💡📝Kevin Pacey wrote on Fri, Jan 10, 2020 09:53 PM UTC:
Now that some time has passed, I cannot say I consider this variant totally a hit with Game Courier (GC) players. In the vast majority of games this variant has been tried so far, I, the inventor, have been one of the players, normally (always?) the one issuing the invitation on GC to play it, so I'm pretty well having to promote my own variant in order for it to be played by anyone, as far as I know.
Some months ago I gave some thought as to what ingredients might make for (relatively) popular CVs, at least on GC. One was that, unless there were exceptional reasons, powerful pieces were by far more popular with players than weaker ones (even minor pieces, such as the, usually popular, ferfil [{modern} elephant] in Hannibal Chess), especially if an inventor was to add a small number of pieces to the armies of existing CVs (notably such as the armies of orthodox chess) in order to produce a new CV. Just today I (re-)checked the list of 1200+ presets of GC and the number of times each has been played, so as to confirm that earlier conclusion.
While a limited number of pieces and pawns (normally) can be added to a 10x8 game, some 12x8 games with pieces and pawns added to the orthodox chess armies exist already - but very few have been played more than a handful of times on GC, regardless of the strength of the pieces added in to the FIDE army - so maybe CVs with that board size are just plain unpopular to play on GC (except for the decidedly un-FIDE-like Courier Chess, which is a historic [and thus IMO automatically popular] CV).
Perhaps very stubbornly, I soon ignored/forgot my conclusion about powerful pieces (maybe largely because I didn't want to invent too many CVs with a lot of power endowed in each army, lest too many such CVs prove poorish/unplayable in the long run), and I came up with a number of ideas for CVs that were in the spirit of Hannibal Chess and other CVs I've made, where pieces of minor/(weak major) strength were added to the FIDE armies (usually), on boards of varying dimensions.
So, I now suddenly realize, in some horror, that most/all of these (many) new CV ideas of mine are very likely doomed to prove unpopular, if submitted. To go ahead & submit anyway? Would that be like spamming CVP with useless CVs, if accepted? Maybe I'm stubborn enough, to at least preserve what might be examples of CV art, if it's not stuff that IMO has got a better chance to be played lots. For my study (and for some minimal preservation for posterity) I at least already have Diagram Designer diagrams for these CV ideas squirreled away on CVP as [edits to] comments of mine, with my now old reasons for why I rejected each CV in question (looking back, I now think they might all be quite playable, if not big hits aesthetically/popularly).
Now that some time has passed, I cannot say I consider this variant totally a hit with Game Courier (GC) players. In the vast majority of games this variant has been tried so far, I, the inventor, have been one of the players, normally (always?) the one issuing the invitation on GC to play it, so I'm pretty well having to promote my own variant in order for it to be played by anyone, as far as I know.
Some months ago I gave some thought as to what ingredients might make for (relatively) popular CVs, at least on GC. One was that, unless there were exceptional reasons, powerful pieces were by far more popular with players than weaker ones (even minor pieces, such as the, usually popular, ferfil [{modern} elephant] in Hannibal Chess), especially if an inventor was to add a small number of pieces to the armies of existing CVs (notably such as the armies of orthodox chess) in order to produce a new CV. Just today I (re-)checked the list of 1200+ presets of GC and the number of times each has been played, so as to confirm that earlier conclusion.
While a limited number of pieces and pawns (normally) can be added to a 10x8 game, some 12x8 games with pieces and pawns added to the orthodox chess armies exist already - but very few have been played more than a handful of times on GC, regardless of the strength of the pieces added in to the FIDE army - so maybe CVs with that board size are just plain unpopular to play on GC (except for the decidedly un-FIDE-like Courier Chess, which is a historic [and thus IMO automatically popular] CV).
Perhaps very stubbornly, I soon ignored/forgot my conclusion about powerful pieces (maybe largely because I didn't want to invent too many CVs with a lot of power endowed in each army, lest too many such CVs prove poorish/unplayable in the long run), and I came up with a number of ideas for CVs that were in the spirit of Hannibal Chess and other CVs I've made, where pieces of minor/(weak major) strength were added to the FIDE armies (usually), on boards of varying dimensions.
So, I now suddenly realize, in some horror, that most/all of these (many) new CV ideas of mine are very likely doomed to prove unpopular, if submitted. To go ahead & submit anyway? Would that be like spamming CVP with useless CVs, if accepted? Maybe I'm stubborn enough, to at least preserve what might be examples of CV art, if it's not stuff that IMO has got a better chance to be played lots. For my study (and for some minimal preservation for posterity) I at least already have Diagram Designer diagrams for these CV ideas squirreled away on CVP as [edits to] comments of mine, with my now old reasons for why I rejected each CV in question (looking back, I now think they might all be quite playable, if not big hits aesthetically/popularly).