Game Reviews (and other rated comments on Game pages)

How to compute piece values here?  It's pointless to bother.  Regulator move one forward or backward is determined by play on the small board of 35 squares.  Too bad no one has experimented with the Regulator band on 8x8 with 7-square streak to the side for neat 71 square Chess Variant, a first for the size.

84-square Fourriere's Jacks and Witches lessens Bishop value to Knight by the 16-square hole in the center -- more detrimental to the Bishop now worth 2.5.   Any different board size must affect piece values somewhat.  A Fischer Random Chess array NBKRRQBN should benefit Rook to relative downgrading of Knight, maybe 5.3-2.7.  But adherents to FRC have not gotten that far yet.  So the starting line-up alone affects piece-values.  Also do the Rules in and of themselves, such as obvious thing like Bishop one-time Wazir step conversion in some CVs. 

Take the simple Regulator embodiment here.  Level 6 of regulator makes Knight into Marshall, and Level 3 makes Bishop into Cardinal.  If the board were 8x8, it's not definite which in a given game benefits more, Bishop or Knight,  because there are going to be enough move- and capture-triggers to jockey the calibration up towards level 7 tactically pretty easily, and keep it there.  Over the long haul however, Bishop value is going to show relative increase, on any rectangle 35 to 100.  That is because of its compound to BN being in effect 5/7 of the time and the other to NR only 2/7 the time.

Next, there is room for subvariants, that either side can alter the calibration, let's say forward by agreed-on even number of steps across 7 and back to 1 and onward, in lieu of a move. That can include in the Regulator Band not just moving the Regulator but either of the two trigger levels the same way, as not overcomplicated move addition.

This is very similar to a game that I have conceptualized, but never published. My own game starts with the usual 8x8 square board and the pieces arranged as usual, with all the usual rules of play, except that in lieu of moving a piece, either player may move an unoccupied square. A square may only be removed from the edge of the board (an edge cell being one with less than four orthogonally adjacent cells) and placed orthogonally adjacent to another cell.

I have a (general) rule of not publishing things here until I have programmed them for Zillions. I'm a mediocre programmer at the best of times, and when it comes to creating cells that may be moved by either player, I'm stuck. I've worked out how to make cells that only one player can move, but making them neutral and moveable for both sides is something I've had no success with. 

I've thought of a similar game based on moveable hexagons.

Anyway, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to have thought of a game with a "dynamic" board.

J. C. Hallman in 2004 'The Chess Artist' interviews Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at his multi-million Chess City, Kalmykia.  Then the f.i.d.e. President says to the effect:  whatever happens, or even thought of, in the mundane "real world," Chess has already been there, having visited every eventuality.   So this Orwell '1984'  by Overby.

As in '1984', three  players Eurasia, East Asia. and Oceania.  Everyone reviewing loved it except Charles Gilman.  Maybe he is right one or two of the 7 piece-types could be tweaked.  But this is perfectly symmetrical solution to three-player CV.  

Three teams ebb and flow constrained from unfair alliance by cylindrical downwards and up, and by Shifting Alliances rule, and by Perpetual Powers rule.  Variant pieces go back to year 1283 in Gryphon.  King may move into check because the dice may free him.  The '3x1's give where the Berolina pawns promote, and the seventh piece is promotee royal Maharajah.  

Another cool idea i like this comments in this post

there is another very interesting in

[spam link removed]

and in addition he offers a very good chess guide...

@Dr Muller: You had mentioned that you had analyzed the D document of historic chu shogi problems in MSM, had reserved the results of your analysis, and had concluded that 18 were proven flawed.  I wonder if you had reached a conclusion about the 18 like one that Mr Hodges proposed about the D document generally, that necessary pieces possibly had been omitted or erroneous pieces introduced into the diagram to act as a security device against plagiarism.  I read your suggested corrections to problems in the other 3 collections; I do not ask you to divulge more than you want about D, only to ask if your research suggested that the flawed problems might be fixed by the removal, change, or addition of pieces to the diagram.  Kind regards!

My rating is specific to the Davidson Variation of Chaturanga.

If Davidson was correct (about Kings being able to move into check and to be captured), this would make an interesting alternative evolution story from Chaturanga to Shatranj, which makes a nicer transition story from Chaturanga to Shatranj to Chess.

