TH6 wrote on Sat, Mar 18, 2017 08:17 PM UTC:Average ★★★
I requested a game of this because I was very intrigued by the mix of pieces, though I think the game was shorted by it's need for rule clarifications.
A few things that I found only through research:
- The movement of the Nahbi. The diagonal movements of the Nahbi do not change direction. Thus, a Nahbi moves two spaces diagonally in the same direction, then one square in any orthogonal direction, in that order.
- Castling. The correlation to FIDE chess is that it moves 2 squares left or right, not that the king ends in the same board position as in FIDE. This was verified by downloading an external program (Zillions of Games) and loading the rules the inventor programmed.
Once I found out how the Nahbi moved, I quite enjoyed the piece. The non capturing move increases the mobility, while limiting it to being a sliding piece (instead of jumping) ensured that it wasn't too powerful. I'd love to see it in other variants.
The Archer is a very good defensive unit and I feel is quite enough of a force to protect the king. The Alfil, however, was useless. In a 36 move game, neither players moved their Alfils and only one played a role in piece protection. Limiting them to one side of the equator gives it 7 squares to protect, making them MUCH weaker than a pawn that has already crossed the equator. Had the game continued, I would have been happy to exchange both of mine for a crossed pawn each. If the piece is necessary to the game, I'd recommend removing the limit of remaining on one side of the equator only.
I did like the limit on the queen crossing the equator. Seemed very fitting to make it a "short range" piece.
I requested a game of this because I was very intrigued by the mix of pieces, though I think the game was shorted by it's need for rule clarifications.
A few things that I found only through research:
- The movement of the Nahbi. The diagonal movements of the Nahbi do not change direction. Thus, a Nahbi moves two spaces diagonally in the same direction, then one square in any orthogonal direction, in that order.
- Castling. The correlation to FIDE chess is that it moves 2 squares left or right, not that the king ends in the same board position as in FIDE. This was verified by downloading an external program (Zillions of Games) and loading the rules the inventor programmed.
Once I found out how the Nahbi moved, I quite enjoyed the piece. The non capturing move increases the mobility, while limiting it to being a sliding piece (instead of jumping) ensured that it wasn't too powerful. I'd love to see it in other variants.
The Archer is a very good defensive unit and I feel is quite enough of a force to protect the king. The Alfil, however, was useless. In a 36 move game, neither players moved their Alfils and only one played a role in piece protection. Limiting them to one side of the equator gives it 7 squares to protect, making them MUCH weaker than a pawn that has already crossed the equator. Had the game continued, I would have been happy to exchange both of mine for a crossed pawn each. If the piece is necessary to the game, I'd recommend removing the limit of remaining on one side of the equator only.
I did like the limit on the queen crossing the equator. Seemed very fitting to make it a "short range" piece.