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Things are too quite here, so I'm going to ramble on a bit. <p> Orthochess has a piece density of 50% -- 16 pieces on each side, and 64 squares on which to put them. Most variants on 8x8 keep that piece density, but almost all variants on 10x10 boards have a lower density. For example, recently Modern Kamil and a set of Chess with Ultima, Rococo and Supremo Pieces variants have been published on these pages, all with a density of 40%. This effects play a fair bit. <p> It's not just these recent variants, either of course. Grand Chess has a density of 40%, while Omega Chess has a density of 42%. Of course, those variants that keep a board of 8 rows, no matter how long, such as Gothic Chess or King's Court or (David Short's) Double Chess can keep a density of 50%. But very wide boards increase the power of orthogonal pieces at the expense of other pieces. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has a definite effect on the play of the game. <p> One reason for the lower piece density is a certain reluctance to go to three row arrays. Mind you, Al-Ces has a full three-line array with a piece density of 60%, but it's a game that takes a very long time to play. That might be a lot of the reason. I have an unpublished Chess variant on a 10x10 board that I playtested with Tony Quantilla where each side had 25 pieces (10 Pawns, 3 'Super-Pawns' and 12 pieces per side), and it seemed like we had a ton of material each. While Tony got the upper hand on me early on, it seemed like it took forever for him to finish me off. Perhaps 20-22 pieces is right number to have on a 10x10 board if you want fairly Orthchess-like play. <p> The moral of this rambling? Maybe you can't compare densities between different size boards. Perhaps there is some better measurement out there (although if you are trying for a game whose play is not much like Orthochess, then you shouldn't care, anyway).