Single Comment

Reinstating an odd number of files is an interesting idea. Simply reinstating a second Gold file would have the effect that each player would have their Bishops and Mitres bound to one colour and their Camels and Humps to the other, until such time as they could promote them or drop extra ones captured by the enemy. While not as problematic as in variants in which pieces do not change sides, it would nullify my reason for having two Bishops instead of Shogi's one.

One possibility would be to have colourbound pieces starting beside each other. Thus a Mitregi-156 might have White's Bishops on d2/e2, Camels on i2/j2, Mitres on j1/k1, Humps on c1/d1, with Black rotationally symmetric with this. This would restore the Bishop-on-the-left character of Shogi itself. It would also make an interesting comparison with Wildebishogi on my Bishogi page (Shogi with Pawns and symmetric pieces, Bishogi).

Another interesting idea that I have had is an 8x8 variant with just the forward-only pieces, winning by capturing the entire enemy army, no promotion, and pieces that reach the far rank wrapping back round to their back rank. This would have the armies effectively starting back-to-back with only their lack of backward move stopping them being en prise.

I would welcome feedback on both these ideas before I submit them.