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HG, your comment shows up okay in this thread. Sorry I don't have the
technical skills to correct the main comments page. And as far as losing
lengthy posts, you have my complete commiseration and understanding. A
software update and auto-reboot killed the lengthy comment I was about to
post.

Jeremy, I cannot answer your question exactly about first move advantage.
Ben has the right of it from a FIDE perspective. The "noise" I talk
about
is essentially the jockeying for position players do during a game. And I
do see the noise of the games as they change away from something with a
1st
move ad to something without, or essentially without, as drowning out the
ever-diminishing 1st move ad at some point. If the 1st move ad is 0.1%,
but
the statistics are only accurate to +/- 0.05%, then the 1st move ad could
be just the extreme end of normal fluctuations. It's statistically very
unlikely, but possible. I think it is legitimate to say there is no 1st
move ad in that case. Now, if the 1st move ad is reduced by 95% - 99+%, I
concede you are right literally, but I would consider it both a moral
victory and "close enough for government work". 

But I would need a statistical "proof" there was a first move advantage
of any size in Chieftain Chess, because I really have trouble visualizing,
given the specific rules and setup of this game without promotion, how
there can be a 1st move ad for white if black can skip the 1st turn
without
detriment. I see no need for all chess games to follow only the behaviors
exhibited in FIDE, and no others. Please note this does not mean there is
no advantage in continuing to move without an opponent response, nor does
this mean that once the armies close, either side can afford the luxury of
skipping a move without the very high likelyhood of losing pieces. It is
just that this cannot happen in Chief in the beginning because the pieces
are not close enough together.

HG, you said it well when you said the setup in Chief leaves the pieces in
lousy positions. From a chess perspective. I see it from a wargame
perspective, and see 2 idealized armies, each with 4 equal divisions,
arriving in remarkably good order at the edges of a battlefield. That good
order is very flexible, allowing a fairly rapid deployment of forces and
pretty easy shifting around, in the immediate area. Only 4 of 32
pieces/side are even out of immediate command control in the setup, and
not
only are they all supported by units in control, but those 4 units can be
brought within control range on the first move, and 2 of them moved.
Players start with very tight control of their armies. The problem to be
solved in the game is that the force is spread evenly across the board,
and
with all short range pieces slowed a little by leader requirements, it not
only takes a few turns to concentrate your strength, it takes a few turns
to come to grips with your opponent, more or less telegraphing your
offensive strikes. [A good reason for 4 or even more moves/turn/player.]
You must get your whole army in close and tight before you can do any real
damage. The tactics and strategy of the game are different from FIDE,
which
I see as more of a "sniper" type game, where long range pieces shoot
across the board for an attack. It's the difference between a boxer and a
puncher, maybe. But this is why I say there is no first turn advantage in
the original Chief, and I would want to see the numbers for an ad in Chief
with promotions before I would grant it. I won't deny I see the strong
possibility of a 1st turn ad **EDIT: in Chief with promotions,** but don't
have any reason to believe, given 
the above, that it is anywhere as close to significant as it is in FIDE.
Promotion should reduce the number of draws in Chief, however. And I
already have a "chief" icon without the gray shading, to distinguish
between "royal and non-royal" chiefs. And there is the further option of
allowing promoted pieces to "self-activate", which would not count
against any individual leader's activation point for the turn, but which
would count against the total activations allowed/turn, something
successfully playtested in larger Warlord variants.