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Knightless symmetric chess. Missing description (9x9, Cells: 81) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]This variant is suggestive of an enlarged Alapo, but with a King and win by Checkmate thrown in as well. One point: you don't say whether there is any promotion. Can the short-range pieces be promoted, or does the absence of Pawns imply the absence of promotion? Alapo has no promotion, but that is because of how it is won.
Funny game... Maybe, i'll try it later... By the way: not all people know what are ferzes, wazirs and men! So, let me describe it: ferz - 1 step like bishop; wazit - 1 step like rook; man - both (that is, like king). By the way, how about variant with knights, and still new pieces instead pawns (minor pieces in front of knights may be Chinese or Japanese knights).
Do Ferz/Wazir/Man promote?
I'm not keen on the idea of adding Knights, precisely because their weaker versions are not weaker in the way that short-range pieces are of their own riders. Bishops and Kinghts are generally considered equal on 8x8, while enlarging as here strengthens Bishops and weakens Knights, but I am quite sure that a Ferz, even free of Fortress restrictions, is far weaker than a Mao. So a Mao is too strong. A Helm, on the other hand, is too weak as its power dwindles as its advances. In that sense it is what not the Wazir and Ferz, but the Wing and Mitre, are to the Rook and Bishop - and what the Point and Cross are to the Wazir and Ferz.
Sorry, I've forgot. Yes, they do promote to their long range versions. Hugs!
How about this: instead knights, there are knghtriders, and minor pieces in front of them are normal knight. But they can capture queens on first moves... One may use ine of these three solutions: board is 11x10; opening position is changed, so they can capture only protected bishops; third, and, i think, the best: all minor pieces are moved one square forward.
Here is how designers keep Knights and Bishops comparably powered: http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=23705. By 4x4 and ever upwards Knight naturally reaches all the squares unlike Bishop. Even on this 11x11 that is as important as more and more difficult paired Bishop coordination. Actual players may find Bishops the ones lost and regionally confined and Knights mobile for useful half or so the board anyway of 10x10, 12x12. So Knight and Bishop continue to make equal exchanges in 90% the array-mixes and rules-melanges on any size rectangles, most cases even 20x20 probably, by hook or by crook.
H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, May 20, 2010 12:31 PM UTC:> but I am quite sure that a Ferz, even free of Fortress restrictions, > is far weaker than a Mao. This is not so obvious. Embedded in a context of ortho-Chess pieces on 8x8, a Mao tested almost exactly as half a Knight (i.e. two Maos vs one Knight was a balanced game to the precision I could measure), while one Knight vs two Ferzes had only a very light advantage for the Knight (about a quarter Pawn). So with the standard value 325 (centi-Pawn) for the Knight, that would make Ferz = 150, and Mao = 162. Note, however that because of the color-boundedness of the Ferz a pair-bonus is likely involved, so the proper statement would be: Ferz pair = 300 cP. I could not determine the value of the bonus with Fairy-Max (which is unaware of pair bonuses, and thus would naively trade away the pair advantage before it has the opportunity to manifest itself). The Mao is a very awkward piece. Two moves can be blocked on a single square with impunity. A Ferz cannot be blocked.
Knight's disvantage is that it can move only one step. But on the other hand, it's advantage is that it can leap. So, weaker knight may be lame knight. If mao is strong, one can use even 'more lame' knight: if either mao's or moa's path is occuppied, it cannot move in that direction (idea is from chess with darts: in this game knight is not able to leap over darts like knight i just described cannot leap over other pieces).
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