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This experiment falls in the class including Mamra, http://www.chessvariants.org/dpieces.dir/mamra/mamra.html, who moves like non-royal King and cannot be taken by piece, only by Pawn. Okay, Immortal returns to the capturee for later drop, and contrasted Mamra is gone for good. However, using the description of Immortal as complete, compensating additional difference is that the Mamra pawn-lost can in effect be replaced by promotion, even twice or more. Mamra become well-placed really ''gobbles up (almost) entire army one by one,'' and very possibly opponent might be doing the same at the same time, or if not, just attacking anyway with regular long-rangers whilst the one-side's Mamra goes on the frenzy to no avail. ''Brute force playtesting'' is not brutal but subtle. Any new cv not computer-readied plays out that way. Typically player preliminarily estimates value +/- 1.0 each new p-t compared to known p-ts around or related, and by game two the estimate seems like +/- 0.5, each refresher becoming more refined per games played. This Mamra-variant-Immortal slotted as an additional piece on 64 squares versus regulars and backed by regulars is more than a Rook and less than a Queen, first-approximate. Be willing to keep two Bishops without Mamra-Immortal against opponent's Bishop-less M-I. Or it might tip just over that and so the reverse, but no way high as Queen value. In other words, a good fair Betzan C.D.A. match-up could be RNIQK-NR v. RNBQKBNR, Immortal anticlericals versus F.F; better, let '-' be Barrier Pawn to make army of 16, RNIQKbNR, 'b' the barrier pawn and 'I' Immortal Man of endless-drop description. In the same class is that weak-value Barrier Pawn(1948): http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/kristensens.html.
In a FIDE-like game, I would expect the Immortal to be much weaker than the Mamra, which does not require support to pass through a threatened square (as long as the threat does not come from a pawn) and can easily checkmate the enemy King completely unaided (and regardless of any non-pawn defenders). The page you link advocates sacrificing a Queen and a Rook to create a hole in the opponent's pawn wall through which the Mamra can charge, which suggests the Mamra is worth significantly more than a Queen (and that wouldn't surprise me in the least). The Immortal poses no remotely comparable threat that I can see. However, the Mamra's value probably varies wildly depending on the other pieces on the board, both because it is a highly specialized piece and because it is vulnerable only to a specific type of enemy piece. The Immortal's value also probably varies more than most, but not to the same extent. Relying *entirely* on testing to balance a piece is 'brute force' in the sense that it makes no attempt to leverage information unique to the piece being tested, and is not even CLOSE to the speed or accuracy you suggest. What you describe, where you 'estimate' (by unspecified means) a value that is somehow magically within +/- 1.0 pawns initially and even more magically within +/- 0.5 pawns the next game is not balancing based on testing, it's balancing based on intuition (with exceedingly optimistic estimates of accuracy). Intuition occasionlly works very well but often fails catastrophically and is completely irreproducible. And yes, that is no doubt the primary means by which most CVs are balanced, but I was hoping for something a little more insightful.
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