Chaturanga - Davidson Variation (Rule Enforcing) Presets:

• Original ashtapada Indian board.
• Alternate uncheckered plain Persian board (without ashtapada markings).

Jumping Chess originates the edge squares that Rococo uses two years later. Bishop captures like International Draughts diagonally and Rook like Turkish/Israeli draughts orthogonally. Except no plural captures, and in JC the line pieces slide any distance beforehand. But no displacement capture at all here. Jumping concepts are bandied about in 'ECV' a few times, but credit this improvement for the rim accessible only capturing.

JC may create too many defensive positions for most aesthetics.

JC year-2000 date of invention harkens to V. R. Parton's booklet 'My Games for 2000 a.d. and After' published 1972. There the CV "2000 AD" sources pieces for 30 years later great Rococo. Firsthand, Rococo is basically a derivative Ultima (1962).

( Contrariwise, Robert Abbott himself weighed in early Rococo comment that no need for border squares, just get rid of them. ) See next how Rococo draws on both Abbott and Parton. 20th century the chief variantists were Boyer, Parton, Betza and Dawson, but Dawson didn't bother with designing actual CVs.

The Rococo pieces straight out of Abbott's Ultima are Withdrawer, Immobilizer, Long Leaper, Chameleon. And the Rococo pieces straight out of 2000 A. D. are Ximaera and Swapper. Ximaera gets re-named Advancer. Finally, Rococo takes its own inventor's border squares from JC and adds that great novelty Cannon Pawn.

Perimeter-squared JC has little play, but Rococo, when adding its subvariants Push-Pull and Mirror, has the same number 10 rank approximately of near-form Ultima at Game Courier. And several ahead of them are a standard Chess form around hundred(s) years. Or combine play numbers of Ultima and Rococo and they are number 3. So arguably derived-form Rococo is a topmost world-class CV. Thanks to contribution of porous out-migration squares from selfsame JC.

I've played a few games of this and I think you've hit on a winner.  It's a very exciting game.  Congratulations!

There were two different pages for this, so I've moved the comments over from the other page and deleted it.  We should get a Game Courier Preset page for it published also.

I'm not all that sure I agree with (as I noticed elsewhere) Greg's usual dislike of variants having lots of 'power' (in terms to having several very powerful pieces, on a board of relatively modest size dimensions in particular, I assume), but this variant's very powerful armies on an 8x8 board strikes me as very over-powered, at least at first. Still, if Ralph Betza has given his name to a variant he invented, it suggests the idea may not be so bad at all... It's been played lots on Game Courier, so far, so that alone means its had some pretty good testing.

This cool chess variant is at least to some extent ground-breaking. Though I initially had trouble grasping the large number of rules (which almost makes this variant more like a wargame), the effort was worth it now that I have at least some inkling of how the game's strategies might work in practice.

This variant is another nifty-looking one by Gary Gifford, albeit with a certain degree of complexity to the play.

An interesting variant that reminds me of Chinese Chess a little bit, in that the pieces are all fairly weak compared to that of orthodox chess. It's also less complicated to understand than at least some of Gary's other variants.

An interesting variant, albeit a slightly complex one. The kings' recruiting power is a ground-breaking idea.

This is something of a ground-breaking variant, when it comes to Shogi-like ones.

I like this cool variant even better than the somewhat similar Pocket Shogi Plus, owing to each side having a Copper General at the outset.

This is absolutely the best out-there/crazy idea I have ever seen for a chess variant.
I've spent hours lurking on  this site and have never seen anything else quite like it.

I have not actually tried it yet, so I only gave it a 'good' rating, but it looks awesome.  I have plans to make a physical copy...

Two thumbs up!

Very interesting.  I like the different moves on each board and how they relate to each other.  Nice job!

INTERESTING.

Wow.  I like. 

Bishop moves are darn tricky.  They have an abundance of paths to take, I'm guessing they are valued approxamently the same as a rook.
Also, don't rooks tend to be more dangerous on a circuar board?
Consequently, the queen might be overly powerful.

I honestly think that there could be more peices to play with the different angles.

