Chu does have quite a few short‐range pieces, like (Sho) Shōgi; it's not exactly devoid of longer‐range ones though: Rook, Bishop, Queen, as well as Dragon Horse and ‐King are the more conventional ones (and all but the queen in pairs), and it even has, to Western eyes, weird things like side‐/vertical movers and their promotions. And even with the short‐range ones, at first sight the variety of very similar moves might seem confusing just as several long‐range pieces might.
Gross Chess is popular here among CV fans; that speaks, no doubt, to its playability and potential popularity — and may well indicate it as a good candidate for a successor — but says very little imo about how 12×12 might fare among a more lay audience — while Chu demonstrates that it's possible for it to hold that status.
The point about game length is potentially a concern once the board gets bigger (and is almost certainly, alongside tractability, once of the limiting factors for going to e.g. 14×14 and beyond as anything ore than a novelty), though I'd've expected at least games with plenty of long‐range pieces to balance that somewhat. I wonder how long the average game of Gross or Metamachy (of which I've been playing a fair bit against Jocly's AI recently) is, esp. compared to Chu.
Chu does have quite a few short‐range pieces, like (Sho) Shōgi; it's not exactly devoid of longer‐range ones though: Rook, Bishop, Queen, as well as Dragon Horse and ‐King are the more conventional ones (and all but the queen in pairs), and it even has, to Western eyes, weird things like side‐/vertical movers and their promotions. And even with the short‐range ones, at first sight the variety of very similar moves might seem confusing just as several long‐range pieces might.
Gross Chess is popular here among CV fans; that speaks, no doubt, to its playability and potential popularity — and may well indicate it as a good candidate for a successor — but says very little imo about how 12×12 might fare among a more lay audience — while Chu demonstrates that it's possible for it to hold that status.
The point about game length is potentially a concern once the board gets bigger (and is almost certainly, alongside tractability, once of the limiting factors for going to e.g. 14×14 and beyond as anything ore than a novelty), though I'd've expected at least games with plenty of long‐range pieces to balance that somewhat. I wonder how long the average game of Gross or Metamachy (of which I've been playing a fair bit against Jocly's AI recently) is, esp. compared to Chu.