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Critique of a Chess-like Variant Construction Set. Critique.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Jun 17, 2010 10:30 PM UTC:
One solution to the difficulty of setting prices is to get rid of fixed prices and sell all powers of movement by auction. A player would bid on what he wants, and if the other player wants to keep him from having it, he could bid higher. Bidding would go back and forth until one player gave up, then the highest bidder would pay his highest bid. There are some kinks to this idea that need working out. First, the person who still has money when the other's runs out shouldn't be given free reign to buy anything he wants at bargain basement prices. Limiting the quantity of available items helps. It might also be helpful to start bidding for some items at different prices. It could also help to structure the auction, so that powerful items are sold first, though this may lead players to focus on power over quantity. Another thought is to give players a salary instead of one lump sum, so that players will not go broke until the auction is finished. With the idea of a salary, it is possible to allow auctions during the course of the game, or the salary could be limited to a pre-game period of a limited number of payments.

Another solution is to require each player to buy whatever he buys for himself for his opponent as well. This would result in equal armies, and it would deter players from buying powers they didn't want their opponents to have.

Another solution is to play the game with Shogi drop rules. If one player bought better powers than the other player, he risks exchanging them for weaker pieces.