Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Andy, thank you very much for the comment; it was about as good as I could
have hoped for. I appreciate especially that you like Fortress.
Truthfully, I'd expected the objections to a much larger game would come
from people who think 'fort' is too big to play. 
The methods of playing very very large games in a limited viewing area
have pretty much been worked out over the years in computer games
[wargames, RPGs, and fusions such as Civilization by Sid Meier]. The
method uses 2 'maps', or views of the board, a tactical [close up or
'normal' size view] and a strategic [a very small version of the
gameboard, all or a major part of which fits on the screen at once]. This
is, admittedly, a departure for chessplayers, because chessboards are so
small they easily fit on a computer screen at a 'normal' size. But it
works quite well and is very easy to get used to, as long as the game
mechanics take into account the need to switch between 2 map sizes. 
The real question is what sort of game mechanics can make a game with
several hundred pieces 'humanly playable.' And in a reasonable number of
turns. I think I have one good answer, and it'll be coming up fairly soon.

fortress chess sounds good 100x100 sounds retarded, how will you pl,ay it
you will need a gigantic game courier preset or a bike (or segway) to get
from one end of the board to the other

fortress chess sounds good 100x100 sounds retarded, how will you pl,ay it
you will need a gigantic game courier preset or a bike (or segway) to get
from one end of the board to the other

The superlarge testbed game, Fortress Chess, seems to be clunking along
rather well, even though it's quite early in the game. The problems
forseen are all because I overstuffed the game to test a bunch of things
at once. A more streamlined piece mix and setup should solve what's
expected to be more annoyance than problem. The last question to answer is
the one of combat/capture. It's not unreasonable to think that a good
attack would result in 6 captures in a turn, and a really good one to get
12 captures in 2 turns, while holding the opponent to 4-6 total. Is this
reasonable? Well, with 16 pieces per side, a loss of one FIDE piece
accounts for about 6% of the player's total pieces. With 100 pieces/side,
losing 5-10 pieces is the equivalent of losing one piece of lesser or
greater strength in FIDE. 

Conclusion: chess on 'very large boards' is very doable.

What's next? Stay tuned [or run and hide, depending on your feelings
about this] for the next step up. Is [humanly playable] chess possible on
a 100x100 board?

LOL! And here I just thought you were playing Devil's Advocate. 
I decided to take the question seriously for purposes of an answer because
I do think a lot of people will not look beyond the size. If I could
squeeze all the basic info to play the game into a couple long comments,
fort can't be all that hard. 
And I still think it's clunky as a game - I deliberately overstuffed it
to test out a bunch of features.
Finally, I disagree with this statement of yours: 'I was just asking
whether the routes for these new multiples of four pieces could become
instantly visualizable with enough practice. Your answer was no.'
My 'No' was to the question: 'Is this game too difficult, by virtue of
its non-visualizeable pieces, to play?' Again I say 'No!' to that.
But I do agree with what you thought I said: No, the pieces aren't
instantly visualizeable. But anyone can count by 2s really fast on a
checkered gameboard... :-D So you are overly optimistic. ;-)

My remarks have been misinterpreted as skeptical criticism. I wasn't asking whether the game was playable. I assume it is. I enjoy the other game I reference, Knappen's Quinquereme, very much -- another inspirational game. Your example of trying to visualize future moves, e.g., knight moves, is another good point about how it isn't necessary for moves to be instantly visualizable to be part of a good game.

For more practice visualizing future moves, I recommend people play actualized potential chess, including my soon-to-be released doubly actualized potential chess, which uses pieces that exist two moves into the future. :-)

I was just asking whether the routes for these new multiples of four pieces could become instantly visualizable with enough practice. Your answer was no. I'm not so sure. As we start playing more with pieces that act on multiples, we might find ourselves becoming fluent with this. So it may be in fact that I am more optimistic than you about the future of your already aesthetically satisfying new game.

Hi, Graeme. Thanks for taking me up on the invite. I believe the game will
move along fairly quickly - one thing I did was increase the tempo of the
game a little - 100 pieces/8 leaders means that 1 in every 12.5 pieces in
'Fort' can move each turn. With FIDE, it's 1 in 16 at start. Even
though I moved only 7 pieces, that's still better than 1 in 14 on the
first move. 
I next plan to do a 20x30, with a more traditional battle line setup. But
I need to see how Fort plays, first. I've thought of a central 'fort',
and even a small 'city' in the middle of the board surrounded by a
besieging army. I suspect that if this game works, we could recast any
number of military conflicts as chess variants. 
The traditional games of non-traditional capture are Ultima[Baroque],
Optima, Maxima, Rococo, Fugue... but you are looking at doing a more
military game. I recently tried that myself in the utterly ignored
SpaceWar, my 12x16 space opera entry into the field. I'd love to discuss
ideas with you on that. We might get a game people would actually play!
[Even if it's just us. lol]
Like your ideas about the possibilities. Got some truly strange ideas
about what can be done with an actual 'large variant'. Yes, David, 12x12
*is* small [and I'm doing my darnedest to prove it]. ;-)

Ah, the Voice of Doubt speaks... ;-) 
Truthfully, you've expressed what I imagine most people would think as
soon as they see this game: 'It's too big! How can I ever understand it,
much less play it?' Maybe you're right, maybe it is too complicated for
anyone to even be able to play... 
My original answer went on a lot longer, and got nowhere, so I'll give
you the short answer: No. 
This is not too hard to play. It is a bit more complex than FIDE, with a
few more things to remember, but it's a lot more straightforward and much
easier to understand how to play well than Alice, for example. On a 1-10
scale, with tic-tac-toe as 1, checkers as 2 and chess as 3, this is 4,
max. 
There are 10 piece types, some of which can get modified by 5 movement
symbols. Not all that bad, maybe; let's look a bit...
The diamond symbols are speed limits for the familiar FIDE sliders. Yeah,
you have to count to 4, 8, or 12, but you do that sort of thing anyway in
chess, figuring turns in advance, where a knight can get, can this pawn
queen before... And the use of the other 4 symbols is as obvious, and they
only apply to the modern elephant and dabbabah. 
It comes down to interest. If you're interested, this is not difficult to
learn, given any familiarity with variants, in my opinion.

Hi Joe - Warchess is already taken I think! ;O)
What about Chessgaming?
I am wondering how far Chess can be pushed towards Wargaming without losing the essential Chess features you list. The wargaming areas where Fortress seems a bit light are melee and missiles. I'm currently exploring the possibility in my own designs of replacing the chess 'replacement capture' with a Diplomacy like melee phase where captures result from non-random assessment of a pieces attack/support. Such a system would also enable the introduction of missile pieces that can attack/support from a distance (possibly needing a screen as with the Cannon?).
As for the initial set-up I think mimicking a traditional ancient wargame battle array with a line of skirmishers backed by central infantry and cavalry wings might be worth exploring. And maybe a central fortress?
Another, as yet totally undeveloped idea, is the introduction of 'terrain' via offboard multi-cell static pieces dropped prior to the first proper movement phase.
And I just couldn't resist the invite - even though I'm a pretty poor chess player and an even worse ancient wargamer.

Hi, Graeme. Sheesh, dude, I'd accuse you of reading my notes, except you
got the name a little wrong. I actually call the genre Warchess [shorter
names make better titles]... :-)
Seriously, thank you for the compliment, and you are right; this is an
attempt to push chess right to the edge of wargaming, but still keeping it
chess and not a combat simulation wargame. The specific chess features that
I think are key here are: perfect information; symmetrical armies; no
random events [eg: combat results table]; checkmatable [high] king;
directional pawns; and the essential 'chessness' of the pieces [in that
they are in theory an 'army', but in practice, each piece has moves that
are very non-real-world]. I hope you find it worth the anticipation. It
still has to 'play well' to be any good. A game that size that plays
poorly, or merely 'okay', is a catastrophe.
I think fort is a bit of a kludge. I think it has too many pieces
[100/side] and an awkward starting setup [too deep]. I'm also trying to
test several things at once, which is rarely a good idea. But I think
it's got a real shot at playing well in its simplest, easiest form, and
is also very tweakable, if necessary. I'm ready to find out now, the
invite is up.

