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Hi, Jeremy. Yes, I am saying that I believe Chief has NO first turn
advantage. In discussions on BGG, I've gotten the idea that the math would
thus indicate the best move would be to pass on first turn. [This is the
first time I've seen a useful way to look at that idea - your question set
off the chain of thoughts in my head - thanks!] In a strictly mathematical
sense, that may well be true. Just for starters, advancing most of the
pieces on turn 1 would put them out of command control, thus weakening the
army, and so being contra-indicated. Further, moving pieces toward the
enemy makes them more vulnerable and easier to get to and kill, so moving
toward the enemy would seem to be contraindicated. Interesting and
thought-provoking

So apparently that alone might show there is no first turn advantage. If
all the values for aggressive moves on turn 1 lower your total army score,
then there is no first turn advantage.

I'd like to keep going here, but I gotta run. You are right about the
knight being only a wazir - then need to play off king or king and queen
squares to get some color-changing. However, in end of game, wazir N might
be okay, as it does tour the board. It does become as strong as rook, but
then it can't jump any more so it could use a little consolation... :)