Ratings & Comments

I would like to see similar discussions around 'AC'.

I'd hoped that castling would often come in handy, but there have been a couple of games, so far, where my opponents have dropped their K back a rank against me (likely after an Amazon move to third or second rank - one possible drawback might be if said Amazon ever has to retreat somewhere with loss of time). Castling kingside followed by shifting my K sideways one more square is something I often do, though maybe out of habit from chess (somewhat unrelated, Play Tester recently championed the idea of quickly charging the pawn in front of his Sailor on the kingside, even before either side may have castled).

The more space you have control of on a side of the board, the safer it is to castle there, I suppose. If Black plays a French Defence analogue, for example, then kingside castling seems nice enough for White. Not only that, but if a centre file is about to get opened early, castling may be a good idea. Sac Chess is still relatively unexplored, of course. I thought I'd sensed some unexpected defects to its design (compared to chess, at least) since inventing it, but at least it's being played more often again lately (though I'm always one of the players). Bishop(s) (and later Missionaries) flying out to the edge of the board, especially of the queenside, for example (the Sailor pawn charge may be another).

I'd also hoped when designing the game that the Judges (Centaurs) on the wings would help to guard a castled K for a long time. Castling queenside seems like it's usually quite unsafe, even compared to chess. The K is still likely unsafe in the middle for a couple of moves at the least. I'd secretly hoped to be the first one to castle queenside in a Sac Chess Game Courier game, but Fergus beat me to it when playing someone else. It's also easier to discourage or prevent castling queenside in the first place than in chess, it seems.

This looks interesting, but I wonder how well it works allowing the maggots to move backwards.

A 50-move rule like in orthodox Chess is completely pointless in games where Paws can also move backwards; the player that does not agree with the draw would simply move a Pawn back and forth to reset the ply counter. To make any sense the counter should only be reset on irreversible moves (captures and promotions).

Thanks Ben for your posting.
But is there still interest for that idea? And if so, in which 
direction does it go?

Inspiring game, yet it seems the action may take a while to get going

I don't yet get how to mobilize in the opening smoothly when playing this CV, at least when I tried to do so in my first game (with White, no less). After I moved the pawn in front of my king two squares, for example, I wanted to develop my knights to my fourth rank, towards the centre, in natural fashion. Yet that would allow Black to develop his deves (camels) similarly, and then to take my knight(s) almost at will - perhaps clearly at least a slightly worse exchange for me, since my pawn structure might be compromised without sufficent compensation when I recapture, and by my valuations (though tentative) a Kt is worth more than a camel on 10x10 (maybe even by as much as a pawn).

As my game (with arx) went on, I found my gold and silver had a hard time being deployed usefully for quite some time - an issue since they can get in the way of other pieces. I also had mobilization issues with at least one of two of my bishops, especially concerning if assuming castling is desirable in general. The assassins I had a hard time valuing, but guessed one could be worth as much as a queen. Maybe the inventor intended that mobilization be slow in playing this CV, I don't know.

@arx: I've sent you a personal invite to a Sac Chess rematch, in case you missed it, and wish to play.

I added a link to play in the notes. It's good to see some interest in this!

OK, with that I think the 2-avatar closing files mate works. Without loss of generality (now that everything is symmetric), say defending avatarius (I'm just going to call it "king" for the rest of this) is somewhere on files a-d. We should have plenty of time to set up two avatars on, say, h4 and g5, then can walk them to f6 and g5. The defending king is somewhere a-e.

Next we want to pivot from g5 to e8; we can go through h5, and we just need to be sure to defend e8. The f6 avatar covers most of the ground, leaving only d7, and zugzwang makes it easy.

Next to pivot from f6 to d1. The steps f5,h5 will do for travel, and again we just need to ensure safety of the landing square. This time it looks like we need to use the friendly king, using zugzwang to ensure d2 is not occupied so that our king can move to e1.

The hardest pivot might be from e8 to c3. I think the friendly king needs to get into the a-c files now in order to protect c3 while not blocking the d-file queen guard. I think this is possible through e1-d2-c2, keeping the e8 avatar to prevent escape while our king is on d2, using a bit of zugzwang to force our king's way in?

After that it's easier, with c3 protecting b4 for the next pivot (through e.g. d5, or f3/g4-f4), and then a final c3-a1 or c3-h8-a8 (depending on which half of the a file the enemy king is confined to).

Thank you. I couldn't see it.

I did indeed overlook the lack of rotational symmetry of the board. I changed that - as well as the max. number (5) of avatars that can be added. Thanks for the input.

Does a royal moving as orthodox king also trigger a promotion when it moves to 8th rank?

No, this is not intended.

Securing a 'rapid-promotion factory' (e.g. a few white avatars in the trapezoidal region d7-e7-f8-c8 shuttling between 7th and 8th rank) might become the main strategic goal in the game.

The function of the opponent's pawn row is precisely to increase the dynamics of the game. The assumption that this results in a 'rapid-promotion factory' is only valid ceteris paribus, i.e. when the rest of the game is left aside. And even if it does, it is supposed to 'speed up' the game and make it more interesting.

I had already thought about 'forbidding' the return from the opponent's base line to the pawn row. But that would complicate the game and would certainly be inconvenient for programming - if it should come to that.

But I am quite with you, H.G., that the number of avatars that can be won during the course of the game must be limited. Here I will change the description and will include a limit of 5 avatars. This should be enough for the intended effect.

...how many avatars would be needed to force checkmate on a bare royal (moving as orthodox King)?

Black Royal on e8, white on e6, b4, a1-a8 (or h1-h8/b6-b8/b3-b8/c5-c8/c4-c8/c3-c8/f6-f8/f5-f8/f4-f8/g6-g8/g5-g8/g3-g8). It takes 3 avatars to checkmate the royal in this example.

(Quick note: the chess notation changes in Avatar Chess; the initial letters of the pieces are no longer necessary).