I've been following the development of Fortress Chess with great interest and eagerly await it being played. It seems to me that this variant is actually going someway to bridging the divide between Chess and Wargaming.
Wargaming rules usually include elements governing missiles, movement, melee, morale and command. Fortress Chess can at a stretch be said to incorporate 4 of these: command through its hierarchy of leader pieces; movement through its short-, mid-, and long-range pieces which can be seen as cognates for (ancient)wargaming's troop types of infantry/cavalry with light/medium/heavy armour; melee through the usual replacement capture; amd morale by the ladder of promotion with pieces getting stronger as they achieve success in battle.
In fact I think Fortress Chess may well mark the start of a new gaming genre - not merely another Big-board CV, but the first example of 'Warfare-Chess'.
I'm looking forward to future developments

Hi, Abdul-Rahman. My 3 comments on this specific topic are on 3/11 [1] and
3/14 [2]. But I'll to try to lay it out in a simple form right here. 
The piece set is Alfaerie: Many.
All the standard FIDE pieces are used: King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, kNight,
Pawn; as are the 4 basic ancient pieces: Ferz, Wazir, Alfil, and Dabbabah,
although these 4 are mostly combined with each other. All these pieces have
their standard moves. 
Combo pieces: The modern Elephant combines the piece icons for Ferz and
Alfil, and may move like either one. The Warmachine combines the icons for
Wazir and Dabbabah, and may move like either. In general, any combo piece
that contains only basic piece icons moves as any one of the icons.
To generate intermediate-range pieces, 5 easy movement rules [patterns]
are defined. They are represented by simple symbols. These symbols are
combined with the basic piece icons to generate families of pieces. The
symbols are:
Diamonds: 1, 2, or 3 small black diamonds on FIDE Qs, Rs, and Bs mean
those pieces may move only 4, 8, or 12 squares maximum in a turn.
Squares: An elephant or warmachine with a square around the central icon
mave move as either or each of its components [in either order] in a
straight line. [Currently found in Chieftain Chess II]
Circles: An elephant or warmachine with a circle around the central icon
may move as either or both of its compnents, and may change directions
between the steps of its move. [Found in Lemurian Shatranj]
2 Parallel 'Speed' lines: All these pieces are 2-step linear riders. A
modern elephant with what looks like an equals sign on its right side may
move as an alfil or ferz, then as either of the 2 [not necessarily the
same as the first time] again, in a straight [diagonal] line. [Grand
Shatranj]
Zigzag Speed line: very similar to the 2 parallel speed lines, this symbol
looks like a 'Z' on the right side of the piece. A modern warmachine with
this symbol may move as a wazir or jump as a dabbabah, then do either
again, and may change directions between steps. [Atlantean Barroom
Shatranj]
The leader units are Guards, plain and fancy. A leader moves 1 square for
each 8-pointed star on its icon. Leaders with a grey tint may change
directions during their move. If they don't have a grey tint, they are
linear movers. The Marshall, 3 stars with grey tint in the center, moves
up to 3 squares, changing direction as desired, and may leap any adjacent
square to land in the square directly across from the original square.
This counts as moving 2 squares, so the piece may only slide 1 more square
during its turn.
No piece may make a null move.
Before any piece can move, it must be activated by a leader. Each leader,
including the king, may activate 1 piece per turn. Activation ranges: L1 =
2 squares; L2 = 4 squares; L3 = 6 squares; marshall = 12; king = 99.
That's all of it. If anything at all is unclear, let me know.

How do the pieces move ?

After Jeremy created the pieces for Fortress Chess, Antoine Fourriere was
kind enough to put them into the Alfaerie: Many piece set, so the game is
on the board. If you shrink it to around 50% size [I used various methods
that gave me between 52% and 45%], you can see the entire board at once.
Put it in a second window with the full-size game in the first, and
you've got everything, basically. Following is the URL:
/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DFortress+Chess%26settings%3Dfortresschess1
Playtest is just beginning. I encourage people to kibbitz the game or
leave comments here. And they don't all have to be nice. I'd expect some
people would think what I'm doing is ridiculous on the face of it. Feel
free to call me an idiot, but please give some reason why. And if you're
sure it could be done better, or as good, in a different way, please tell
me how. This seems to be a rather new field, and there is a lot of room in
it... :-)

The superlarge test game design outline is just about finished. After
clearing up a few loose ends, it can be taken to the board.
One thing not discussed yet is castling. Because we have those big,
beautiful 'forts' in the corners, there is a good place to castle into.
So we'll work out some castling options in the rules.
The leader rules are quite nebulous. There are a number of ways we can
handle leaders; the simplest way is probably the best for now. 'Leaders
have specified 'activation ranges'. Leaders can activate any one
friendly piece within range.' More realistic/advanced/difficult rules can
be looked at later for play balance if necessary. But the simple requiring
of activation for a piece to move gives us a lot in controlling superlarge
games' tendencies to get out of control. Any leader can move a queen
across the board, but how does the queen get back? 
Leaders are a new class, 'semi-royal' pieces. Loss of one does not end
the game, but it does penalize the losing player more than just losing a
non-royal piece, because the player also loses movement opportunities. I
fully expect using several leaders will prevent the superlarge game from
becoming either tedious and boring or going chaotically out of control.
[How's that for putting yourself out on a limb?] Now it's time to
demonstrate just how well all these ideas will really work. Jeremy Good
has generously given me enough rope to han... um, has created a number of
new Alfaerie piece icons that will allow testing of all the ideas
presented here. Jeremy, thank you. Without your help, I couldn't have
done this. [Maybe not everyone will thank you for this.] I'd also like to
thank those who poked, prodded, and contributed to this so far, including,
but not limited to, Mats, David and Greg.
There is one final loose end which I am leaving hanging, for now.

'If you think the piece is worth a Bishop, you will trade it for a Bishop; and in that game, it will only have been worth that much. This is why playtesting without the theory of piece values could never succeed in establishing values well enough to make chess armies that were equal in strength, yet different. (And when I realized in 1976 that playtesting alone, would not do the job, I set out to create the theory!)' - Ralph Betza, in Revisiting the Crooked Bishop

Rose Chess XII is almost complete - not sure if low piece density on a 12x12 board still qualifies as a Large Variant these days :>) My theories on piece values (and how they change as the boards get larger) are part of the background to Rose Chess XII, so it would be reasonable to include a few explanatory paragraphs on the game page. Not sure if I can come up with precise values for the Rose and Bison, however.

Those who prefer their Bisons broken down into Camels and Zebras can check out Samarcanda and its newly posted preset. The Noblemen in this game move like Crooked Bishops.

Hey, Greg, great! Cataclysm looks very nice; we'll have to play a game. I
like the low density, and that you're starting to stretch out the piece
ranges. We need some good midrange pieces. And 12x16 is a nice size to
work with. It's a clear bump up in size, by a factor of 3, giving scope
for a lot of ideas. Welcome to insanity in a big way!

I have just submitted my contribution to the large-board CV category
(called Cataclysm.)  I have tried to create a variant on a large board
(16x12) that develops quickly, has more strategy than tactics, has a lot
of interesting pieces of similar value that can be exchanged evenly, and
does not last hundreds of moves as large board games tend to.  The
submission should be approved soon.  It also features mostly short-range
pieces, so it easily fits in the Short-Range Project.

Alright, let's take a look at another piece series that will be on the
board, and also what may be a side issue: battlefield promotions. The
movement rules we're using allow us to easily create promotion ladders,
which are an arranged piece series. So we will lay out a piece series to
be used on the board in ascending order of piece power, and that order
will be our promotion ladder. 
Let's consider the modern elephant, generic 'written' description of
AF, or a combination of alfil and ferz. It's lowest 'rank' is modern
elephant, written here as A/F, to indicate it moves once only, as either
an alfil or a ferz. It's board icon is an elephant with an 'X' on its
side. 
When it achieves promotion, by capturing a piece or crossing a line, say,
it becomes a 2-step piece, the [linear] shaman, which moves as either A or
F or moves twice, in a straight line, once each as A and F, in either order
the player chooses. The basic elephant with X icon gets a square box drawn
around the X, and it's written A+F. 
The next promo is to the bent shaman, which moves like the shaman, except
that it can change direction between the first and second step of its
move. The icon is the elephant plus X with a circle around the X, and
it's written A +/- F. 
The next is to oliphant, a linear, 2-step, modern elephant-rider,
symbolized as the elephant plus X with 2 parallel speed lines on its side,
written as A/F + A/F. 
The final one is to twisted knight, the bent 2-step modern elephant rider.
The board icon is the elephant and X, with a 'Z' [2 parallel speed lines
connected by an angled crossbar] on its side, written as A/F +/- A/F.

