Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Nov 14, 2017 04:56 AM UTC:
An idea occured to me how I might make my Phoenix Chess variant idea more palatable, that is by using an alternative setup that I'll diagram below; I'm not sure if I'll have the kings move two or three squares sideways when castling to either side, but I'm inclined to still have them move three squares (if castling kingside, that would put the king where the rook would initially be). [edit: I now think moving the K three squares for queenside castling and moving it two squares for kingside castling may be best, e.g. to give the j-file phoenix more roon in case of kingside castling. P.S. Perhaps moving the K four squares to castle queenside, and moving it 3 squares to castle kingside, is an option, too.] The only problem might be if Game Courier somehow cannot handle this kingside castling possibility during play. This latest setup still has all pawns protected at the start, but would make smoothly developing the minor pieces more possible in a real game, it seems (btw, I did a minor edit on my last post that had diagrams); castling rules would be as for chess [edit: I'll have to think about using an analogous setup optionally in the case of my Hannibal Chess, Lieutenant Chess & perhaps even Frog Chess variant ideas also, but perhaps this could make for too many {test} diagrams or presets. P.S.: I thought about all this a bit, and it seems it's best to keep the rooks on the outer files in the case of these other 3 variants.]:
An idea occured to me how I might make my Phoenix Chess variant idea more palatable, that is by using an alternative setup that I'll diagram below; I'm not sure if I'll have the kings move two or three squares sideways when castling to either side, but I'm inclined to still have them move three squares (if castling kingside, that would put the king where the rook would initially be). [edit: I now think moving the K three squares for queenside castling and moving it two squares for kingside castling may be best, e.g. to give the j-file phoenix more roon in case of kingside castling. P.S. Perhaps moving the K four squares to castle queenside, and moving it 3 squares to castle kingside, is an option, too.] The only problem might be if Game Courier somehow cannot handle this kingside castling possibility during play. This latest setup still has all pawns protected at the start, but would make smoothly developing the minor pieces more possible in a real game, it seems (btw, I did a minor edit on my last post that had diagrams); castling rules would be as for chess [edit: I'll have to think about using an analogous setup optionally in the case of my Hannibal Chess, Lieutenant Chess & perhaps even Frog Chess variant ideas also, but perhaps this could make for too many {test} diagrams or presets. P.S.: I thought about all this a bit, and it seems it's best to keep the rooks on the outer files in the case of these other 3 variants.]: