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Yeah, the 'two knights' value is the one I used for my '19.5 pawns' figure. Basically, my gut guesses are:

• A crowned bishop is worth about a pawn more than a rook: 6 pawns.
• A crowned knight has the same value: 6 pawns.
• A crowned rook is worth somewhat more, probably about as much as an archbishop: 7.5 pawns
• In total, 19.5 pawns of force for these three pieces

A cardinal (Rook + Knight) is worth a good deal more than a Crowned knight. The crowned knight has a 6 pawn value, and a cardinal is worth about 8.5 pawns on an 8x10 board and about 9 pawns on an 8x8 board.

Now, it would be nice if Greg added the ability for black and white to value pieces differently in ChessV, so that we could more fully test the values of pieces.

I wonder if there is some other way of enhancing the rook, knight, and bishop to give us even less force on the 10x8 board than the 'crowned piece' enhancment. One idea: A non-capturing king's move. Or, if that doesn't give the pieces enough power to make the game have interesting tactics, A non-capturing camel's move.

If we simply have another rook, knight, and bishop, that adds 11 pawns of power to the board. The weakest usable enhancment I can think of is a non-capturing leap one or two squares forward. This makes the enhanced bishop non-colorbound, and allows the enhanced rook to more quickly get in to play, and makes the enhanced knight a little more mobile.

Before finishing off, some quick random thoughts:

• They have just recently solved 8x8 checkers (Look up Chinook). How long will it take to solve Chess?
• 3d printers will very soon go from costing $100,000 to costing about $10,000. This will make it possible to somewhat affordably make custom Chess variant pieces without having to have an arts and crafts project.