Sac Chess].

I think I've since encountered two or more different piece types that someone called a Freemason, and a Ship in another case, on this present chessvariants.com website (even Missionary was used for something else). It's very hard to come up with a name that someone hasn't used already for a piece type. There is a variant called Templar Chess on this site where a different piece type is called a Templar, for example. I haven't yet checked too hard to see if anyone has used 'Heroine' already.

Sure, all compound pieces have probably been conceived or imagined long time ago. J.Knappen's Teutonic Knight's Chess used both triple compounds we are talking about. He called them Crown Princess and Archchancellor, names I don't like very much. About the names, yes, there is a Templar in Templar chess moving as Dabbaba or B2. For the BNW, or BKN, I was thinking to ... BiKiNi. Smile.

In fact, Charles Gilman has used the name Heroine before for some piece on a hex-prism board (3 dimensional with stacked planes of hexagons). I don't whether it was featured in a game and Gilman's games tend to be deployments of the pieces in many cases.

Here's a diagram for a 12x8 CV invention idea of mine, which might be called 'Janus-Spiel', and which I can study at my leisure (Fast Castling rules, like in Wide Chess; FIDE pawn rules) [edit: I now don't like this CV idea much; elephants seem awkward in the setup and Archbishops might prove too active {or the opposite, if one is left at home beside a castled K}. edit2: maybe a bit too harsh on this idea.]:

Note that replacing an Archbishop on each player's Q-side with a Chancellor in the setup gets to an earlier CV invention idea of mine ('Capa-Spiel').

Here's a diagram for a 14x8 CV invention idea of mine that might be called 'Wide-Spiel' (crosses the armies of Courier-Spiel and Capablanca Chess); I can study this at my leisure (Fast Castling rules, like in Wide Chess; FIDE pawn rules) [edit: I now don't like this CV idea much - guards are weak/slow pieces here and 14x8 seems a bit wide, too. edit2: maybe a bit too harsh on this idea.]:

It is good that you also include extra light pieces. But why use the Elephant-Ferz? It is so similar to a Bishop that it adds very little to the game. So why not use the Elephant-Wazir (aka Phoenix) instead? That is a very interesting piece, but you hardly ever see it in western chess variants.

Hi H.G.:

These 2 latest CV ideas here are ones I thought of back some years ago, when I was keen to keep the FA pieces as part of the CVs (and some others), as they were part of the Courier-Spiel tradition. They also are handy when trying to keep all pawns guarded in the setup (a principle at least Fergus and I like to follow, even though the other 'Classics' than chess [Chinese Chess and Shogi] break it big-time, in ways extensive playtesting seems to justify however - Janus Chess is a well-tested modern CV that breaks it too).

Even much earlier you suggested the Phoenix (aka Waffle) to me, and I did use it at the least in my long-ago submitted 10x8 Waffle Chess preset, but I found keeping every pawn guarded was awkward enough that I used my Fast Castling rules even for that, though I didn't like doing so for a 10x8 CV (however enemy forces it seemed to me could make a more normal type of castling [e.g. Capablanca Chess style] problematical). Maybe I used Phoenix' in my old 12x8 Wide Chess CV too - I'd need to check. [edit: indeed I did. Note that someone took the name of Phoenix Chess before I could use it.]:

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/wide-chess

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/waffle-chess

https://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/courierspiel.html

For my part, I like the FA. I am sensitive to the consistency of a piece. The FA is a pure diagonal piece. It is different enough from the Bishop, especially in the center of the board where it may leap to threaten enemy pieces. A nice pattern is not necessarily a nice piece to play with, this is why I prefer it to WA or Omega's WAD. Of course this matter is highly subjective.

The FA is one of my favourite fairy pieces, even though it seems usually much weaker than a B in an endgame with not many pawns (even then, it might somehow usefully leap to the other side of its K if adjacent to it). It's too bad there is not a Piececlopedia entry for it, but maybe understandable since at the least the origins (or favoured name(s)) of the piece are unknown or unclear (is Courier-Spiel the first instance of it being used? if so, we don't know who invented that CV).

