New variants!

Quite some time ago I wrote that I'd like to add some enlarged, but otherwise Classical Chess variants, but dismiss them as not belonging to the book, and requiring their own, separate book which would also discuss mobility. In the meantime, I kinda warmed-up to the idea that enlarged Classical Chess variants do belong to the book presenting new variants, especially since their objective is to make playing on large chessboards more approachable to average, casual player.

Currently, I plan on adding enlarged Classical Chess and Croatian Ties variants as remarks at the very end of the book; those variants won't be fully featured, but will include images. I'm not entirely happy with this design choice, since it will disrupt the flow of the book; but it should be worth it, given that this new book on mobility and such is still very far away, if it will be written at all.

I plan on adding 3 new Classical Chess variants, those will feature only pieces found in Classical Chess, with exactly the same rules, except longer rushes and castlings. I'll also add 3 new Croatian Ties variants, those would be nearly identical to their Classical Chess counterparts, but all Knights would be upgraded to Pegasuses (Pegasi?), and all Pawns will be of side-ways variety; this is to compensate somewhat for decreased mobility of Pawns, Knights on a larger chessboards. New variants will be played on 14 x 14, 20 x 20 and finally 26 x 26 chessboards.

New variants won't bring neither any new pieces, nor any new interactions. Still, I'll have to expand Python application which generates images for the book to support all new variants; later, library will have to be expanded as well. This will take some time, given my usual tempo of writing (which is very slowly) I hope I'll have the book finished by the end of this year.

New book preview

Finished t[h]ink(er)ing with initial setups, at least for now, so I'm updating book preview. 

After analysing setups, I found out that just shuffling figures around won't do much good, just like I suspected. No matter where I put Centaur, it just carpet-bombs opponent from the very beginning, checkmates his King, and also impregnates his Queen for good measure. So, I had to add not just additional rank of Pawns, but also Pawns which sits at step-fields of both Centaur and Shaman. 

Needless to say, initial setup now looks terrible, but at very least, in later variants (Nineteen and beyond) opponents are not attacking each other from the very starting positions.

One thing that caught my eye during this initial setup woes was fact that opponent's Pawns converted on own initial positions can be rushed. Related to that is also opponent's Rook converted at initial position of own Rook can castle (provided that King hasn't moved yet, isn't under attack, ...). 

Thing is, those moves were specifically introduced to speed-up opening of the game (rush), and to somewhat protect King in the early stages (castling). Conversions can take place much later, say late mid-game, and so by that time effects of both rules are probably negligable. I wanted to remove them to tidy up rules, the thing that holds me back is that "probably". Will try to see what's best ...

Oh, and the preview is available at usual location: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fhiSsYFTW3jId0Fq5StJdBER_ukfjwZb/view?usp=sharing,

with version: 

801 ··· 2020-11-26 05:22:52 UTC ··· master

T[h]ink(er)ing much?

So far, I sort-of ignored the need to sort out initial positions of figures, for all variants. You see, problem is that there are several figures which can "jump" over single rank of Pawns, and then merrily gallop towards opponent's positions, and even capture some pieces.

I'm an okay with opponents having each other at the threat of imminent attack from the very start of a game. Issue I'm having here is that it might be possible for a player to mount increasing pressure onto opponent from the very beginning, to which there is no proper, stopping defense, which ultimately leads to a certain victory.

In fact, as it is right now, One variant is broken. All light player has to do is move Queen's Shaman towards opponent's King as much as possible, and dark King is checkmated. In previous variants at least dark Centaur on King's side was positioned on a light field, and so could capture light Shaman in the very next move. In One variant, since it grew compared to previous variants, it's located on a dark field and so its' first step is short, like an ordinary Knight, and so light Shaman is out of reach. All the other dark pieces can't neither capture nor block light Shaman, hence checkmate.

Worse yet, in odd variants "jumping" figures from the initial positions actually do target opponent's figures, not just Pawns, from very early variants, e.g. Pegasus in Odd Croatian Ties. In later odd variants, some of figures are not even defended, and so could be captured early on, without much of a hindrance. Only saving grace is that the other player can do the same. But this does not constitute what I would deem as an intelligent play, or an intelligent game design.

Worse of all, I'm not exactly sure how to stop that. Sure, I was thinking about adding second row of Pawns, that'll solve a lot of issues with pieces featuring short jumps (Pegasus, light Shamans, the same field color Centaurs). Still, that leaves us with long jump figures (the opposite field color Centaurs, dark Shamans). These could be blocked with a few Pawns carefully positioned onto their initial step-fields. But then initial setup would look ungainly, if not downright ugly. Another possible, and far worse problem would be if those blocking Pawns are too efficient, dragging opening stage far too long before anyone could actually start to play a game.

I'll try to see if just shuffling figures around will solve the issues. If not, there will be a massive changes to initial setups, rush, en-passant rules, maybe some more. In short, I'll have to do a lot of (thinking and) tinkering, before being productive again.