[cont'd from prev:] Alright, what have we got? We have: a king and leaders
[guards]; queen; rook; bishop; knight; pawn; alfil, dabbabah, wazir; ferz
for our basic piece types. That's 11 basic icons, but all or most should
be familiar to players. We also have 5 Movement Patterns, 4 of which have
specific identifying mini-icons to be used on the piece icons. So we've
got 10 or 12 things to remember, and we don't have any medium-range
pieces yet. Oof! 
After a few brief moments of panic, I came up with this: Christine
Bagley-Jones made some fide icons with black diamond-shaped spots on them
to indicate they were shortrange pieces, moving as many squares as they
had dots. If I use those pieces and make each dot represent 4 squares of
movement, we have 2 sets of medium-range pieces, moving 8 and 12 squares,
at a cost of only 1 new movement pattern and icon. 
But there's still 13 things we gotta remember now, and we haven't taken
this stuff to the board yet. On the plus side, we have a very versatile
system with those 13 things, and many if not all are familiar. Each
individual component is simple, easily explained, and visually obvious.
This could work.

The first part of our 'shortrange pieces for longrange boards' discussion
has given us 5 basic piece types with 5 simple symbols for easy
combination. Combine the wazir and dabbabah into the warmachine. The
dabbabah icon is a wheeled tower and the wazir icon is a plus sign, so the
warmachine is a wheeled tower with a plus sign on its side. The generic
piece can be identified like this: 'DW'. This identifies the components
without specifying any particular movement pattern. Now let's define some
movement patterns with the help of this example piece. Then we associate
symbols with these patterns. Again, to keep things simple, we'll use the
basic movement patterns discussed in TSRP. 
1] Or. The warmachine may move as either one of its components, that is,
like a wazir or a dabbabah. It steps 1 orthogonally or leaps 2
orthogonally. As this is the simplest movement pattern, it doesn't need
anything extra on the piece icon. So a combo icon with no info other than
the various piece symbols may move as any one of the pictured pieces. This
can be distinguished in writing by the slash '/' symbol. Our piece
appears on the board as a wheeled tower with a plus sign on its side, and
in writing, it looks like this: 'D/W'.
2] And [linear]. The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It may not change direction during this move.
To the basic 'DW' icon, we will add a square around the central symbol.
In writing, we will indicate this by D+W.
3] And [nonlinear]. The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It *may* change direction during this move.
To the basic 'DW' icon, we will add a circle around the central symbol.
In writing, we will indicate this by a 'plus/minus' symbol: D +/- W.
4] And-Or [two-step linear rider]. Our basic DW piece may move as either
of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again. It may not change direction during this move. The basic
icon gets 2 'speed lines' on its side. Written, it uses the plus sign
between 2 of the [written] piece symbols: D/W + D/W
5] And-Or [two-step nonlinear rider]. Our basic DW piece may move as
either of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again. It *may* change direction during this move. The basic
icon gets 2 speed lines connected by a crossbar, making a 'Z' on the
piece side. Written, it uses the plus/minus sign between 2 of the
[written] piece symbols: D/W +/- D/W.

How do we get a good mix of pieces in a superlarge game without giving the
player too much to remember? This is a key make-or-break question. If we
want an interesting and playable game, we must do this part very well
indeed.
I've proposed a 2-part system. It combines a few basic piece types with a
few movement patterns to give a range of easily identifiable and usable
pieces to complement what we already have. At least, that's the theory.
Can I make it work in practice? [Boy, after all this, I sure hope so!]
Okay, since the pieces are shortrange, I'll steal the basics from The
ShortRange Project piece builder. Our first 4 piece types are the Wazir [1
square orthogonal step], the Ferz [1 square diagonal step], the Dabbabah [2
square orthogonal leap], and the alfil [2 square diagonal leap]. Their
piece icons are simple, obvious, easy to combine with each other, and
it's very easy to understand the resulting pieces. Now, let's strip the
knight from the longrange Fides, and put it in with the 4 basic Shorties,
where it really belongs. Yes, it's really a combo of wazir and ferz, but
the knight icon is all but universally recognized for standing for that
'wazir then outward ferz' move knights make. And it looks so much
prettier on a combined icon. [See the High priestess and Jumping general
pieces in the Grand Shatranj Alfaerie set and see what you think.] Now we
are 5.

We've discussed the king, and then lower-level leaders, represented by
guard icons. What do the armies they lead look like? The standard FIDE
pieces will appear, though not a lot of them. They're mostly longrange
pieces, so we want some, but not too many. Now we need some medium and
some shortrange pieces. Cut-down versions of the FIDE sliders will do for
a start, though we may want to do more later. The reasonable ranges for
these limited Bs, Rs and Qs would  be, say, 6, 8, 12. Now we get to the
shortrange pieces. We've got knights, pawns, and leaders so far. Knights
cover 8 of the 24 squares immediately [within 2] around them, and none of
the 8 adjacent squares. This is known as a very porous defense. Kings and
guards [leaders] cover the 8 adjacent squares, and nothing else. This is
known as the limited, or 'speed bump' defense. It only slows up your
opponent a little. We'll let some leaders move an extra square, but this
doesn't do much for our defense of these leaders against pieces that move
many times as fast. And pawns are not noted as dynamic or flexible
defensive units. We need some reasonably powerful shortrange pieces to
complement our long and medium range ones. But we've already got a
complete set of FIDEs. How much more can we comfortably deal with?

Thank you, David! That is a very useful bit of info to have; even with DSL,
the loading of all the pieces is annoying.

HOW TO TRICK THE [Exclude Pieces not in Setup:] BOX. Entering 'Shatranj Kamil*' in the Game Courier Game Logs [Game Filter:] produces the usual abandoned games and game(s) of 'Shatranj Kamil X'. Both Ferzes and Pawns promote on the 10th rank to Great Elephants, which are not in the original setup.

Replacing /10/ in the game preset with /4{.EF}{.ef}4/ put two Great Elephants (White and Black ) in the middle of the board, adding these pieces to the Available Pieces list near the bottom of the page.

Typing @-e5; @-f5 in the [Pre-Game:] BOX deleted those annoying extra pieces from the game board, before the first move was made. The starting position in my test game will demonstrate that the initial setup is correct AND the Great Elephants are still listed under Available Pieces.

[EDIT 2009] Typing 'empty e5 f5' in the [Pre-Game:] BOX is now the correct procedure.

One area that I think needs some exploration is the multi-move turn. In the
games I'm aware of, the extra moves are just sort of tacked onto the game
with no real attempt at rationale. Some games you move 2 pieces/turn, some
more, some depend on what your opponent did; sometimes the same piece can
move more than once, and capture, in other games if a capture is made, no
other move can be... Anyhow, no real attempt has been made to explain why
one rule or rule set was chosen over another. Being as conservative and
traditional in my outlook and design philosophy as I am, I felt the need
to change that, at least for me. So, in Chieftain, I changed 1 king to 4
leaders, and you *still* get as many moves per turn as you have leaders
left. Still? Well, chess has 1 leader with unlimited command control range
- you lose that leader, you don't get to make any more moves, game over.
But only 1 supreme leader, controlling pieces anywhere on the board,
mostly unlimited-range pieces, and a rather small world, only 8x8, to play
on - this FIDE chess is a very modern game reflective of the world we find
ourselves in today. Chieftain goes way back, when small bands of people
grouped together in tribes, and there was no 1 leader of all the people
for every circumstance. Commands were issued over shouting distance, and
to individuals. 
The superlarge I'm contemplating will fall in between these 2 extremes.
The 'high king' will be, like the FIDE king, checkmateable for victory
purposes and have unlimited command control range for any 1 piece per
turn. There will also be 2 more lower levels of leader, generals and
captains. These will command different numbers and strengths/types of
pieces, with command control ranges that would be roughly 5 and 10. I'd
also throw in a marshall, with the same command powers as the king. These
powers would include the ability to activate at least 1 local piece, as
well as the 1 unlimited-range activation.