I think this has a germ of brilliance, but incomplete.  This definitly has some unrealized potential.

I rather like the idea.  Assuming fairly normal piece moves.

  I would expand the piece set to start some fairy pieces on the empty faces, myself.

I just have to say, this is a clever idea.  Very nice.

This has some very interesting ideas, but the end result feels a little much.  I'm not sure I completely understand the moving over full squares rule.

The historicity of this variant vastly increases it's importance....it's possible this is the beginning of pawn's double move, and the first appearance of a diagonal slider.  Very important.

This is one of my favorite variants on the site!  Very well done.  I like the concept of the river as a barrier, but you didn't stop with that as a gimmick.  You also made the piece types work with the river!  There is an archer to shoot over the water, the ram could be too powerful but the river hampers it's deployment, and a catapult to toss pieces....great job.

Now, there are a few things I would do different (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I may design a derivative) but there is only one thing I think is not designed very well.

Why do you have 5 ranks on each half of the board?  Xiang Qi also has 5, but the pawns start on the fourth rank.  Catapults of Troy's pawns start on the second rank, and don't have an initial double (or triple) step.  I would venture to say this makes pawn development very very slow.  

Which would be fine, except I see absolutely no benefit from it.  The river already has a huge damper on pawn development/attacks, so even if you wanted to limit pawn interaction in the game it's already redundant.  Not to mention, slowing the game (particularly the opening) down for no actual change doesn't seem like a good idea.
It slows down getting the bridge builder into position, it slows down getting the Trojan Horse into the action...it also makes developing the bishops really awkward....Honestly, it makes everything except the catapult sadly out of position.  I'm afraid the opening of Catapults of Troy would devolve into catapulting most of your pieces close to the river just to save 30 turns of development.
Frankly, I think there is so much empty space eliminating only one rank from each side would still play almost the same.  Slightly shorter opening, sure, but nothing else. 
Again, all this would be OK, except I see no benefit at all.  Just an unnecessarily stretched opening.

Am I missing something?  Please inform me, if so.
(Maybe you like a long opening!  That's OK.)

I would allow pawn double step and eliminate one rank per side, personally.  I think that would speed up the opening tremendously and lose nothing--maybe lower the importance of the Catapult a little bit, but at the moment Catapults look too central to moving pieces.

All that being said, this is STILL an excellent game.   I can handle an unnecessarily long opening, so long as the rest of it is great!  One of the best on the website!

This is an excellent game. I avoided it for a long time because I thought the large amount of power on the board would make it too difficult for me to deal with. It turns out I find it very playable, although it does require me to spend more time thinking before making a move for most of the game. Midgame positions can be exceptionally complex.

The opening starts out feeling nice and slow, as though the first 10 or so moves don’t matter too much. While I think it’s true that there is a very large amount of flexibility to how you can play the opening, those moves are still very important. At some point, typically around move 20, the game breaks open and becomes tactical and violent quickly. You want your pieces well-positioned when that happens. There is some contention for the e4/e9 and h4/h9 squares. All three of the light leapers – Champion, Wizard, and Knight – are good to develop early and all three are natural to develop to those squares, so you must choose which to develop there. I find that typically one of these three piece types doesn’t get developed in the opening before the game gets wild. I think it’s important to get the Vaos developed early. By the endgame, they are the weakest piece, but their low material value and ability to make long-range jumps gives them significant power to harass the heavier pieces as the game progresses. Developing the Vaos generally requires developing the Knights.

I like the promotion rules overall but the 14 extra pieces each player starts with in reserve seem unnecessary. There is tremendous carnage before any pawns are in a position to promote so lack of replacements is not an issue. The extra Queens are the only pieces that have any realistic possibility of being used.

Well-played games are typically nail-biters and the dynamic between the two players can reverse several times before it’s over. Having the momentum is very important – you want to be the one forcing the opponent to react, and the longer you can keep it that way, the more advantage you will accumulate.

My estimage of the piece values:

It truly is amazing how many exquisitely different and unique Chess variants have been invented.

I personally always prefer something more closely resembling the Classical concept, for example Modern Chess and so forth, but am astounded by the dedication given by people like yourself to the intricate details of playability, in what would seem an almost bizarre game in comparison.

Well done!