Single Comment

Derek Nalls wrote:

The only fault I find within it is that it does not, in sharp contrast to my own essay on the subject, contain a minimum of necessary value judgments.

Would you please clarify what this means? Are you saying (a) it's not judgmental enough, or (b) it doesn't agree with you enough?

I cringed only at the parts where you advise newcomers to use the three classic games as models for good design and to intentionally create an east-west asymmetry within their armies. Even though you personally hold those preferences, I doubt the necessity of sending any-all trusting souls down those dead-end roads.

I don't agree that these are dead-end roads. As far as symmetry goes, I consider it important for its contribution to balance, which contributes to fairness, but I don't know of any importance it has beyond this contribution. I believe that slight asymmetry adds to interest without detracting from fairness. In particular, I have seen no evidence that Chess and Shogi are appreciably imbalanced by having slight left/right asymmetry. Chess has full mirror symmetry with partial rotational symmetry, and Shogi has full rotational symmetry with partial mirror symmetry. As far as I can tell, this much symmetry is sufficient for balancing the forces, and perfect symmetry wouldn't make the forces any more balanced. Given that you value perfect symmetry, is it because (a) symmetry is important beyond its contribution to fairness, or (b) perfect symmetry is essential to fairness, or both?