Comments by JorgKnappen

There is a typo in the German book title, it should read "seine" in place of "siene".

Also, I read the author's name as "Tressan" in accordance with Google OCR. There is a clear bridge between the two stems on the upper part of the last letter of his name. Google search finds the name on several pages where it seems to be removed from the pictures (Probably from bottom lines for the bookbinder, called Bogensignaturen in German language).

I have found the book on Google books here: https://books.google.de/books?id=n64UAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=Tressan&f=false

Trying konqueror as an alternative browser, it shows the snake. Strange ...

The Silly Sliders are one of the weirdest Chess experiences I have had. They are so strange: One attacks by retreating and unlocking the far range moves and one escapes from attack by approaching the figures. I'd suspect that the army is a bit weaker than the FIDEs because the ranging pieces can be stuffed. A blocking piece on the ski square doesn't even need protection. The rotated short range moves of the Onyx and the Duck have unusual interactions with the pawn formations.

All in all: A great design worth trying.

Despite the nice geometric move pattern this piece seems to be unemployed before Musketeer Chess. I can understand why: It creates triple forward forks into the rank behind the pawn line and is a very dangerous attacking piece. Creating a playable game with this piece is definitely a challenge (I haven't examined Musketeer Chess in this respect).

When you can read German in Fraktur printing, this digitised book shows the variant under the title "Vom vermehrten und vergrößerten Schachspiele, genannt das Spanische":

https://books.google.de/books?id=dv1dAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=%22Bickelheringe%22&source=bl&ots=KlPjbEnTRs&sig=ACfU3U3_0lJIKKQ5eITSb4KYJPxccK0v7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7-taS1vTvAhXRgf0HHUEmCxAQ6AEwAXoECAMQAw#v=onepage&q=%22Bickelheringe%22&f=false

It gives interesting German translations of the piece names, the Bishop is a "Bickelhering" (a fool in commedy), the Ensign is a Fähnrich, and the Guard is a Trabant.

In fact, Charles Gilman has used the name Heroine before for some piece on a hex-prism board (3 dimensional with stacked planes of hexagons). I don't whether it was featured in a game and Gilman's games tend to be deployments of the pieces in many cases.

[deleted]

While I think that the inventor of a Chess Variant has the final say in the naming of pieces, I must admit that the choice of Falcon is a very unfortunate one because the Falcon of George Duke's Falcon Chess is vexingly similar to that piece but different.

What about naming it Kestrel (in German Turmfalke instead? This keeps most of the semantic associations but uses a free word (not used for a chess piece yet as far as I know).

I found the old Gilman name from 2003 for the (2,4) leaper again, it was Carriage. Already in 2007 he had replaced it, but by an oversight there is still one Carriage left in "Carnival of Animals"

I have definitely heard about this kind of Chess variant, and I remember to have played it in Germany when I was young and not fully introduced to FIDE rules. It is a kind of popular chess variant always flying below the radar, a bit like "Queens Left Chess" with a point-symmetric setup of the pieces. Interestingly, it is the first question in the Rules of Chess: Pawns FAQ on this site.

The Harvestman goes only in the direction that is strictly incresing the distance from its starting field. I never intended it to take the sidewards turn that increases the breadth of the covered squares from 3 to 5. But I see that one can read the description in such a way that this kind of move were also allowed.

In fact, I have seen two names for the (2,4) leaper, the two names are lancer (used by G.P. Jelliss) and Hase "hare" used by German problemists. And there is probably at least one name by Charles Gilman for it, maybe two because his nomenclature has changed over time.

It is great to see a Zillions file for this game. The graphics are well done, specially the symbols for the Knaves and Debtors.

An interesting and very playable game. The figures are divergent pieces moving as the nominal piece and capturing as Querquisites.

Thanks, Chris, for your comments. I finally came back to this game and applied the fix you suggested to the initial area, naming it "Move zero" rule.

Another close (but not exact) match is the Eohippos (German Urpferdchen) from 10 directional chess (see http://www.chessvariants.com/contests/10/10_directional.html ). It moves and captures the same way, not in a pawnish style.