David, you always did like the small boards... ;-) 16x24 is a nice size to
play on. I'm almost done realigning the pieces around on it, and I'll
save it for later developments as I'm pretty committed to minimum side
lengths of 20 squares for the example superlarge. I'd probably drop the
corner fort feature on the 'small' board, and maybe do something
interesting in the middle of each end; put a 'fort' with a few guards
and the king there, likely. Create a  sort of Eastern version, maybe.
Anyway, when I'm done putting this initial 16x24 board together, I'll
check the 'exclude' box and send you the URL for you to play around
with, too. Any ideas on how movement will work? Multi or single? Ranges? 
I still have to work on the intermediates, too. My first thought was
cut-down FIDE sliders. These pieces will work. I'm not as sure about
building up shortrange pieces. And I don't want to get into any tricky
stuff with pieces, no fancy captures or special powers, just 'capture as
you move, by replacement'. For a big game to be easily playable, the
parts need to be as simple as possible. That will probably always be the
hardest part of the design for me, staying simple enough for good/great
playability in the final product.

CHECKING THE 'Exclude Pieces not in Setup:' BOX will spare my 56K modem the task of loading around 1200 piece GIFs. I have not been following your recent Big Games because of this loading problem, also Windows 98 has bottlenecks associated with holding that many pictures in RAM. My 1280x1024 screen can display all of a 24x16 board, so this is where I would:

remove the groups of pieces in the lower left [a1-e5] and upper right [t20-x24] corners,

go for a GIANT Burmese Chess (Mir Chess 32) setup by pulling the a-f file pieces down 3 ranks and pushing the s-x file pieces up 3 ranks,

remove the now-empty ranks 1-4 and 21-24 to get a GIANT Courier Chess board. Perhaps bring the center groups closer together (gap of 6 ranks instead of 8).

Well, you should have been expecting a weird response! By the way, my previous post wimps out on the crucial subject of medium range pieces: the Half-Rose can advance (3,3) or (4,0) or (6,0) along its twisted journey.

Hello, David. Like your numbers and basic concept for piece numbers and
placement. Following is the URL for my testbed 24x24:
/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DFortress+Chess%26settings%3Dfortresschess1
The setup is basically just weak pieces so far [still need several icons
made for this], and sketches in the general outlines of the force sizes
and dispositions. Currently I plan to put small, powerful forces in the
corner forts, weak and medium-strength pieces in the corps flanking each
army, maybe add a few pieces immediately behind the army on the board,
keeping them short and medium range pieces, and put the high king, his
marshall, guards, and the elite troops and reserve behind the steward
wall. This setup minimizes the initial effects of unlimited sliders, and
will have about 80-100 pieces/side, of which about 25-30 or so pieces will
be 'fortress' pieces, ie: formations of wazirs and stewards, and their
leaders. I will also add an alternate frontline setup, with only one
flanking corps per side, on opposite flanks. Finally, the formations of
wazirs and stewards are the forerunners of a new type of 'piece',
consisting of several mostly shortrange pieces and a leader unit specific
to them that they must be in 'contact' with to move. These would be
'Autonomous Multiple Pieces', or AMPs. While the 2 examples I've
discussed so far are simple and slow, if these amps evolve a bit [a 3rd
piece would be 6 forward-only ferzes and their leader - to make it a
better attack piece, up the number of its components allowed to move each
turn], their natural habitat would likely be on boards of side 30-50. I
see them evolving specific organs [pieces] for attack, defense, and
movement. But they are for later, larger games. I'd call those variants
'Amoeba Chess', but that name is taken by a game [by Jim Aikin; preset
by A. Sibahi] that has a board that changes shape slowly, so maybe I'll
go with something like 'Puddle Chess', where 2 groups of 1-celled
critters fight it out for control of a splash of water on a city sidewalk.
First, however, I have to finish this 'proof-of-concept' 24x24 game.
[Anybody taking bets on how the game comes out? I got a couple bucks to
put down... ;-) ]

I am thinking of lines of 12 Pawns (or 10 Pawns flanked by a Ferz on each end) on the 5th and 12th ranks on a 16x16 board. Could be as little as two lines of ten pieces each on ranks 3 and 4 (also 13 and 14). That results in 32 pieces per side and 75 percent empty squares. Perhaps Pawns could promote on ranks 3 and 14. Time to crunch some numbers ... first some 8x8 board values:

Pawn=100, Ferz=170, Silver General=280, Commoner=400

(FA)=250, (WD)=275, Knight=300, Free Padwar=320, Lion(HFD)=525

Cannon=250, Bishop=300, Rook=500, Archbishop(BN)=700, Queen=900.

Now I am going to adjust these values for 16x16 by using multipliers scaled by the square root of two (16/8). Observe:

[0.707] Pawn=75(?), Ferz=120, Silver General=200, Commoner=275

[1.000] (FA)=250, (WD)=275, Knight=300, Free Padwar=320, Lion(HFD)=525

[1.414] Cannon=350, Bishop=425, Rook=700, Archbishop(BN)=1000, Queen=1250.

[Hey, David. Looking forward to seeing your designs at larger sizes.
Apparently we have some agreement on pieces.]
How do you get enough piece variety in a superlarge to make the game
worthwhile without overloading the player with reams of rules? One way is
to establish some basic piece types and modify each of them with a few
different movement rules. To make this work, you must have a good, clear,
simple, easily understandable symbology to go along with your good, clear,
simple, easily understandable and short [for playability] rules. So we
start by using David Howe's Alfaerie icons, something that is most likely
very familiar to anyone who plays variants and would be reading this, and
if not, the info is easily accessible. They are clear, simple, easily
distinguishable, and easily modifiable, all great virtues for any game
designer. Then we add a few simple symbols to the mix, that modify the
piece moves.
What sorts of pieces will we have? Let's look at '8 of Everything'
[which actually has 8 of each FIDE piece, but 24 pawns per side] for some
ideas. It's got 8 kings and 24 pawns, 32 pieces that move 1 square/turn.
It's got 8 knights, which move 2 squares/turn. It's got 24 bishops,
rooks, and queens, which as unlimited sliders, move up to 23 squares/turn.
That's it. Now, admittedly, the bishops, rooks, and queens can move any
number of squares up to their maximum, but there does seem to be a gaping
hole in movement ranges between 1, 2, and 23. We want some
intermediate-range pieces [well, I do, anyhow] to justify blowing the FIDE
board up to 9 times its proper size. And a decent piece mix; Bs, Rs and Qs
are all right in their place, but with all that space, we want a decent
amount of shorter-range pieces, including some cut-down FIDES and some
shortrange point and area covering pieces. 
Finally, we want a few kinds of leaders. Top dog is the king, but we will
also use other leader pieces. Every leader will be allowed to move 1 piece
under its command and within its [limited] command range every turn. This
should take care of little problems like how we work multi-move turns and
how to tame queens that can move 23 squares/turn.

My thanks to M. Winther for starting this thread back on [2006-04-22].

My chessvariant activities take me farther and farther away from the FIDE piece set. I have a few general ideas on using Shatranj strength pieces on a 16x16 board, with stalemate counting as a victory. Perhaps 30 to 48 pieces on each side, arranged in two 'ISLAND KINGDOMS' surrounded by empty squares. See Chess on a 12 by 12 board for a similar (but smaller) setup.

