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Agincourt. Decimal variant with Archers. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Johnny Luken wrote on Sat, Apr 25, 2015 03:13 PM UTC:
A variant that has no doubt been reinvented several times.

The archer is certainly more canon to chess than the "camel" and like pieces, which serve testament to the underwhelmingly barren nomenclature generally exhibited in greater chess (Ren Chess being one of the few variants that made a genuine attempt to expand chess in a faithful manner).

Personally I've always viewed the archer as the triangular analogue of the chinese cannon, though other interesting interpretations exist, typically revolving around short range rifle capture.

H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Apr 21, 2015 11:20 AM UTC:
In general the piece that moves similar to another piece on the subset of squares of a certain shade, rotated by 45 degrees, is called the 'conjugate' of the latter. By defenition such conjugates are thus always color bound.

The conjugate of the Wazir is the Ferz, that of the Ferz the Dababba. That of the Dababba the Alfil, and that of the Knight the Camel. The conjugate of a piece that is already color bound suffers an even higher order of (meta-)color binding.

Charles Stinson wrote on Mon, Apr 20, 2015 11:18 PM UTC:
I have never seen the movement of a camel or cardinal. I am the one who came up with the idea of adding an 'archer' to the game of chess after seeing a movie which had a depiction of the battle of Agincourt where the use of the longbow made knights in armour obsolete. In trying to figure out how the archer would move, I realised that all the major pieces had complimentary pieces with respect to movement. The king moves in all directions, but one space at a time. The queen moves in all directions as far as she wants. The rook moves as far as he wants but only on the parallel and perpendicular. The bishop moves as far as he wants but only on the diagonal.
The one piece who's movement is unique is the knight, but he only moves on the parallel and the perpendicular. As a companion piece, the 'archer' moves in the exact pattern as the knight but in a diagonal direction.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sat, May 20, 2006 12:56 AM UTC:
another nearly identical variant with identical description of special pieces, this time called 'jesters': j-chess

Larry Smith wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 05:41 PM UTC:
Now I see the Archer's move. 1,2 diagonal, instead of 1,3 orthogonal.
Clever.

It's sorta like looking at an Escher. ;-)

Jeremy Good wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 01:59 PM UTC:

Ah, David, I'll bet you're right. I'll bet they do move like Camels. Intriguing way to describe their movement, strictly in terms of diagonals!

Which in fact makes it almost, but not quite, identical to Super Cardinal Chess. I bought a copy of that once, and I must admit to some disappointment. The pieces were light plastic. The design is not unattractive though. To be honest, I've never tried playing it , but with different people re-discovering it (10 x 10 chess with ordinary pieces and two camels added), perhaps there is something to the gameplay.

It's rather trendy to re-name the camel for some reason. It's been done in Renniassance Chess (General) and more recently in Clash of Civilizations Chess (Unicorn). In these variants (Agincourt and Super Cardinal, we have a very similar setup and two different names for the same camel piece, Cardinal and Archer.

I guess great pieces have a tendency to attract many names and uses. I designed a game once called Camel-Cardinal chess which featured one cardinal and one camel. I guess I could have called it Cardinal-Cardinal Chess.

Well, as you say, what's in a name. My answer is 'a lot' and I think your unicorn is the best unicorn!


David Paulowich wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 12:27 PM UTC:
Probably the Archers move like Camels. This game reminds me of the 10x10 variant 'Cardinal Super Chess' (1987) which places the Cardinals between Bishops and royal pieces. My 2004-08-31 comment to the Piececlopedia entry 'Bishop-Knight Compound: Princess, Archbishop, Cardinal, Paladin' says the Cardinal moves like a non-leaping Camel.

Jeremy Good wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 11:15 AM UTC:
Appears to me they move like Alfils.

Larry Smith wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 10:03 AM UTC:
For an Agincourt game with un-equal armies, wouldn't that be Knights
versus Archers?

One sides would replace their Knights with Archers, and the other would
replace their Archers with Knights.

Definitely would like to see how the Archer moves.

Claudio Martins Jaguaribe wrote on Sun, May 14, 2006 07:13 AM UTC:Good ★★★★
I would like to see a move example of the archer, or, is he a dabbabah?
Agincourt= Azincourt? If that's so, wouldnt it be nice to be a unequal
army variant?

A big french side vs a better english side? I belive that the
buypointchess and the pick up your team chess would give you help.

Pints to U!!

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