The Knight-Fers compound (NF) is also often seen under many different names, my favourite name is Dullahan (a male counterpart to a Banshee, featured under this name in the "Fearful Fairies" http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/fearful-fairies – other names include "prince" (problemist usage) or "Priest" (Scirocco, http://www.chessvariants.com/invention/scirocco )).

The Squire Knight is a definitely a Rook-class piece with 4 new capturing moves and 2 new non-capturing moves. Experience shows that additional capturing moves are worth more than additional non-capturing moves. The Squire Knight has 12 targets to aim at ... quite impressive.

I am pretty sure that Squire Knight makes an enjoyable and easy-to-learn chess variant.

While there are lots of evil creatures (to be associated with the Orcs) in Tolkiens legendarium, the number of good or ambivalent races is rather limited. There are Goblins, Hobgoblins, Uruk-Hai, Trolls, Balrogs, Dragons and Worms, Wargs, and the Nazgul with their (unnamed) flying animals.

For the airforce of the "good ones", there are the Eagles (taking part in the Battle of Five Armies). Than, there are the Ents, and maybe an Ent is a good picture for a rookish piece. Of course you can look up other mythologies for suitable names.

An excellent for the great rewrite.

Bugs in implementation?

I played this game against the computer using Firefox under Linux and I found the following strange behavious:

1. Sometimes, the computer moved its King to the centre of the board and the game ended. I see reasons for the computer to resign in the concrete situation (and it does not resign in really lost postions). I noticed that castling was a promising move for the computer.

2. When I get a pawn through to promotion, I cannot choose a piece to promote it to. I get a white band over the middle files of the boards, but cannot click on anything. There is a (x) mark, but it does not close the white band either.

It seems that the Chess Variant you are thinking of has been invented
before, see http://www.chessvariants.org/diffmove.dir/amazone.html on this
site.

Nice game with the obvious traces of play-testing.

It is not explicitly stated in the description: I assume, the game ends when the King is checkmated on the top board, i.e., a King cannot be "buried"?

It works for me, when I call the game submission page

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/membersubmission.php

I find your name and userid at the very last position (Hebrew letters sort
after Latin letters).

Something is strange today: When I visit this site without logging in, "Tandem Chess" is listed under "Your Favorites". (It is the only favorite for an anonymous visitor of this site)

The favorites list of Tandem Chess displays only two names, the favorites count is 3 (under the entry Bughouse Chess).

Looks like a bug to me.

This poor goes to the "game" described as a two person game. It isn't. The player who starts with white has the full control of the game and the player who starts with black is a poor bystander bound to be declared the loser by his opponent.

Why? White is in control of creating the first chain. He can deliberately wait until black is also ready to create a chain. Now the following goes on: White creates a chain, switches, black creates a chain, switches, white creates or modifies a chain, switches, and so on, until a checkmate is reached.

You can save the good ideas in this game by reformulating it as a puzzle or solitaire game (The solitaire player solves the puzzle, when he can reach checkmate with an unbroken chain of chains; otherwise he fails). To make the puzzle more interesting; vary the initial position (Fischer Random, Random pawn, both).

Reaching checkmate by a chain of chains may also be a nice fairy chess problem condition.

There is of course one dark spot in all strength measurements by computer ... chess programs aren't very good in the opening without an opening book. Some good opening book (but where to get it from?) could change all evaluations. Nevertheless, testing without an opening book is all we have for a new chess variant,

Great game!

There is a minor glitch in the first diagram: It has two back Leopards (artefacts from an earlier version that was discarded?) in e/i 12.

No, RoAR didn't come out yet. It turned out to be more difficult than expected to create an initial array that is playable (and it may be impossible in an 8x8 setup).

BTW: Thanks for the PBM setup :-)

I like the idea of the many interesting new endgames. I just hope that the endgames 3 vs. 2 are decisive (at least when one of the 3 is an adjutant and the left over piece from the 2 is a minor one); otherwise the game will be very drawish.

Here are more ...

*) You cannot drop a piece to your 8th rank (all pieces in Pocket Mutation
Chess)

... and what about colourbound pieces? Any restrictions for keeping the
original colour binding or for not having two on the same colour? (I am not
aware of games stating such rules, but they look very natural to me)

An excellent to Carlos Cetina for the really nice diagram.

