Single Comment

I appreciate the effort you put into this, but it's incredibly broken and
messy. Allow me to demonstrate: I create a piece called "Rifleman", since
it is like a more advanced version of the lance - Orthogonal forward (3),
repeat infinite (*5), dual strike move (*8), rifle capture (*3), doesn't
move (/2), single chance move (/4), kamikaze (/4) =10+3*5*8*3/2/4/4=21.25.
The FIDE army costs 110+150 (remember, the king has a *5 mod for being
royal)+2*(70+42+45)+8*15=694 points. 1 rifleman kills the king immediately
(start on e8, capture pawn on e2, capture king on e1). For total,
guaranteed wipeout of the FIDE forces 16 riflemen are required, costing 340
points total, not counting my royal piece, which might as well be immobile
(and that's overkill, I'm sure I could optimize the cost further).
I suggest making these changes: Make rifle capture/igui VERY costly (*5?);
lower kamikaze and single chance reduction to points (/3 each?); explain
powers more clearly, I didn't fully understand the system (WTF is poison
etc.). From what I do understand, they have great potential for abuse too
(a rank of passive burn lances...); metamorph means exactly what?; remove
INVULNERABILITY/can't be captured (for obvious reasons), or at least allow
it only with pieces which can't capture (like immobilizer, ghost) and
aren't royal; define promotes, reproduces, spins and spawner more clearly.
Oh, checkmate (almost) equals can't be captured, have you ever tried
checkmating a mere bishop? I'd suggest removing it, as it's essentially a
duplicate. Poisoned Shogi pawn rush might also be a tactic, so please nerf
it somehow (maybe only working on pieces of equal or lower value than the
poisoned piece?) Ah, so here is how the poison aura works. Strangely
enough, the poison aura is much cheaper than the poisoned modifier (*2 vs
*3, applies only to a part of the piece's cost). The most broken strategy
I can think of is using ranks of immobile pieces with a - 10 pts cost (1/4
bound, can't capture) with an ally-repelling poison aura king to launch
them into the enemy camp. A fix for lot of the broken builds I listed would
be introducing obstacles on the game board (so that you actually have to
purchase sideways moves). Despite all my critique, this is a great system,
and I can see you've put a lot of work into it. I think it certainly would
be more fun than e.g. Chu Shogi, although IMO it still needs some
development.