The WA does come from Japanese origins, it seems, though maybe one could try to argue that it is almost just a clearly weaker version of a Q and doesn't add much to a CV where Qs are present in the setup (analogous to the way FA and B are sometimes compared).

Considering the WA a weak version of the Q is a stretch of the imagination. The value difference alone makes it a completely different piece, in the way you have to use it. On 8x8 the opening value of the FA is hardly different from that of a Bishop. On larger board the Bishop gains value, but the FA stays similar in value to a Knight. As the WA would. Each of those is, after all, an 8-target leaper.

I guess a FADW could be seen as a more appropriate analogue to an almost clearly weaker version of a Q, in the spirit of calling a FA an almost clearly weaker version of a B (at least in many endgames).

I wonder if a FADW would make for an interesting piece in some CV invention(s), whether or not the piece has been used by someone already. edit: Joe Joyce has used it, I recall now:

The KAD goes back at least as far as the Pasha of Paulovits' game, and also appears as a Mastodon in Mats Winter's games and as Joe Joyce's Jumping General (How's that for alliteration?(!) )

I hadn't looked at Betza notation much so far, but didn't realize he used K=FW; I thought he'd might have cared if a piece were royal (in which case if he didn't want to use FW for Man, he might have picked another letter[s] than K - the Alfairie: Many set in the Diagram Designer, for example, uses {GU} for guard when one is putting it in its FEN notation, though that's 4 characters[!]).

Here's a diagram for a (16x8) CV invention idea of mine, which might be called Constable-Spiel, that I can study at my leisure (Fast Castling rules as in Wide Chess, and FIDE pawn rules) - it was inspired by my earlier (8x10) CV invention idea Constablulary Chess (see 2020-12-16 post[s] in this thread):

https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/wide-chess

Below is a diagram for a (16x8) CV invention idea of mine, which might be called Officer-Spiel, that I can study at my leisure (Fast Castling rules like in Wide Chess, and FIDE pawn rules). It was inspired by my much earlier (8x10) CV invention idea Officer Chess (see 2019-02-16 post[s] in this thread), as well as by Michael Wortley Nolan's (14x8) Alekhine Chess (I thought, if that 8-rank CV with all its piece power, and no quick way to castle, has some popularity, maybe Officer-Spiel shouldn't be ruled out):

https://www.chessvariants.com/link/zAlekhineChess

edit: Alternative setup for Officer-Spiel (currently prefer):

For my taste the pieces in Officer Spiel are way too strong, while those in Constable Spiel (although I like that more) are a bit on the weak side. If you would replace the Elephants by a Crowned Rook and a Crowned Bishop you would have an interpolation of the two that has pretty much an ideal piece mix; it would add one rook-class piece, and one halfway Rook and Queen, next to three pairs of light pieces (of which the War Machine has mating power).

I suggest to replace the Elephant, because it seems the 'most redundant piece': its footprint is a subset of that of the Bishop, and although it can jump, you already have the WA that has that move. And you already have the WD, which is also color bound.

P.S. The Diagram now also supports 'fast castling'. (Flush browser cache!) The XBetza notation ispOn. It seemed fitting to use the p modifier to distinguish it from normal castling, as it is a castling that can hop over other pieces. For now the n is ignored; perhaps this can be interpreted as the maximum range over which the King is allowed to jump.

Thanks for the effort, H.G.! I'm glad Fast Castling is now supported by the I.D. (though I as a dinosaur personally have a ways to go before ever learning how to use that, especially authoring/inventing something with it).

Your modification to Constable-Spiel is interesting, and may deserve a name of its own (would we be co-inventors, if it takes root?! edit: possible name: 'Accelerated Constable-Spiel'), even if I still prefer to keep the original around under the Constable-Spiel name.

I have 22 CV invention ideas (that I at the least haven't totally rejected yet), on scrap paper and scattered in comments on this CVP site since 2019 - a start would be for me to make settings files files for them at my leisure, before thinking about the long daunting process of submitting the ideas (Fergus once capped the number of submissions at a time by a member at 9 maximum; I have 9 published presets that also might use rules pages some day). With settings files done, people could locate the ideas a bit more easily, and also play them if they wish.

"And you already have the WD, which is also color bound"

You probably meant the FD, not the WD.