All Knight moves in the first step are "equal" (in the sense of symmetry), but the continuations fall in two classes that Jelliss terms "3D" (crossing the diagonal, the pure trajectories in Carlos' diagram) and "3L" (crossing the lateral, the "impure" trajectories in Carlos' diagram). Here's a reference on the terminology:

http://www.mayhematics.com/t/2b.htm#%282%29

Splitting the Quintessence into a diagonal and lateral piece is surely feasible and the pieces should both be very playable.

--

The German and French term (Spiralspringer and Cavalier spirale) are generic (like crooked Nightrider), for further precision they are qualified (German: enger Diagonalspiralspringer = wide [sic!] diagonal crooked Nightrider etc.)

--

Yes, the Nachtmahr army put a lot more of strength on the board than the FIDEs: Just exchange whatever Nightrider against Queen, the Rooks, and one Bishop and you are left with a stronger rest of the army. And because of the huge forking power of the Nahctmahrs, I don't see a chance for the FIDEs to avoid this.

--

On relative piece strength: The here termed "wide" pieces are clearly the strongest: They have an enormous "capturing density" and the can-mate property. The classical Nightrider is the weakest, the others are in-between.

--

I'd like to see your design of Nachtmahr II (allthough I cannot promise to have time for discussion)

BBC thought about the flag question almost a year ago ... here are some
designs

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25205017

(BTW, I find the "German Jack" in black, red and gold quite funny)

and here are 25 more designs:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25222891

(BTW, I like Dave Parker's and Michael Elliot's designs)

Here are a few more names for the same piece: Thoat (from Jetan, Edgar Rice Burroughs), Emperor (problemist's usage), and Marquis (from Scirocco, Typhoon, and Jupiter by Adrian King, also used in Töws' generic chess piece creation system, in Derzhanski's list of chess pieces, in the Sweeping Switchers by myself, and in Thronschach by Glenn Overby II)

I don't see how the Cylindrical Cinders can capture a Rook on move 1. For cylindrical chess a board glued between the files h1--8 and a1--8 is usually assumed. A cylindrical bishop can move, e.g.,  from a1 to h2, but not from a1 to, say, b8. Even though the rooks are initially unprotected, they are not directly reachable for the Cinders behind their wall of pawns.

Gluing the board the other way round, along the ranks (a-h)1 and (a-h)8 is very unusual and you would start up with the opposite Kings in direct contact.

Upgrade Chess has extremely weak armies. Counting the levels, Upgrade Chess has 15 levels per side (compare to Shatranj with 29 levels or FIDE Chess with 56 levels).

Probably the winner of the first battle will win the whole game, making opening theory very important and almost a mathematical puzzle. Here is one opening (not a very good one, but illustrating some features of the game): 1. e4 d5 2. exd5?? c6 When the pawn goes on capturing it will be taken by the Crab on b8 which promotes to NN2 -- winning advantage for black. 3. c4 Kd7 Black brings the King to the front. There is no danger because of the weakness of the armies, and by capturing with the King he can distribute the additional levels to a piece of his choice.

BTW, Stackable piece would make a nice physical implementation of the game.

The Jelly is actually a nice suggestion for the Queen. I estimate it a little (about 0.5 to 1 pawns) weaker than a Queen. This weakness is overcompensated by the overall strength of the rest of the Bakery Bombers.
Since the Jelly is an extended Bison (LJ or Camel-Zebra compound) it has the can-mate property.

The Jelly is a tactically very dangerous piece because it has many immanent threats against the pieces on the opposite baseline. Against the FIDE army, it can enforce "Queen exchange" with the manoeuvre 1. Jelly b3 e6 2. Jelly e5 -- Black gets two moves for a nominally bad exchange, maybe not that bad. Black can save the castling rights at the expense of one move by answering 2. ... Nc6.

I checked that there are no immediate other dangers, 1 ... e6 is an almost universal weapon against early Jelly attacks. 

I have not tried the other canonical armies of Chess with Different Armies yet, they may have weaknesses against a Jelly on d1. I also have not yet checked whether other piece may orchestrate an early Jelly attack.

