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As for other kinds of promotions, like turning an ordinary pawn into a Knight-Rook or Knight-Bishop, or Knight-SuperPawn (capable of stepping 1 square in any orthogonal direction, or capturing diagonally in the same sort of way), I have nothing against that. Anybody who gets his pawn to a queening square should be rewarded amply for all the effort that went into that kind of a task. Still, I'd vote against diluting blue blood with the blood of commoners, and prohibit ordinary pawns from turning into Kings, especially if there is a rule about letting them move into check. (Just imagine what would happen with three or four Kings on the board...) Somehow, I think that the dangers of allowing the enemy to get his pawns to the other side of the board will make it highly desirable to lock up the game with any kind of opening tending towards a closed position, if that is at all possible.
Thanks for pointing that out. :) Crowned Knight is a good name for a Knight that has the additional powers of a King without the limitations of being a King. I guess a Crowned Knight must surely be worth a Queen. Maybe a whole lot more for the ability to leap over adjacent obstructions. A measely Pawn-Knight is a lot weaker than the Crowned Prince, but for the possibility of promotion into an extra King. Royal Court would make a good name for either of these games, except for the likelihood of confusion with Vasseur's Crowned Prince version, which I now understand dates back to 1998.
http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/contest/royalcourt.html this game has a knight that also moves as a king too, called a 'crownedknight'
Royal Court Chess sounds like a good name for this variant. But I'm not sure if having the Prince Piece promote into a piece having all the benefits of a Knight and King will work if the enemy has a duty to capture both the original King and the Knight-King to win the game. But wouldn't that kind of a rule result in more draws? I think it is easier to play with the Prince turning into a King, and then suspending the rules about moving into check. Perhaps a rule set can be dreamed up for Zillions of Games with the two extra pieces: Prince = Knight+Pawn (subject to all en passant rules) Princess = Bishop+Pawn (subject to all en passant rules) where, if the Prince (or Princess) has a clear path, can move straight up to the fourth rank like an ordinary pawn could, subject to any captures en passant by other pawns in the adjacent files. (I can imagine some pretty interesting chess puzzles with these kinds of pieces.) But I am worried that promoting the Prince into a King-Knight would make it TOO powerful, especially if it is at the same time an extra King, and the rules against moving into check are suspended whenever there is an extra King on the board. Maybe you could put together a Zillions of Games rule set for something along those lines? I've looked at the rules for Zillions of Games, and it looked a little too complex for me. (I was never entirely sure if an ordinary ASCII editor could be used for editing the variables, or whether the names of the variables were case sensitive, or exactly how a template was supposed to be put together.) An interesting thing about a set up using these pieces on a 10x8 board is that no pawns at the start of the game are left undefended. That resolves a problem relating to that of Capablanca's 8x10 setup. And having those two new pieces with combined powers of the minor pieces, instead of the major pieces, yet subject nevertheless to the traditional en passant rules, insures a healthy respect for strategic play, and reduces the emphasis on hard tactics. Mainframe computers will also have a harder time exhaustively analyzing a board with that kind of a set of pieces to deal with.
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