Is it legitimate to use Chieftain Chess as a springboard to superlarge
games? Let's look at some numbers. My superlarge testbed is 24x24, for
576 squares. FIDE is 8x8 for 64 squares. CC is 12x16, for 192 squares,
exactly 1/3 the size of the superlarge and 3 times the size of the
standard, a perfect halfway point. While this guarantees nothing, it is a
good sign. Our only concerns now are that there is some kind of
discontinuity between large and superlarge that invalidates the
extrapolations, or that I just screw up doing the extrapolations, and get
bad results. I consider the second more likely. 
Pieces: FIDE/CC = 16/32 so triple the size, double the piece count...
gives us 64 pieces as a reasonable number. This is a bit higher than our
goal of around 50 pieces per side, and a bit lower than I expect the final
tally for the game I'm looking at. I figure around 100 or so per side.
[Background info: This game has been in concept for a while. It's a
large/superlarge variant of Gary Gifford's 6 Fortresses. Hi, Gary!
Remember what happened with our argument on Go and Chess? Now I got myself
in the same situation with Mats about large boards and compound pieces.
Glad you got me thinking about a very large version of 6F a while back -
thanks!] 
Types of pieces: FIDE/CC = 6/5 This, I believe, is one of those tricky
extrapolations - at least, I hope it is, because I plan to seriously bend
if not break this one in my test game. I certainly don't expect to have
only 4 different piece types in an example superlarge chess variant. In
fact, I am going to try to cheat, and introduce a range of pieces, by
adding not just some more pieces, but classes of pieces. The correct
extrapolation here is to *not* have a large number of different piece
types that are difficult to keep track of; one could comfortably keep
track of maybe 10 different kinds of pieces. To add the variety of pieces
a superlarge should have [otherwise, why bother?], we'll have to find a
workaround.

One of the nice things about this site is that you can get so many
different opinions. Sometimes I like a good design challenge, and the
superlarge game poses such challenges. To make it more interesting, I want
to use the FIDE unlimited sliders in the game, because they are 'too
powerful', and I want to design a new composite/compound/whatever piece
to be used in the game, too. [I can also juggle a little.] Oh, and the
game should be reasonably easy to learn and play, and not take too long.
There! Have I left anything out?
Okay, now just how will this be done? Anybody got any ideas? ... Figured
I'd start with Chieftain Chess, a successful [can be played without much
difficulty] 12x16 variant. Notice I'm defining 'success' very broadly;
maybe not broadly enough. Ultima/Baroque is an awesome game that it's
designer says is not playable without difficulty. As a game, it's not
necessarily successful; as a design, it is wildly successful, spawning
several excellent variants of its own. I'll be happy to get a game
that's playable, and I'm willing to leave that decision to others.
What are the characteristics of Chieftain that make it a viable game?
It's somewhat unusual for a chess variant. It's a multi-mover; each side
getting 4 moves per turn, to start. It does not have a single royal piece,
a king. Instead, it uses 4 semi-royal pieces, chiefs, all of which must be
captured to win. It uses command control [pieces are required to be
'activated' by a leader to move]. It has a low starting piece density:
33%. It only uses 5 different pieces. There are no pawns and no promotions
in this game. I think only the last feature has nothing to do with why the
game works. I also believe that every other feature listed is all but a
requirement for a successful superlarge game.

Large boards are certainly difficult to work on successfully; with all that
scope, you have much more room for error. And you also run into a problem
of scaling vs. playability. Any sorts of simplistic extrapolations to
large size will run into a host of problems, many of which translate to
tedium. A certain creativity is called for, a walk off the beaten path.
That walk may often end tangled in brambles or floundering in a sinkhole,
but sometimes it will lead to places you only thought you'd see in your
dreams. I've seen some of David Paulowich's ideas. I think he'll come
out with a game that meets his high standards and is in keeping with his
design philosophy. I'll wish him luck, but I doubt he'll need it. I
will, looking seriously at superlarge variants, games in the 20x20 to
30x30 range, just above my posted games range of 8x8 to 19x19. Got some
practice, and think there are some guides to successful [2D] supergames. 
Moving multiple pieces per turn should speed the game up.
Don't get carried away with pieces or piece types. Too many of either
makes the game unplayable. Strict scaling to a 600 square board would give
each side 150 pieces, which is probably ridiculous. Around 50 pieces is
probably a good number as a general rule; this seems manageable.
Balance the pieces to the size of the game. Using standard FIDE pieces and
piece ratios is probably a bad idea. 'Eight of Everything' chess would
fit nicely on a 24x24 board:
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
RNBBNRRNBBNRRNBBNRRNBBNR
xxxxQQQQKKKKKKKKQQQQxxxx
All FIDE rules are in effect except:
1 castling, as the Ks and Rs are not aligned for it;
2 victory, which has new  conditions, primarily by capturing all your
opponents kings before you lose all yours;
3 movement, because you must move a different piece for each king you have
remaining on the board each turn, or you lose.
It's even got 64 pieces, fitting nicely with our general principle. But I
don't think it would play very well. It violates too many other principles
to be a realy good game. Enough for now, more later.

Hey, Andy, your question in our game about 10x10s prompted me to do 2
'kitchen sink'-type large game presets, a 10x10 and a 12x12. Because I
had an overstock of shortrange pieces, most of them my own, I used them in
the presets. Jeremy Good and I are pushing pieces in both. Should you be
interested in taking a look, here are the URLs:
/play/pbm/play.php?game=Lemurian+Great+Shatranj&log=joejoyce-judgmentality-2007-52-159
/play/pbm/play.php?game=Lemurian+Greater+Shatranj&log=joejoyce-judgmentality-2007-53-827
The non-standard pieces are described in 'Two Large Shatranj Variants'
and 'Lemurian Shatranj'. On the 12x12, I tried to create a smallish,
balanced, very powerful shortrange army. Each rank back increases in
power. While the 10x10 has decently strong pieces, its unusual feature is
the different pairings of pieces. There are 8 pairs of identical pieces,
and those 16 pieces, along with the remaining 4, also form 6 families of
similar pieces. These include 4 pairs of colorbound pieces which form 2
families. I'm trying to break a few stereotypes with these games.
Probably just proving I'm crazy instead.

i really like bug board cv's and am actually building one that is based
off  hawaian chess and mideast chess and centennial chess

The discussion on board sizes in the Infinite Chess comments is very
interesting for what it does not have, in spite of several versions of
'infinite' chess and the efforts of George Jelliss and Ralph Betza.
There is nothing that approaches infinite, although Ralph Betza's
'chessboard of chessboards' [64 8x8 chessboards arranged in an 8x8
array] with its 512-square sides and over a quarter million squares does
give you a little area to play in. But all the 'infinite' boards have
limitations on how far away from other pieces any piece can move [making
Mr. Betza's behemoth the largest actual board discussed]. They have
flexible boundaries that can stretch and extend in any direction, but all
the games have a finite number of pieces, so there is a maximum area the
pieces can occupy if they are required to be within a specified distance
of other pieces. Even if the requirement is merely being within some
distance of one other friendly or enemy piece, and the pair of pieces go
racing out across the 2D plain, 2 pieces don't take up a lot of room. And
the rules tend to be written so that isolated pair cannot happen. The
average size of these boards is probably under 20x20. Even with more
pieces, the size probably wouldn't get much above 30x30, the total board
area being near 1000 squares. This is wargame size. A chess board is
generally about 100 squares in area (~30-300), and a wargame, about 1000
(~300-3000), very roughly. While there are some exceptions, this is
accurate. Just not precise. Apparently, 'infinite' for chess variants
means 'as big as a wargame.'

Tony, just saw the Go preset in 'What's new'. Thank you. Joe

I went ahead an added a 9x9 board.

For those who wished for a Go preset to try Chess variants on, here it is
(19x19): 

http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MPgo

Let me know what other features you would like, 9x9 board? 

The piece set I am using was created by Larry L. Smith for his 3-d ZRF's
and only has the standard chess set. If anyone wishes to have other
pieces, perhaps they could create some (they are very small and easy to
modify).

Gary, I'd be very happy to have you and anyone else who wishes playtest
this baby bear. Thanks. Joe

Joe: I do not mind play testing your GoChess on a 9x9 board.  My statement
regarding that this type of game was not for me was in reference to a 19 x
19 standard Go Board with future Wazirs and Ferzs dropped onto the board...
to play test such a game on a 9 x 9 grid is fine with me... However, should
there be others who want to play test the game,by all means give them
preference over me. I wish you well with this game.