Thanks for the clarification, probably I was too distracted by all the
rules against indirect lion exchange to see the obvious. Also thanks for
the additional details on X-Ray protection and modern Japanese practice.

I think a got a proof for the hex geometry.

We orient the hexes such that there is a horizontal line of rook movement,
and denote that direction by 1. The other directions of rook movement are
denoted by \omega and (\omega-1) [the use of the letter \omega is
inspired by Eisenstein numbers]. The centre of a hex is given by a+b\omega
with a,b integer numbers.

First step is a drawing: When we go horizontally firs and vertically as a
hex bishop second, we can reach only one half of the hexes (a+2b\omega).
We repeat this for the other rook directions and mark the hexes
accordingly. They fall in two classes: (i) hexes which can be reached in
one way only (ii) hexes that can be reached in all three way.

The second class forms a grid described by 2a+2b\omega (both coordinates
must be even.

Finally we map these to rook and bishop moves. The path to a three-way
reachable hex (2a+2b\omega) using horizontal and vertical moves
(elementary vertical bishop step: (2\omega -1)) consists of b bishop steps
and b+2a rook steps. Therefore the number of rook and bishop steps are both
odd or both even, giving an even SOLL.

The other direction: Take r rook steps and s bishop steps and demand that
r+s is even. Then we go to r+s*(2\omega -1) = (r-s) +2s\omega. This is a
three-way reachable square again, because (r+s) even implies (r-s) even.

I like the idea of circular riders moving on exact circles, and the generic
name Orbiter is a good fit. In particular, I find those orbiters
interesting that have more squares on their circle than just the minimal
number (4 for straight or diagonal distance, or 8 for skew distance).
Unfortunately most of them are much too large to play well on usual
chessbords (eben 16x16 is small for them). And it needs some training to
visualise their possible pathes. They have so many directions to go!

P.S. A less symmetric version are orbiters orbiting around the center of an
edge, the simplest variant has four squares marking a rectangle.

P.P.S. One of the orbiters (the circular King) is alreay found in Betza's
article here:

http://www.chessvariants.org/d.betza/chessvar/16x16.html

I learned that there was a german edition of this game published in 1972 by Parker under the title "Schach dem Schlaukopf". The pieces are Dummkopf (Ninny), Schlitzohr (Numskull), and Schlaukopf (Brain).

Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schach_dem_Schlaukopf

I'd suggest changing the "punchline" to something more descriptive than "http://www.spartanchessonline.com". Suggestion: "The spartan army with 2 Kings and novel pieces fights against the persians (standard chess army)"

The punchline occurs in several listings on this site, including the favourite games listing.

"Unchained bishop" is a rather vague concept at the moment. It is my model to explain the excess value of Queen and Archbishop (Janus/Paladin) compared to their raw components.

The bishop itself is hindered by board geometry and pawn structures (there is always a so-called bad bishop in the team) to move from one good position to another good position. Combining it with some other piece lifts this restriction and some of the value of a queen (specially the queen-chancellor difference, maybe more) comes from the "unchaining" of the bishop. 

Your measurement of the Archbishop's value suggests that adding a knight is sufficient to "unchain" the bishop.

I don't think that colourboundness is a big issue for the bishop. It may be testable by comparing BDD (Duchess or Adjutant) to the Bishop-Panda compound; the latter is not colourbound, the former is, while the pieces are very similar to each other in other respects.

At last, I am interested in the outcome of the R2 tests, since I made a prediction of its value. Depending on the knight's value (300 or 325 cP) it should be one or two quanta of advantage (30 to 60 cP) less than a knight.

It's a pity. Michael's creations were interesting and of good game design
quality. I like his names for some pieces (e.g., Jerboa instead of
Tripper), too.

Nice and original board design: it looks like a world map. Unfortunately I
cannot understand the text ...

Hmm... it your decision, at last.

Possibilities include:


(1)

If you cannot gate in a piece in the last possible move because you are in check, this counts as checkmate and you lose the game.

If you cannot gate in a piece in the last possible move and you are not in check (may happen on a very crowded board), this counts as stalemate and the game ends in a draw.

