Single Comment

Gentlemen, I have a question on shortrange piece placement on larger board
sizes. I wasn't going to pursue it, but after seeing HG's last comment,
I've re-considered and will happily try to muddy the water a bit. 

One of the things I've noticed is that 'centralized' as a concept might
be somewhat misleading, in that on an 8x8, getting the shortrange pieces
into the area of the board where their moves are maximized means getting
them into the central 4x4 square. However, on the Capa board, the area is 6
wide and 4 deep, and on larger boards, it expands more. On a 12x16, the
area of maximum movement for a knight is an 8x12 area that encompasses far
more than the center of the board. Further, since the forces are opposed in
a linear array, anywhere near the midline is actually advantageous, even on
the wings, because the piece is still close enough to the enemy forces to
threaten. And if a bunch of slow-moving pieces clog the center of the
board, that restricts the mobility of the rook and bishop types. A knight
on b5, for example, is not necessarily in a bad position, and it may be a
quite good position. Now, a piece like one in the lama family, being so
shortrange, is about as well positioned anywhere in the area of the
midline, not just the 'center' of the board, isn't it?

[HG, you had a similar problem with a lion, I believe; when you removed 2
backward moves, the less-mobile piece did better than the full piece, if I
remember correctly. Try chopping out the odd potential move or two, and see
what happens, if this makes sense to you.]