Go Chess; hard to think of many outside of Vulcans or mentats, or somesuch,
who would actually play this game. It has every feature/suffers from every
flaw of big CVs. If done right, it may even add a new sin to the big CV
list. *It's extremely logical. You're in control. You can build every
piece and board position step by step yourself. *It's excruciatingly
slow. You have to build every piece and board position step by step. It'd
take Deep Blue to have even a chance at 'mentally' organizing the chaos
on the board to plan even a little ahead. HAL wouldn't have a chance. ;-)
*You will have a large number of pieces and types of pieces to contest
with, making for rich tactical opportunities and strategic play. *You will
have to wade thru legions of the opponent's pieces before you even get
close to the king. This last contrast has a direct bearing on any large
CV. There is always the temptation to load up the board with pieces; they
look so empty with 100 - 200 empty squares and 30 - 50 pieces. But you can
cut to the chase fairly quickly; you don't have to exchange your first two
rows of pieces with your opponents before you can get down to serious
maneuvering. Being up a queen in Grand Chess is far more meaningful than
being ahead 7 - 6 in queens in '8 of everything' chess. 
But not all big games have to feature goodly numbers of power pieces. Try
a big game with pieces that only move 4-5 squares at most; see what
that's like. Different piece strengths give different game flavors. Most
large games have pieces that move across the board, knights, and the
king/man piece(s). That's so one-sided. 
How many pieces is too many? Most would say it's a matter of taste, but I
think measuring piece numbers against playability will at least give use a
useable product, which is a consideration. I think it's a sin to put
pieces on a board just to fill in spaces. Either get rid of the spaces or
find a more creative use for them. David Paulowich has used the first
method, of getting rid of spaces, and creates tight, intense games on 8x8
boards. I've attempted the second, with some unusual board design, but so
far met with less success. Doesn't mean I'm wrong, just means I have to
try harder.
Now, with all that being said, I kinda like GoChess. Anyone interested in
discussing rules attempting idea playtesting? A 9x9 to 13x13 would be a
decent size to try things out. Done right, it could be almost choked with
pieces of widely varying powers in semi-random starting positions. So
I've got nothing (other than what's in the first paragraph;) against
large games with all the trappings. I'll offer all my opponents in this
debate a new big CV, goChess, to atone for my heresies. Except you, Gary.
:-) For you, I got another game, Lemurian Shatranj, featuring some new
moderate-range pieces, because you already said goChess is not your style.
I promise you'll find Lemurian Shatranj intriguing, buddy. :-) Enjoy   Joe

I like your idea, Joe.

There is another variant somewhat germane to this discussion, and that is
'Diffusion Chess' by the brilliant and highly creative Alexandre Muñiz
famous in part for the invention of the Windmill piece. Someone should
definitely create a GO Board for the Game Courier preset so we can try
out some of these nifty chess-go variants. 

http://www.chessvariants.org/32turn.dir/diffusionchess.html

I do believe Joe is on the right track now regarding GO and Chess Variants.
 Changing GO pieces to Wazirs and Ferz would make it a Chess and GO Variant
at the same time.  But that is not a game for me.

GO has been played as it is for about 4000 years, and I still enjoy
playing GO by its intended ancient rules.  To get Chess, I simply play
'Chess.'  But Go variants are out there.  Games like Pente, Go-Moku,
Orthello, etc.  There is certainly room for Joe's new GO-Variant idea.

GO CHESS

Was well into the second mile of my walk, just past the local police and
fire stations, when my comment to Gary about Go being just a ferz and
wazir movement away from chess ran through my head, bringing the following
train of thought. Play a game of Go. As you put your stones down, mark them
with either an 'X' for ferz or a '+' for wazir. A stone gets an X if it
is not connected to any friendly stones when it is placed. It gets a + if
it is connected to one or more friendly stones. Captured pieces lose their
markings. When the Go game is over, the captured stones are used to fill
territory, the Go score is calculated, and the captured stones are removed
from the board. Then the chess game starts. White moves one piece either
along a line to the next intersection, W, or diagonally across a square to

the opposite corner intersection, F. Last person with pieces wins the
chess game, and scores one point per piece left. The total score is
figured as the sum of the two. Still not chess, but getting there. Okay,
no king? Make all the pieces pretenders. The last one left on a side gets
promoted to king, with a king's W+F move. Still not chess? Drop the Go
scoring. Play Go only for chesspiece placement, using all the rules of
placement, capture, and when the game ends; but no score. More pieces?
Allow a friendly piece to move onto and combine with another friendly
piece. The N is a W-then-F mover, for example. Combos of Fs could build
alfils, elephants, and bishops. Combos of Ws are dabbabahs and rooks. You
could even set aside a certain number of moves at the beginning of the
movement portion of the game to be used only for combining moves. You
might even restrict all combining moves to this part of the game. You
could have to make a single king, also. Now, you place your piece atoms
and fight to destroy your opponents atoms in the placement stage, build
your complex pieces in the combo stage, then play chess in the movement
stage. This is Go morphed into chess, but where did it cross the line?

Okay, Gary, I stand chastened. 'Scum of the Earth reporting for
barnacle-scraping duty.' I meant no offense in relating what most 19th
century men thought about the general abilities and capacities of women
and children, conveyed in the form of a game deliberately dumbed down to
allow for their 'innate inferiority'. And I included computers in that
disadvantaged group with Los Alamos chess - a 6x6 game dumbed down for the
early computers. I was implicitly contrasting statements from the past with
what we know now. I don't think I could beat today's computers, either.
You wouldn't need a Deep Blue to beat me, a shallow HAL would be more
than adequate. ;-)
Your note made my morning. I'll try to be better, but I'm not a serious
person, so I may slip. I am, however, a serious designer - you know I'd
love to design games professionally, but it's a killer field to break
into with no computer skills. So I enjoy what I do and maybe some day,
I'll get lucky. In the meantime, I have a deep interest in the theory and
practice of game design. And this topic of big board CV's, while I
undoubtedly will never make a penny selling chess variants, is something I
find extremely interesting and very useful. You've seen a couple of my
non-chess games, Spaceships and 4War. I see very strong connections
between them and chess, on more than one level. 4War grew out of
Hyperchess. And I'm just starting to explore a Spaceships chess variant.
So I don't see a sharp line between 'genres'. They cross-pollinate. 
I'm very interested in this topic, but I'd like to see a number of
approaches to big board variants. For example, I oppose adding pieces
because there's more room on the board. (This is undoubtedly a minority
position, however. So I'm working to get the viewpoint adequately
represented and examined.) And I oppose having a large number of different
pieces because you've got all these pieces you just added because you had
more room and now you're trying to figure out what to do with them. This
affects playability in many ways. And I think playability is the first
consideration of game design. Not the only, but the first. Enjoy. Joe

Joe, when you tell a joke, remember to keep the humor density above 50%,
otherwise you have a JV (Joke Variant) which is hard to laugh at and can
offend.  Of course, when this happens the JV inventor usually comes back
and says something like, 'Wake up, I was joking.'  Or, 'You took me
seriously?'

So, how are we to know that the GO comparison to large CVs is not a joke? 
In fact, that is more humorus to me than is the ladies/kid comment.

As for your statement:  '... after the 2 extremely bitter and
hard-fought draws I've played against zcherryz, if you think I'd
seriously maintain men are innately better than women at chess, you're
crazier than I am.'
Response: I think you implied that particular conclusion with your
computer, kids, ladies 6x6 statement.  Interesting that your Zcherryz draw
is only mentioned after-the-fact.

Hi, Gary! You always take me so seriously. :-) 
 1 You've defined 'large, medium and small' in reference to FIDE. Okay,
then I stand by my initial statement. ;-)
 2 On women, children, and early computers: When I did a bit of research
on 6x6 a while back, as well as Los Alamos Chess, I ran into variants from
the 1800's that were specifically designed as easy chess for the ladies
and (precocious?) children. First, I will say, for the record, I am a New
York liberal, living smack dab in the middle of the NY metro area, on the
east bank of the Hudson River. Then I will (gently) point out that the
line you object to was sarcastic, and that NY liberals (even if they are
only fake liberals and don't really mean it) are not likely to seriously
espouse such a position. Second, after the 2 extremely bitter and
hard-fought draws I've played against zcherryz, if you think I'd
seriously maintain men are innately better than women at chess, you're
crazier than I am. And as far as kids, I'm 58. I have a 32 year-old son
and a daughter who will be 25 in 25 days, and comes off our car insurance!
As far as I'm concerned, probably most of the people on this site are
kids. And I can tell ya, I'm certainly not beating them all. :-)
On the serious side, we do have a few points of agreement, in that we both
apparently feel (from what you said) that 8x8 is actually the smallest
decent size for a game. [Before the winners of the 44, 43, 42... square
contests kill me en masse, let me admit to a number of awesome small
exceptions discussed some other time.] And we can agree to call 10x10 and
20x20 'large'. But I still maintain that a large board gives much
greater scope for elegant simplicity. Too many pieces can muddy the theme;
you might as well play a wargame. [I design those, too.]
As always, these discussions with you get me thinking. Enjoy! Joe

I had figured I'd comment no further on this subject.... but, I can't
resist on a few points.