(2) 

Game goes on and you just have forfeited the right to bring that particular piece in play (put it to the place where the captured pieces are). For most pieces this is a huge penalty, but you may even want to trigger this situation in order to avoid a Wuss on your side.

Maybe additional rules become necessary: What happens if you can gate in either a pawn or a major piece, but not both (e.g., because you can block a check with a pawn move or a piece move)?

In Derzhanski's list (
http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/whos-who-on-8x8.html )
tentative values for the Ultima pieces are given. They are calculated by
Zillions of Games and may be grossly inaccurate, but I have not seen other
estimates for them.

Maybe experienced player of Ultima can say something about the practical
values?

In addition, I recommend reading the series Ideal Values and Practical
Values
(
http://www.chessvariants.org/piececlopedia.dir/ideal-and-practical-values.htm
) by Ralph Betza. It contains lots of insights in piece values. But the
gold standard for piece values still is playtesting (between humans or in
computer play).

Thanks for that links, it is a very enjoyable slide show.

Here's the position for mutual perpetual check with bishops and
nightriders. You need two bishops on the same field colour (or a queen and
a bishop); a position with bishops on different colour does not exist
because the kings come too close to each other.

Bishop's team: Ba2, Bb1; K b3/c2

Nightrider's team: NN f8, NN h6; K e6/f5

... it just fits on an 8x8 board.

The square root of 2323 is 48, but the difference is just 11. Nothing of
statistical significance.

To get at some conclusions one has to sum up the results of many years or
to extend the base of recorded games.

Can-mate Knight: Moves and captures as a normal FIDE Knight; but when the endgame KN vs. lone K is reached, it gives immediate check (and checkmate, if the lone King cannot capture it).

Switching off the can-mate property is not so easy. Just defining a Cannot-mate Rook as normal Rook, but when the endgame KR vs. lone K is reached, it it automatically a draw, unless the last capture gives checkmate -- seems to work, but in practice the stronger side will be keen to keep a pawn or two on the board and perform the mate with the full Rook before it is too late.

The compound of Quintessence and Rook is namend Leeloo in Quintessential Chess after the Fifth Element in Luc Bresson's film.

The compound of Quintessence and Queen is namen Pentere (with synonym Quinquereme) in Quinqereme Chess

The missing compound of Quintessence and Bishop I name Sai after Fujiwara no Sai, the ghost in the Go board in the manga Hikaru no go. Go is in japanese homophonous to the number 5. The ghosty connection is suggested by the analogous pieces Banshee (Nightrider-Bishop compound) and Dullahan (Knight-Ferz compound). Speckmann also reports that the Janus/Paladin (Knight-Bishop compound) was called "die reinste Geisterwaffe" (a pure ghost-weapon) by a problem solver.

The Sai is even stronger than the Banshee (having more directions and attacking more fields on the same board), but seems to be less tactical on 8 times 8. Because of its strength I wasn't yet able to design a CwDA army for the Sai. A simple modification of the Fearful Fairies is not possible.

After following the long thread on the first move advantage in chess, I am
curious about the first move advantage in Shogi.

The major difference between chess and shogi lies in the "decisiveness"
of the two games: Western chess is rather drawish, while almost all shogi
games come out as wins or losses.

Is there a first move advantage in shogi (I don't know statistics, but I
suspect that there is a first move advantage, although some Shogi pages
claim the opposite) and how large is it?

I have not analysed Chieftain Chess, therefore I cannot contribute to that
discussion.

ut here is another factlet showing the superficially very similar games can
have very different first move advantages: Sam Trenholme analysed some
Carrera Variants with different first line setups with respect to first
move advantage in this posting:

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=23842

The numbers range from

White           win     loss    draw    games

ranbqkbnmr	46%	43%	12%	1010 

to

rmnbakbnqr	53%	37%	10%	1011 

which is remarkable. (I won't take the numbers too seriously, because the
draw rate is suspiciously low. I expect human master play to have more
draws.)

Look here

http://xkcd.com/1078/

Considering articles, I suggest the following additions:

Une (french)
L' (french)
Les (french)
Il (italian)
Gli (italian)
Lo (italian/spanish)
Los (spanish)
Las (spanish)
De (dutch)
Het (dutch)
Een (dutch)

I think it is a good thing to ignore articles in subject ordered lists.
Traditional german library instructions do exactly this.

