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

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Joe Joyce wrote on Thu, Jun 21, 2007 01:02 PM UTC:
Being a non-mathematician, and being obsessed with 'fairness' in my game
designs, I see symmetry in a starting setup as one way to quickly indicate
the 'fairness level' of a game. It says visually that everyone starts out
equal. On the limited boards we generally deal with in chess variants, this
equality is important to play balance, and thus speaks to the interest and
fun of a game. It is not something that is required. But asymmetric games
are generally wargames, incorporating larger boards, terrain, varying
placement, movement, and victory rules and multiple modes of capture. To
stray too far from symmetry in variants is to risk designing oneself right
off the fringe.

On the question of what the effects of bilateral vs radial symmetry, I'd
suggest switching the necessary pieces around and playing the 'same'
game both ways to see what happens. In my limited experience with this, I
found that tactics and strategy can change, with a symmetrical attack by
black able to be developed in radially-symmetric games, where the same
tactic of mirroring the opponent's moves can lead to quick defeat in
bilaterally-symmetric games.

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.