Enter Your Reply

'All of my old variants, from the 1970s, were designed for postal play, so they had a higher ratio of force to space than you see in FIDE chess.' - Ralph Betza

The same design philosophy led me to Lions and Unicorns Chess. Players need to have a strategic plan and carefully choose where they place each piece. The board is simply 'too small' for these powerful armies, so the players have to fight for space for their pieces. Shatranj, on the other hand, can be played as a game of pure tactics. The board is 'large' and there are always undefended pieces and pawns to attack.

I posted a series of comments relating to the 6x6x6 board on the 3D Chess thread last month. Many designers prefer 'Capablanca style' 3D variants, with many compound pieces. I was exploring the idea of special promotion rules that change the R, B, Q to 3D versions of Tripunch Chess pieces. Such pieces may be able to checkmate the lone King in the endgame.

I have also considered a different approach, keeping the strong King and weak Unicorn from Raumschach, then adding the stalemate and bare King victory conditions from Shatranj. The Raumschach Queen does not belong in a game like this, even the simple Rook+Bishop compound may be unsuitable.