Joe Joyce wrote on Tue, Jul 19, 2011 03:28 AM UTC:
It's been a while since I asked any dumb questions, so I'm overdue. This
means I've got 2 dumb questions:
What are pawns?
Why are pawns?
I think I understand the first why - the pawns are there to hem in your own
pieces, so they cannot attack your opponent on the first turn. This becomes
glaringly obvious in the higher-dimensional variants, especially 4D [and
higher.] Ever wonder why Chesseract is set up in the corners? It's to
prevent first turn captures as far as I can see, and can anybody tell me
differently?
The second purpose of pawns is to defend your pieces from the other side,
and that's the one I always thought was the only reason for pawns until I
tried designing a 4D game. The very best proof of this is TessChess, Ben
Reiniger's 4D variant, which I had the privilege of helping him polish up
a bit. The pawns in his game just barely do their first job, preventing
your pieces from slaughtering your opponent [and maybe vice versa, maybe
not] on turn one. They do not protect your pieces from the opponent's
pieces at all. And it's pretty hard to move one very far at all. Even
advancing 1 square may require some preparation from previous piece moves -
that's right, piece, not pawn moves.
Pawns are in some ways a timing mechanism and in some ways a wall to
delineate your country. Each time a pawn moves, the state of the game is
irreversibly advanced, and the amount of territory behind the pawn wall
[aka: friendly territory] expands. They also represent a little bit of luck
or randomness, the rare sudden appearance of a new hero, since every once
in a while, one gets promoted, but you should have no way of knowing before
a game that you will promote a pawn in that game. If you do know, you need
to play stronger opponents.
Where did pawns come from? There are 2 'styles' of chess games, one with
a full rank of pawns, and one with a 'picket fence' rank of pawns. Why?
Why are there [at least] 2 pawn traditions? Does this mean that proto-chess
merged with 2 similar but different games [race games, possibly - anyway
most seem to think pawns were pieces in a racing game, where pieces were
originally sacred figures.] Or is it really as simple as one evolved into
the other, somewhere/when?
It's been a while since I asked any dumb questions, so I'm overdue. This means I've got 2 dumb questions: What are pawns? Why are pawns? I think I understand the first why - the pawns are there to hem in your own pieces, so they cannot attack your opponent on the first turn. This becomes glaringly obvious in the higher-dimensional variants, especially 4D [and higher.] Ever wonder why Chesseract is set up in the corners? It's to prevent first turn captures as far as I can see, and can anybody tell me differently? The second purpose of pawns is to defend your pieces from the other side, and that's the one I always thought was the only reason for pawns until I tried designing a 4D game. The very best proof of this is TessChess, Ben Reiniger's 4D variant, which I had the privilege of helping him polish up a bit. The pawns in his game just barely do their first job, preventing your pieces from slaughtering your opponent [and maybe vice versa, maybe not] on turn one. They do not protect your pieces from the opponent's pieces at all. And it's pretty hard to move one very far at all. Even advancing 1 square may require some preparation from previous piece moves - that's right, piece, not pawn moves. Pawns are in some ways a timing mechanism and in some ways a wall to delineate your country. Each time a pawn moves, the state of the game is irreversibly advanced, and the amount of territory behind the pawn wall [aka: friendly territory] expands. They also represent a little bit of luck or randomness, the rare sudden appearance of a new hero, since every once in a while, one gets promoted, but you should have no way of knowing before a game that you will promote a pawn in that game. If you do know, you need to play stronger opponents. Where did pawns come from? There are 2 'styles' of chess games, one with a full rank of pawns, and one with a 'picket fence' rank of pawns. Why? Why are there [at least] 2 pawn traditions? Does this mean that proto-chess merged with 2 similar but different games [race games, possibly - anyway most seem to think pawns were pieces in a racing game, where pieces were originally sacred figures.] Or is it really as simple as one evolved into the other, somewhere/when?