Joe stated:  '...And 10x10, or 20x20, is not 'large' - for
square, even-numbered boards, 8x8 is about the smallest size that gives a
decent game -'
Response: Board size is relative.  Most chess players would consider a 10
x 10 variant (100 squares vs 64) to be large.  20 x 20 also is large,
relative to an 8x8 board (which appears to be the 'standard' of measure
since we are talking about chess variants.

Joe continues: '.... clearly 2x2 and 4x4 are useless,'
Response: I'll not argue that.

Joe continues, ' and 6x6 is 'the easy game for the ladies and children'

Response: Ouch!  If the Polgar sisters could hear that, and Maria Ivanka
(9 times Hungarian Woman's Champion.  And if the young child prodigies
could see that statement...' So, I disaprove of that statement.  Many
women and children do quite well, very well, on the 8x8 board.  I am
confident that gender and age do not limit ones performance to certain
small games.

Joe continued: For odd numbered boards, 5x5 is useless, and 7x7 is Navia
Dratp.
Response: Navia Dratp makes use of a 7x7 battlefield.  But there is a 1 x
7 Keep behind the north and south edge... as well as a 'graveyard' and 2
economic crystal-regions per side.  So a mere 7x7 board is a little
misleading.

Joe also writes: 'Please, define your terms. ;-)'
Response: I mainly wanted to defend the honor of ladies and children in
this comment, following the 6x6 remark.  I have no terms to define.  Best
regards to all.

Hi, Gary. A good part of our difference is merely a semantic debate. I,
too, agree with the ideas you express: 'My point was simply that large
boards are a good home for long-range pieces and more types of pieces.'
That's 100% accurate, and I agree with you. My problem here is how you
define 'large', and if greater numbers, longer ranges, and more
different pieces are required by larger (not 'large') boards. The point
about Go is that a 19x19 board is small enough that 2 players merely
putting unmoving stones on the board one at a time in alternating turns is
a good game. And it isn't even chess. My 16x16 4D game uses only a
standard FIDE piece set, with close to FIDE moves, and starts with a piece
density of 12.5% My 9x21 game starts with a piece density of 19%. Grand
Chess, as well as 2 of my large shatranj variants, all start with a 40%
piece density on a 10x10 board. Maybe my argument here is one of
aesthetics. Larger boards do not require larger numbers of pieces. Elegant
simplicity is a valuable goal in game design, for it increases the
playability of the game. And 10x10, or 20x20, is not 'large' - for
square, even-numbered boards, 8x8 is about the smallest size that gives a
decent game - clearly 2x2 and 4x4 are useless, and 6x6 is 'the easy game
for the ladies and children' and early computers, so 8x8 is the bottom.
For odd numbered boards, 5x5 is useless, and 7x7 is Navia Dratp. Still not
much room below 8x8, and 7x7's can have their bishop setup problems.
Please, define your terms. ;-)
On piece 'powers' - this is where I was tongue-in-cheek, in describing
pieces with diminishing *linear* ranges. On a 4x4x4x4 board*, you can only
possibly go 3 at most from your starting position in any one direction, but
you have a lot of directions in which to go. A simple rook, moving
linearly, can reach 12 positions on this board. A knight, in the middle,
can reach 23, using only its 'L-shaped' move. Even from a corner, it
reaches 12. *Of course, the board is actually physically 16x16, divided
into 4x4 sections, and movement rules simulate the 4x4x4x4 board, but you
could use Great Shatranj pieces, none of which move more than 2 squares,
quite successfully on that board. 
I am not arguing against any position as much as I'm arguing for mine. If
you say 10x10 is big, and requires at least 25 pieces per side to maintain
the 50% starting density, and we need amazons at least, then I'm arguing
against you. ;-) Enjoy. Joe (and I know I left a lot out, but next time)

Jeremy: Thanks for the game compliments for Joe and me.  Much appreciated. 
On your other note: I looked briefly at Gess, and noticed that those stones
move and that I will need to revisit the rules to get a better feel for
that game.

In regard to the other conversation (with Joe), Joe stated, 'I look at a
game as (almost always) having 3 components, pieces, rules and board. Go
stones, X's and O's, chessmen, they're all the same in this view, the
game pieces. The difference is in the rules: the 1st two
games' play involves placing the pieces on the board in an advantageous
way; chess already has the pieces on the board, play involves moving the
pieces advantageously.'

Response: But GO stones, X's, and O's, unlike chess pieces, lack
mobility once placed... it is the 'zero-mobility' that is of interest
here.

My point was simply that large boards are a good home for long-range
pieces and more types of pieces.  Saying that this is not the case by
using GO for comparision is where I disagree, simply because GO (as it has
existed for 4,000 years) is simply not a Chess-like game.  The fact that
pieces do not move is very important here.

So I am more inclined to look at Turkish Great Chess from the 1700's,
Freeling's Grand Chess, Trice's Gothic Chess, etc. when discussing Big
Board CVs.  And though GO uses a big board, it still is not a CV.  On a
related note, I am playing a game of Duke of Rutland.  It is a large
variant with conventional pieces and one excpetion piece (moves like a
Rook or King) ... to me that board's size is almost crying for more
mowerful pieces and a few different piece types.  To replace existing
pieces with shorter range ones, or to reduce the exisiting (limited
variety) would make that game worse.

Hey, Jeremy - yes I have looked at Gess, and I think it's an excellent
idea that hurts my head. Simple, brilliant, and leading to possibly
mind-boggling complexity. I like it and I'm afraid to play it. I see LL
Smith wrote a zillions implementation for it; I'd recommend checking it
out. Michael Howe mentioned being interested a year ago... maybe someone
is now. I suspect it's easily as much a game of pattern recognition as it
is a game of chess. 
ps: if you like my games, you're easily impressed - admittedly, I like
'em, but everyone who knows me knows I'm easily impressed - enjoy ;-)
pps: Gess is a great example of an 18x18 with delightfully simple pieces
and rules. I'm almost tempted to play it.

Hi, Gary. Okay, you said: 'I am inclined to agree with the opinion
that larger boards can more easily accomodate pieces with greater
mobility... and that multi-move turns are more at home on such boards...
as are larger numbers of different piece types.' Me, too. I just felt
that two things were being fluffed over. One is how big 'big' is; and
the other has to do with designing increasing numbers of pieces and powers
as you increase board size. I personally feel 8x8 is small; but I don't
agree that larger boards mean more pieces. I think an often more elegant
solution is to use a few pieces on a large board. This allows the workings
of the pieces and the board to stand out more clearly. This is, of course,
personal preference only. 
Where I differ from you is in 2 other statements: 'But still, I would not
consider the GO stones as chess pieces any more than I would consider the
'X' and 'O' of tic-tac-toe to be pieces' and 'The fact that GO
pieces work well on a 19 x 19 board has no signifigance to chess pieces.'
Those two statements go right to the foundation of my design philosophy.
When I first decided to design games seriously, I thought about what any
game was, how to look at it, and where I could stake out a unique
position. I look at a game as (almost always) having 3 components, pieces,
rules and board. Go stones, X's and O's, chessmen, they're all the same
in this view, the game pieces. The difference is in the rules: the 1st two
games' play involves placing the pieces on the board in an advantageous
way; chess already has the pieces on the board, play involves moving the
pieces advantageously. 
The above is a gross simplification, but this post is already long. I'll
finish by suggesting that Go pieces are only a shift from wazirs and
ferzes. In conceptual space, Go is fairly close to one 'side' of chess,
and  'Little Wars' or Axis and Allies are roughly on the other side of
chess, fairly close, along the complexity line. Tic-tac-toe is on the
other side of Go from chess and the other games along that complexity
line. Enjoy. Joe

Hi, Joe and Gary. I'm a huge fan of both of you and your chess variant
contributions. There is a chess / go combo that really has me fascinated
and I'm wondering whether either of you have checked it out. It's called
Gess.

http://www.chessvariants.com/crossover.dir/gess.html

Joe:  Thanks for the elaboration.  It clarifies things quite a bit.  As for
GO, I am familiar with it and am currently playing a game of it over the
internet.  But still, I would not consider the GO stones as chess pieces
any more than I would consider the 'X' and 'O' of tic-tac-toe to be
pieces.  The fact that GO pieces work well on a 19 x 19 board has no
signifigance to chess pieces.  I am inclined to agree with the opinion
that larger boards can more easily accomodate pieces with greater
mobility... and that multi-move turns are more at home on such boards...
as are larger numbers of different piece types.