First, it is really good to see Bittern in place of Ibis.

The table format is good, though I'd like to see the non-oblique leapers,
too. I was able to 
extract their names (assuming extensive use of Bi- and Tri- prefixes), the
only missing ones are 11:0, 11:11, 13:0, and 13:13 up to diameter 15.

If you consider further replacements; I'd suggest to take out Wyvern
because of its usage in Glenn Overby's Beastmaster Chess for a combined
leaper.

Problemists use different names for a few pieces in the table, but this is
not a serious problem for me. Synonyms are much easier to deal with than
homonyms, because the piece name is a handle to its moving pattern.

Unfortunately, the fix is not yet complete; here is the Link to Archabbot Chess from the Alphabetical Index section "Ar":

/play/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MParchabbottches

and it now returns a 404 (instead of the home page of the pbm system).

After some hacking, I found the true link which works:

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MParchabbottches

-- replacing "play" with "www" fixes the link.

Fine, it works again. Good work, Fergus :-)

Fergus, while at testing: The navigation from a user submitted page to the comments is currently gone. The newest comment is displayed (if there is one), but there is no way to the full list of comments or the function to add a comment.

Editor-made pages are not affected; they have the navigation right.

I have taken the time to cross-check the list of Shogi pieces with the sources I have. I found no errors (but I discovered some in my own transcripts ...).

A few comments: The Chinese Cock moves differently in Taikyoku Shogi on one side and Maka Dai Dai Shogi and Tai Shogi on the other side. The movement pattern given here is the Taikyoku pattern. A piece with the same move is known as Blind Dog (Moken) in Wa Shogi.

Old Kite and Old Kite Hawk are different translations of the same japanese word (kotetsu), what is named old-kite-hawk here is the piece from Taykyoku Shogi.

Savage Tiger (or with different translation of moku: Fierce Tiger) has different moves in Taikyoku Shogi (like a Lance), Dai Dai Shogi (the move given here represent english sources; japanese Wikipedia has 2 steps diagonally forward), and Heian Dai Shogi (moves as Cat Sword, better known in the west as Ferz).

@Joe: The clue to my rating of the Shatranjian Shooters is the observation that a Ferfil ist worth a Knight is worth a Bishop. To my experience this is true for a single Ferfil compared to a single Bishop. A pair of short range Ferfils does not generate a feelable pair bonus, though.

The Shaman ist about 1.25 pawns above the Ferfil. The Hero is similar to the Shaman, but has a larger overall mobility, I rate it half a pawn above the Shaman. The War Elephant is like a Queen, therefore it is 1.5 pawns better than its components. This gives the following calculation:

2 Heros @4.75 Points   = 9.5 Points
2 Knights @3 Points    = 6   Points
2 Shamans @4.25 Points = 8.5 Points
1 War Elephant         @10.5 Points
===================================
Sum                     34.5 Points

compared to 32 Points for the FIDEs. I don't know whether the Shamans already have a feelable pair bonus, therefore I don't put it in.

Of course, with a jumping general (about 7.5 points) the army is on the low end of the CwDA scale. 31.5 is less than the FIDEs have. The Hero and the Shaman are very tactically dangerous pieces, specially against the FIDEs with their unprotected rooks in the back rank.

This is a good game: It is fun to play. I even like the name showing some humour.

Since Charles suggested elsewhere to drop or change this game: please let it stand here as it is. It even inspired another game (I'm a Ferz, get me into there).

All in all, this game has well thought 'game mechanics' and is worth keeping.

Now there is a lot of input for thought, and I may create another army based on the fairy theme ...

For aesthetical reasons I don't like a 'queens left' setup, but H. G. Muller makes a strong point to consider it nevertheless. I have to think what rules for castling to prefer (Fischer random rules or just mirrored castling).

As a replacement for the phoenix/waffle piece, another knight-strength piece is needed. Candidates are the Kylin/Diamond/Duke (FD compound) or the 3 simplest amphibians Frog {1,1}+{0,3}, Toad {0,2}+{0,3}, and Newt
{2,2}+{0,3}---all of them are very thematic, but I have to playtest how they work together. That the halfduck is feasable in CwDA suggest that the amphibians aren't too dangerous to use.

