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Thanks, Chris, for your comments. I finally came back to this game and applied the fix you suggested to the initial area, naming it "Move zero" rule.
HaruN Y suggested a different move 0 rule for the Sai Squad: The Sai Squad advances its e-pawn one step (to e3 when playing white and to e6 when playing black) blocking the mate-in-one threat. This has the advantage that it applies to the Sai Squad itself and not to the other army, whatever it is. You are invited to try this alternative rule zero.
Source: https://www.chessvariants.com/index/listcomments.php?id=63529
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Both Sai Squad & Marvellous Megafauna have a top-heavy material balance so you might want to try them out as well.
Something is wrong with the interactive diagram. It not only misses the mate-in-one in the initial position, but also sacrifices the King in the midgame:
- e4 c5 2. d3 d6 3. a4 Se5 4. Sf3 Df6 5. Sxe5 Dxe5 6. h4 h5 7. Dc3 Dc6 8. Df3 e6 9. Ra2 Df4 10. Rh2 De5 11. Ra3 Df4 12. Rh3 De5 13. De3 Dxe3 14. fxe3 Rh7 15. Kc3 a6 16. d4 Dc4 17. Kd2 Rh6 18. dxc5 dxc5 19. De2 Rg6 20. Kf3 Ra7 21. Ke5 b6 22. Rf3 Rg4 23. g3 Dxe4 24. Dxe4 Rxe4 25. Kg5 Rb7 26. Kd3 Rb4 27. b3 Ra7 28. Ra1 Rg4 29. Raf1 f6 30. Kh7 g5 31. hxg5 fxg5 32. Rf7 Kxf7 33. Rxf7 Rxf7
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jun 16 02:06 PM UTC in reply to Jörg Knappen from 11:41 AM:It could be interference from the Diagram in the Comments.
That's because the Knave's ID is K which makes them also royal pieces.
H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Jun 16 02:19 PM UTC in reply to HaruN Y from 02:07 PM:You are right. The CwDA Diagram that I have been cloning specifies the royal by ID, rather than number. So anything with ID K will be royal, and since the default mode of the Diagram is extinction royalty, it didn't mind so much losing one of the royals. I now set the ID of the Knave to N, and now it does find the mate in 1 in the opening position.
Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jun 16 04:50 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 02:19 PM:I am just testing a different page in case that matters, as I accidentally posted here first, and it didn't automatically accept the post.
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Hi Joerg,
inventing chessvariants is silver (computer-aided) playtesting is gold ;) If I don‘t err the Essential Knight Rider is your creation and the problem, that occurs for this army is as old as the piece itself => already in the starting position, it has impact on the enemy‘s camp. When I discovered the chessvariants-site in 2002 your article Nachmahr was my favorite entry for a long time. I never played that game, but I examined it, because it offers a nice overview of several Knight Riders. In those days I saw already the problem that the Essential Knight Rider on g1 can take the Narrow Diagonal Crooked Knight on c8, the pawns on the third rank don‘t prevent that.
It‘s funny that this kind of crooked Knight Rider was invented last, it actually is the most logic Knight Rider. It is a strong piece, but not too strong, so you can combine it with pieces like the Rook or – like in this game – with the bishop. I‘m currently working on a chessvariant with crooked pieces and I plan to use combination of Boyscout an Essential Knight Rider as promoting piece. The funny thing is that the second Essential Knight Rider move and the third Boyscout move „overlap“.
There is another chessvariant that has to deal with a powerful Knight Rider, it‘s Ubi Ubi Chess. The solution Bodlaender found, was to shift the opponents f-pawn and the d-pawn one square ahead. You can probably introduce that special rule to save your brilliant idea.
The idea is really beautiful, the theme of this army is in my point of view, that the minor pieces are weakened. I like the introduction of the Knave, which was a topical piece in those days. The choice of the rook could be a bit more creative. You actually can weaken the rook and put an amazon on d1.
You pointed out, that the player has to make the decision, if he should develop the Knave or the Diamond on the natural knight development squares. One possibility to solve that problem could be, to place the Diamonds on one Wing and the Knaves on the other. I prefer the Knaves on the kings wing, because they can attack the opponents pawns in an e4-game. Otherwise the Knaves will almost always placed on c3 and f3 and the Diamonds have to evade to d2 and e2. On those squares they can‘t attack the opponents pawn, but they can at least protect the own pawns.
Greetings Chris ;D