Hey, Gary! Agreed Go is not a chess variant. It is at once much simpler and
more complex than chess. I was using it as an example of a 'large' board
game that has about the simplest, least powerful pieces possible. They
just exist, they don't even move. The game is played 1 stone at a time.
For those of us who are not experts, there isn't even a clearly defined
end to the game. But it is an awesome game, and conceptually much simpler
than chess. On a big board. Consider it a point in game-space, that
nebulous conceptual area where all games reside, just outside a boundary
of chess. It's like 'Little Wars' in that respect, using much of the
trappings of chess-like games, but being clearly outside the boundary. So
we can define 'chess' by triangulation, if you like, or not, if not.
As to my statement about the size & range trend, it was in strict reference to my
designs. I apologize for not making that clear. Specifically, with
reference to Hyperchess, Walkers and Jumpers, and my large shatranj
variants, the statement is [reasonably] true. BTW, I hope you like the new
piece designs for Grand Shatranj, Gary. 
I will admit to being somewhat tongue-in-cheek in my whole approach to
this topic, though. Just because they're attacking my whole design
philosophy of minimalism and simplicity is not reason enough to get all
exercised. ;-)
Enjoy. Joe

I doubt that there is much value in discussing GO in relation to chess
variants large or small. There are many large chess variants with a
variety of 'moving pieces' and Kings.  GO is simply not a chess variant.
 But, perhaps Joe is being sarcastic?

In regard to his statement that 'the general trend is the larger the
board, the fewer the pieces, and the ranges in 'linear' distance often
decrease' ... that certainly seems opposite of what I've seen.  But,
subtle jokes and sarcasm are plenty in the comments these days, so,
perhaps Joe is just having some fun here.

Gentlemen, let me stick an oar into these murky waters. My first question
is: what do you mean by 'big board'? If you accept FIDE as the standard,
then anything above 8x8 is 'big'. I would argue against that and the
ideas that you need really powerful pieces, or even many pieces, and more
than 1 move per turn. (At least up to, say 25x25 ;-) At 19x19, Go does
quite well with merely putting non-moving pieces on the board one at a
time. I've worked at 'large' sized boards (10x8, 10x10, 9x21, 16x16)
and, now that I'm looking at it, the general trend is the larger the
board, the fewer the pieces, and the ranges in 'linear' distance often
decrease, but that's because the 9x21 is conceptually also 3x3x3x7 and
the 16x16 is similarly also 4x4x4x4, so you can't go very far in any one
'direction'. Okay, you might think that last bit is all bs, but Go still
elegantly demonstrates you don't need powerful pieces for a large board.
And the 9x21 game (189 cells) is a chancellor chess variant using only the
standard 9 pieces and pawns per side of chancellor chess. The 16x16 game
(256) uses only the standard 8 pieces and pawns of FIDE per side. 
Andy Thomas has made some excellent points. I think he's right in all of
them. I just need to know what size we're talking about, and am curious
about the line between chess and wargames, like say 'Axis and Allies'. I
would recommend HG Wells book 'Little Wars' as an excellent example of
what is clearly over the line. (It's also got great photos.)

Hello to all,

I am wondering if here at non extreme competition site some answer is
given. Stirred recently the BrainKing site because of claim? of some to
have seen Fischer on large chess variant of Gothical Chess? Does know
anyone about this? Game found here showing

http://www.gothicchesslive.com/javascript/game.php?gameid=750

Can other say if Fischer is playing the one here? Sorry my Englisch is
not
the better!

(Just uploaded a little improvement on my Twinmove Chess.)

Hi Mats, the Help -> About should show: Version 1.3.4 - 0302, and User:
Donationware Version - donate ! Otherwise you are starting an outdated
version, e.g. within an old second SMIRF folder. Reinhard.

http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html 

P.S.: SMIRF does not play like a fool. But it is answering in 0 seconds,
if there is no valid key. The Donationware has its permanent key included.

Has somebody managed to get SMIRF to function under Win98SE? It runs, but
plays like a fool, and one cannot change time-setting. I've deinstalled,
removed old ini-files, an reinstalled. But it doesn't work.

Mats

Mats, happy to see, that SMIRF is running now. But it seems, as if you have
installed it into an existing folder containing outdated *.INI files. So
unistall SMIRF, delete that folder and install again. Then you should be
able to set bigger timings, too. Regards, Reinhard.

Hi Mats! Since some week SMIRF's development environment has been changed
from Borland C++ Builder 6 to Borland Developer Studio 2006 - and it still
is beta. Thus it easily could happen, that not everything is as it should
be. Nevertheless any bad experiences there not have been reported yet
beside of your missed DLL. It would be helping to learn about that DLL's
name. Thank you!
P.S.: please note your OS version, too. Thank you.
P.P.S.: there is a new setup now including the file 'borlndmm.dll'.

'Can't get SMIRF to work because there is a dll missing.'
____________________________________________________

Please notify the developer of SMIRF, Reinhard Scharnagl.
He really cares about correcting flaws.

Meanwhile ...

1.  Try to run the program again.
[Note-  It will not run.]

2.  Write down the name of the missing file when the error message
pops-up.

3.  Download the missing file for free from any of several web sites that
provide this service.

4.  Repeat process until all missing files are retrieved and the program
runs.

Dependencies are required, supporting files.

This is a list of dependencies for 'SmirfGUI.exe'-

activeds.dll
adsldpc.dll
advapi32.dll
apphelp.dll
borlndmm.dll
cabinet.dll
cc3270mt.dll
comctl32.dll
comdlg32.dll
crypt32.dll
dbghelp.dll
dbrtl100.bpl
dnsapi.dll
gdi32.dll
imagehlp.dll
kernel32.dll
lz32.dll
mlang.dll
mpr.dll
msasn1.dll
msi.dll
msimg32.dll
msvcrt.dll
netapi32.dll
netrap.dll
ntdll.dll
ntdsapi.dll
ole32.dll
oleacc.dll
oleaut32.dll
oledlg.dll
rpcrt4.dll
rtl100.bpl
samlib.dll
secur32.dll
setupapi.dll
sfc.dll
sfcfiles.dll	
shell32.dll
shlwapi.dll
user32.dll
userenv.dll
vcl100.bpl	
vcldb100.bpl
version.dll
w32topl.dll
winmm.dll
winspool.drv
wintrust.dll
wldap32.dll
ws2_32.dll
ws2help.dll
wsock32.dll

The list of dependencies for 'SmirfEngine.dll' is unneeded since all of
those files are already included in the first list.

SMIRF
http://www.chessbox.de/Compu/schachsmirf_e.html

This is currently the strongest program available that is free and
fully-functional for playing ALL Capablanca chess variants.  It loads
Embassy Chess (MBC) and several other games automatically at the push of
a button.  Gothic Chess, having a US patent, requires payment.

Allegedly, the best opening setup is found in this game:

Optimized Chess 8H x 10W
http://www.symmetryperfect.com/shots/opti/

Of course, there are many ways to approach 'big-board CV's'.

Andreas, thanks for this information. What surprises me is that there exist
no zrf of these two variants although they are easy to implement.

Mats

at a certain point with large boards and many pieces, a variant should
probably have multiple moves per side at a time, instead of 1 move per
side...

or the pieces should be really powerful...

if you have a large board with single-moves and weak pieces, time can
become a factor... some people might think it takes too long to play

so i would imagine that, when designing the 'ideal' large board chess
variant each of us attempts to factor these considerations in

board size
piece power
moves per side
time