[25] There is Zugzwang: players with legal moves are obliged to move even if every legal move leads to defeat.

This is one of the most outstanding features of chess and its variants. Compare it to go, where no player is ever forced to deteriorate their position, they may just pass instead.

@hubert It is not about a naming police, it is about respect to what is already here from traditional and modern chess variants. And paying respect includes noting that the pieces and the names were already used before. A designer may choose to differ and make this explicit in the exposition of his or her game.

Another point addresses potential players: It makes learning a game much easier when pieces with well-known names move as expected from their names.

Here's my interpretation of A. Blacks criterion 17:

17. Pieces moves like chess pieces can move.

(a) Pieces move like leapers (true leapers or 'lame' leapers), riders, chinese or korean cannons, or combinations of those.

(b) Pieces have highly symmetric movement patterns (full 90 degrees rotational and reflectional symmetry for all non-pawn pieces, reflectional symmetry with different forward and backwards movement [like in the Shogi gold and silver generals] counts as a mild violation of this)

(c) Pieces move and capture the same way or their move and capture are at least 'similar' in some sense (I consider the pawn movement and capture similar because of forwardness and shortrangeness, also the pieces of separate realm chess or chinese cannons are similar in movement and capture. Frank Maus' knibis and bishight aren't). 

This allow much more pieces than just the traditional FIDEs ...

Back to the terrain question: a promotion zone does not constitute terrain for me, also the forward direction of pawns is not dictated by terrain.

Holes in the the board are somewhat strange to Chess and may constitute terrain. Barriers of all kind are certainly terrain.

Possible terrain effect are: Difficult terrain (mountains, swamps) slowing units (pieces) down or forbidding some kind of pieces (two heavy to move there ...) on that terrain, land/water distinction (land units need boats or bridges to cross the water, water units cannot move on land (but maybe shoot units down on land), air planes can operate both on land and water, but need to land after some time and need airports or carriers for this purpose), cities (providing supplies fo any kind, generating new units, allowing of repair of damaged units).

This leads to another chess criterion

[24] A chess piece is either fully functional or captured, there is no such thing like 'damage' or 'health' with consequences to the piece (slower motion, need of repair, easier capturability). Of course, a bad position (e.g. pinned) does not count as damage. In FIDE chess the only (very mild) violation of the no damage rule is the loss of castling rights.

Wow, this is a really intresting result. Now I wonder how the Woody Rook aka Wazaba (WD compound) does in the end game against a Rook. I felt it was too clumsy in certain endgames with some pawns against a Knight and replaced it with the Phoenix aka Waffle in the Fearful Fairies army ( http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSfearfulfairies ).

[23] All squares are essentially equal, there is no terrain to consider.

This criterion draws a line to war simulation games, where land, water and cities play an important role.  

Xiang Qi mildly violates this one.

I don't understand how you derived the number 6 for the Spearman. In fact,
it has no backwards capture move and once the opposing King has broken the
line of Spearmen, no number of them can mate.

Maybe you want to say that a fox-and-geese style game with 6 Spearmen and a
King vs. a lone King from some initial position is won, but this something
very different.

The idea of a re-charging piece is hidden in the Nutty Knights army from
Ralph Betza's Chess with different armies. The charging pieces there have
many forward moves, but very poor retreating moves.

A re-charging piece turns 180 degrees upon reaching the 8th rank, and
another 180 degrees upon reaching the first rank again. A Charging Rook,
e.g., becomes a Reverse Charging Rook, moving forward as a King and
backward and sideward as a Rook and the 8th rank. On promoting a pawn, you
get a re-charged piece with full retreating power and poor forwardness.

I wonder how much this change would power-up the Nutty Knights.

One can also imagine re-charging pawns, walking up and down as pawns with
no hope for promotion ...

For the physical representation, balck and white Shogi-style pieces may
work fine where colour indicates the ownership of the piece and direction
the charged state.

Hi George,

I think the mating number of the quintessence is 2. Even a single
quintessence comes very close to a mate, but it cannot strike the final
blow to the enclosed King.