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Bob Greenwade wrote on Sat, Jul 1, 2023 11:46 PM UTC:

Well, I can take the point-value chart off, if that's an issue, or put in a note about it being controversial or not strictly reliable, or some such. I frankly would've gone with some other point-assignment system (either instead or in addition) if I could find one, especially one that takes board size into account. (If you know of any, please provide a link! Or, maybe I'll try to figure one out for myself some time.)

As for Lioneer vs Queen, I happen to believe that, even on this 16x16 board, the value is pretty close, given that the Lioneer can double-capture. And its move past the first circle is only blocked by friendly pieces; enemy pieces are subject to capture, and the lack of a leap is the only real difference from the Chu Shogi Lion. The Lioneer may cover a relatively small part of the board at any given time, but it's very powerful within its scope. The Queen may be a good piece for offense, but I can see how, in a midgame, a well-positioned Lioneer can be a good defensive piece, keeping mid-range opponents at bay.

Regarding the Helepolis, I went with WDH because the Rook jumping the first square was too similar to the basic Rook, giving the latter piece no advantage over the former. Given the size of the board, though, I could WDH followed by a four-square slide, sort of splitting the difference. (It's in the same way that I'd give the Archer only two spaces diagonally on an 8x8 board, but am leaving it 3 for one of this size. If there were only two of them, it'd be 4.)

As for the value of the Comments section, I think the value here is much greater to the author than to the general reader. The latter person might or might not even think to read the Comments (I often don't, unless there's a point to be made and I want to see if someone already made it). An author who's on the ball will address any points within the text, and never assume that a reader will read them.

Rather than writing for "most readers," I tend to write these things with the assumption that the reader is fairly familiar with chess in general, but new to the idea of chess variants (which happens to be fairly close to where I am right now). That is to say, I don't "dumb down" the text, but I don't assume a lot of experience either.


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