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Gothic Isles Chess. Fictional historic variant, with Dragons, Wizards and Champions. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
H. G. Muller wrote on Fri, Jan 27, 2023 12:05 PM UTC in reply to David Paulowich from 02:00 AM:

Positions like this suggest that promotion to colorbound pieces is a poor design choice.

One could also argue that promoting to the weak, color-bound Ferz enriches Shatranj with an interesting strategic theme: one has to plan Pawn manoeuvres such that you won't promote all your Pawns on the same shade. And definitely do not leave the opponent a defender on the other shade when you are playing for a win. This is already true in orthodox Chess, where unlike Bishops can draw even against a majority of 2 Pawns, despite the fact that these would promote to Queen.

It is true that Shatranj is quite drawish, but I think this is more a consequence of the Ferz being such a weak piece than of its color-binding. I doubt that promoting to Wazir would be much of an improvement.