While adding new, simple variants I also thought at the time about adding randomized variants of those, since that is a natural and easy way of improving ones chess variants appeal, without introducing even more complexity; it's what chess designers are inclined to do. Especially if said chess designers have played Fischer Random Chess recently and liked it, because everybody likes randomized Classical Chess, even if they're casual potato just like me, and lost every single game within minutes.
Jokes aside, that's how it played out; I postponed adding randomized variants, since I thought that soon I might be able to finally implement rudimentary support for simple variants in my console application. When it became apparent that I won't be able to pull it off in time, and due to randomized variants being relatively simple, I decided to take the plunge, and do it now. Other reason for adding randomized variants now is they do increase scope of the project somewhat, and it's always better to have scope clear before any real work commences, which is now on the table again.
Why new, randomized Croatian Ties variants all have two ranks of Pawns for each player, while originating, simple Croatian Ties variants have only one(?), I hear you asking. Well, simple variants have fixed positions, and it so just happens that Pawns attacked from the very first move by Pegasuses are also the ones protected by at least 3 different pieces; Rook behind said Pawn, Bishop from the side, and Pegasus beside it. Better, no Queen or King is attacked by Pegasus on its very first move, even if it does capture a Pawn.
In randomized Croatian Ties variants there is no such a guarantee, it's possible to end up with initial setup with undefended Pawns; worse, figures attacked by Pegasus after capturing Pawn might be Rooks, or even Queen, with no escape hatch; worse still, they might be undefended, too. And an unfair situation would be if King itself is exposed in such a way; dark player would be checkmated even before his/hers first move. Fact that initial setup is fair (as in, mirrored or -at least- symmetrical) is of no consequence here, this is not acceptable. So, to prevent Pegasuses from gaining unrecoverable advantage to light player, and give dark player a fighting chance to defend himself, rank of light and dark Pawns had to be added to initial setups.
Sure, at least in theory, it's possible to filter out unfair initial setups, and allow only playable ones; but, it would require more complex randomization algorithm, which has to be very carefully reviewed to ensure unfair setups can't slip through. Then, there is a question where filtering ends, how much of an advantage light player should be allowed? If not much (to keep game fair), then such an algorithm would also kill randomness by severely restricting number of available setups. Also, I'm not really fond of complex designs if it can be avoided, in this case by adding a simple safety net.
And so, here we are; with only 12 new, randomized variants added to the mix; that makes it 28 variants in total: 10 canonical variants, 6 simple variants, and 12 randomized variants (of which 6 are in mirrored and other 6 are in symmetrical flavor). Since this is quite a change, I'm also updating the book; changes from the last update include:
- clarifying grammar
- clarified syzygy
- clarified activation momentum
- clarified Starchild's summary, activations
- added piece steps table
- clarified displacement steps
- Pyramid cannot be uplifted anymore
- new, randomized Classical Chess 14, 20, 26 variants, in mirrored and symmetrical flavor
- new, randomized Croatian Ties 14, 20, 26 variants, in mirrored and symmetrical flavor
- tiny fixes, and more ...
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