Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

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.