Larry Smith wrote on Wed, Jun 15, 2005 04:37 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
Looking back over the previous postings, I realized that I had not given
this game an evaluation.
Let me first say that I have a special bias toward the 10x10 field, and
always look for a good game to play on it. Examples too numerous to list
here.
If all that has been used to judge this game is its Zillions
implementation, a player will not correctly experience this game.
Zillions has a tendency to over-value a few of the pieces, and its
strategic 'thought' process is quite lacking. Until someone develops a
decent DLL engine, this game is best played between living opponents. And
please understand that this is not a negative evaluation of Zillions, a
great game engine that is designed for general game play.
I've had the joy of playing this game against a young relative recently.
Granted we were not that expert in play and at first got movements of a
couple of pieces confused but we very much enjoyed several games. It had
a slight XiangQi feel to it, with the whole playing field acting as
the 'palace'.
[I have several plastic chess sets with pieces trimmed with gold paint to
denote special powers. We use modified Bishops for Unicorns, modified
Rooks for Lions and modified Knights for Dragons.]