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Jeremy Lennert wrote on Tue, Sep 20, 2011 10:00 PM UTC:
Consider a piece that moves as a Man, but that is not removed from the game
when captured; instead, the Immortal is placed in the owner's hand, and
can be dropped on any empty square in his first or second rank on any
future turn (instead of making a regular move).  What is the value of such
a piece?

For purposes of exchanges, one could argue the material value is zero;
meaning that compensation required for the owner to be willing to exchange
it is equal only to its positional value.  But the more interesting
question is, how much material would you be willing to sacrifice from your
starting array in order to start with an Immortal?

Obviously, this value must be at least as much as a Man, and is probably
very much greater.  Any ideas on how to estimate it, other than brute force
playtesting?

Some factors to consider:

- While it is easy to imagine an Immortal gobbling up entire armies one by
one, one should keep in mind that it is slow, and realistically probably
cannot force an exchange against most enemy pieces unless it has support.

- However, a piece is never 'defended' against an Immortal's attack, no
matter how many pieces stand ready to recapture.

- Unless I'm mistaken, a King + Immortal (or even King + Man) can force
mate against a lone King.

- The minimum material required to force an endgame mate against a player
who controls an Immortal is significantly increased.

George Duke wrote on Tue, Sep 20, 2011 11:17 PM UTC:
This experiment falls in the class including Mamra,
http://www.chessvariants.org/dpieces.dir/mamra/mamra.html, who moves like
non-royal King and cannot be taken by piece, only by Pawn. Okay, Immortal
returns to the capturee for later drop, and contrasted Mamra is gone for
good. However, using the description of Immortal as complete, compensating
additional difference is that the Mamra pawn-lost can in effect be replaced by
promotion, even twice or more. Mamra become
well-placed really ''gobbles up (almost) entire army one by one,'' and very possibly opponent might be doing the same at the same time, or if not, just attacking anyway with regular long-rangers whilst the one-side's Mamra
goes on the frenzy to no avail. ''Brute force playtesting'' is not
brutal but subtle.  Any new cv not computer-readied plays out that way.
Typically player preliminarily estimates value +/- 1.0 each new p-t compared to
known p-ts around or related, and by game two the estimate seems like +/- 0.5, each refresher becoming
more refined per games played. This Mamra-variant-Immortal slotted as an additional
piece on 64 squares versus regulars and backed by regulars is more than a
Rook and less than a Queen, first-approximate. Be willing to keep two
Bishops without Mamra-Immortal against opponent's Bishop-less M-I. Or it
might tip just over that and so the reverse, but no way high as Queen value. In other words, a good fair Betzan C.D.A. match-up could be RNIQK-NR v. RNBQKBNR, Immortal anticlericals versus F.F; better, let '-' be Barrier Pawn to make army of 16, RNIQKbNR, 'b' the barrier pawn and 'I' Immortal Man of endless-drop description.
In the same class is that weak-value Barrier Pawn(1948): http://www.chessvariants.org/large.dir/kristensens.html.

Jeremy Lennert wrote on Wed, Sep 21, 2011 12:31 AM UTC:
In a FIDE-like game, I would expect the Immortal to be much weaker than the
Mamra, which does not require support to pass through a threatened square
(as long as the threat does not come from a pawn) and can easily checkmate
the enemy King completely unaided (and regardless of any non-pawn
defenders).  The page you link advocates sacrificing a Queen and a Rook to
create a hole in the opponent's pawn wall through which the Mamra can
charge, which suggests the Mamra is worth significantly more than a Queen
(and that wouldn't surprise me in the least).  The Immortal poses no
remotely comparable threat that I can see.

However, the Mamra's value probably varies wildly depending on the other
pieces on the board, both because it is a highly specialized piece and
because it is vulnerable only to a specific type of enemy piece.  The
Immortal's value also probably varies more than most, but not to the same
extent.

Relying *entirely* on testing to balance a piece is 'brute force' in the
sense that it makes no attempt to leverage information unique to the piece
being tested, and is not even CLOSE to the speed or accuracy you suggest. 
What you describe, where you 'estimate' (by unspecified means) a value
that is somehow magically within +/- 1.0 pawns initially and even more
magically within +/- 0.5 pawns the next game is not balancing based on
testing, it's balancing based on intuition (with exceedingly optimistic
estimates of accuracy).  Intuition occasionlly works very well but often
fails catastrophically and is completely irreproducible.  And yes, that is
no doubt the primary means by which most CVs are balanced, but I was hoping
for something a little more insightful.

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