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Charles Gilman wrote on Sun, Jul 8, 2007 05:56 AM UTC:

at least one 10x10 plane is needed to get the most from the Ibis. Once that's in place, the Falcon can by its very nature move on that plane exactly as it can in Falcon Chess 100. Restricting it to, say, confine it to 8x8x3 would be a restriction not intrinsic to the board, strip the piece of its advantages over leapers in this variant, and above all be a breach of the patent by tampering with the piece as defined.

As to whether the board as a whole is merely an extended 10x8 or 10x10 board I would point out the following major characterists:

(1) 3 dimensional, so that Falcons can also leave or enter a 10x10 level;

(2) 4 players, with camps in corners of levels;

(3) different armies, only one of which even has the Falcon;

(4) No Bishops, Queen, or pieces of any kind with all or part of Bishop move.

My redesign brought this variant a lot more in keeping with the rest of the series, as well as eliminating obstacles to playability. For these reasons I would be extremely reluctant to redesign it again unless absolutely necessary. The hex-prism geometry planned for AOF2 was never an option as it would rule out the Nintu.

On the whole I find Mr. Duke's attitude to his piece strange. Personally I'd be delighted and flattered to see, for example, my Sow and Boar pieces used under those names in someone else's variant. If the choice is between using his Falcon and calling some other piece a Falcon, surely he'd prefer the former. Otherwise the patent has the effect only of marginalising his Falcon, which cannot be the intention. He should also note that although patents empower patentees to take action, they do not oblige them to do so.

Finally it is not true that this page 'undergoes continual revision'. I have made only three changes to the page since posting it. One was rewriting the Falcon defintion to eradicate unfortunate language and show my goodwill, which I promptly marked as an update. The second was the complete redesign of the board including removal of a botched piece, which I tried to mark as an update but was prevented by problems in the update mechanism. The third was a slight amendment to my reason for using the Camel, to reflect a decision to use it more widely in the series.


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