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Jeremy Good wrote on Sun, May 24, 2009 08:16 AM UTC:

Joe, I don't know where you're going with that. Don't you gain as many tempi by being able to drop the piece where ever you want? Knights are notoriously difficult to move to the place you want them to go and bishops can't change colors unless you drop them. I have enjoyed converting my rooks to nightriders early in this game and certainly it's much faster than the ordinary way of developing rooks (which in this game is not easy regardless because you can't castle). If you were able to promote automatically but give up the drop option, you'd give up as many tempi as you were gaining.

You could play this game Shogi style and make it a more conservative game, only allowing pieces you capture to be returned to the board as different pieces of the same class.

Joe, I read your remark out of context and see you were likely only trying to engage in dialogue and didn't necessarily have an alternate idea in mind. I will now proceed to get into that dialogue myself:

Having read John Smith's other comment here, I think he misapprehends the intent of this game which is to do precisely as he proposes. It's more a matter of conversion (mutation) than promotion since one is supposedly trading in for a piece of equal value. Hence, the name is appropriate and, I think, also likeable. I urge you, John, to reassess the game after playtesting it. I have criticized others for rating games 'poor' without ever trying them. In some cases it's possible to do so, but rarely. I also don't think it's good practice for book reviewers or movie reviewers to rate books or movies without reading / watching them. Of course anything starring (certain actors I don't like) gets a turkey from me and isn't worth seeing, hehe. In this case, not only has John Smith judged a book by its cover, he has misread the cover.


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