Check out Janggi (Korean Chess), our featured variant for December, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Peter Aronson wrote on Thu, Sep 12, 2002 08:56 PM UTC:
Things are too quite here, so I'm going to ramble on a bit. <p> Orthochess has a piece density of 50% -- 16 pieces on each side, and 64 squares on which to put them. Most variants on 8x8 keep that piece density, but almost all variants on 10x10 boards have a lower density. For example, recently Modern Kamil and a set of Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces variants have been published on these pages, all with a density of 40%. This effects play a fair bit. <p> It's not just these recent variants, either of course. Grand Chess has a density of 40%, while Omega Chess has a density of 42%. Of course, those variants that keep a board of 8 rows, no matter how long, such as Gothic Chess or King's Court or (David Short's) Double Chess can keep a density of 50%. But very wide boards increase the power of orthogonal pieces at the expense of other pieces. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has a definite effect on the play of the game. <p> One reason for the lower piece density is a certain reluctance to go to three row arrays. Mind you, Al-Ces has a full three-line array with a piece density of 60%, but it's a game that takes a very long time to play. That might be a lot of the reason. I have an unpublished Chess variant on a 10x10 board that I playtested with Tony Quantilla where each side had 25 pieces (10 Pawns, 3 'Super-Pawns' and 12 pieces per side), and it seemed like we had a ton of material each. While Tony got the upper hand on me early on, it seemed like it took forever for him to finish me off. Perhaps 20-22 pieces is right number to have on a 10x10 board if you want fairly Orthchess-like play. <p> The moral of this rambling? Maybe you can't compare densities between different size boards. Perhaps there is some better measurement out there (although if you are trying for a game whose play is not much like Orthochess, then you shouldn't care, anyway).

Edit Form
Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Avoid Inflammatory Comments
If you are feeling anger, keep it to yourself until you calm down. Avoid insulting, blaming, or attacking someone you are angry with. Focus criticisms on ideas rather than people, and understand that criticisms of your ideas are not personal attacks and do not justify an inflammatory response.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.