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Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.
That is of course completely wrong. It is well established that captures are worth about twice as much as non-captures. So a non-capturing move only adds 1/3 of what the same full move would add, not 1/2. One therefore would expect the value of a WmD to be roughly that of a piece with 4 + 4/3 = 5.33 moves. With the short-range leaper formula 33*N + 0.7*N*N that would put it at 196 centi-Pawn. So the value estimate of ~2 Pawns given in the article seems the correct one.
Note that the Alpaca, even though being a minor itself, has very favorable checkmating properties: it can switch its attack from c1 to a1 in a single move. This property allows it to deliver checkmate in combination with most other pieces. E.g. the end-games Bishop + Alpaca and Knight + Alpaca against a bare King are general wins. Even together with Wazir or Ferz it can in general force checkmate, if the bare King cannot catch one of the pieces through a chase.