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Johnny Luken wrote on Wed, Oct 17, 2012 07:07 PM UTC:

Just a run down of some of the Ultima piece ideas I've had. Too many to put in at once, so I'll update it as I go. Most of the ideas are pretty fundamental, often following on directly from existing ideas in one way or the other, but are still interesting to contemplate...

I'd ideally like to introduce them in the form of actual variants rather than just as a comment, but shoehorning them all into custom variants is a slow process, and not really practical for so many piece types. My preferred variant would be in the form of "universal" variant anyway, in which case, after laying down the framework, it would come down to the same matter of listing out various pieces. So may aswell just start that here...[note; all pieces unless otherwise stated have queen movement, and are generally adjusted to have similar performance on a 64 square board, LOS=line of sight, ie squares that can covered by a piece by one queen move]

Absorber; adopts ability of any enemy piece it is in the attack range of.

Agitator; can force any enemy piece in LOS, or any adjacent piece on immediate arrival, to capture a specific piece from your side, even if doing so causes them to lose the game.

Ambassador; adopts ability of any friendly piece it is in the attack range of.

Anchor; friendly pieces in LOS cannot be moved.

Approacher; captures by halving distance between it and a piece.

Bully; can remove all enemy pieces in a surrounding 5x5 square, provided those pieces are outnumbered.

Collider; knocks pieces back in direction of its movement on collision. Each piece on its collision with the next piece stops and carries the movement onto the next piece, until the edge of the board is reached. Move also carries "momentum", in that enemy pieces affected may not immediately contradict with other movement than along the same direction the collider sent it on.

Crazy hopper; captures a piece by landing an equal number of spaces behind it as it was in front of it. Can continue in a straight line or turn 45 degrees and continue for further captures. Can also hop over friendly pieces.

Despair; royal piece. If enemy loses sight of this piece, you lose.

Driller ; can perform series of displacement captures, starting with adjacent piece.

Hope ; royal piece. Lose sight of hope and you lose.

Hunter; captures nearest piece. If it has more than one nearest piece, then it can't capture.

Huntress; like hunter, but captures most distant piece.

Isolator; if any piece in LOS becomes isolated, through the isolators movement or that of a friendly piece, it is captured. If a piece is already isolated, then it can use rifle capture.

Martyr; royal piece. If the enemy captures it, they lose.

Mixer; can trade places of all pieces in LOS in any way it likes.

Overseer; any piece in overseers LOS cannot be captured provided it is in the attack range of another friendly piece.

Pacifier; any enemy piece within 2 squares of pacifier cannot capture, or act.

Puller; pulls any number of pieces as far as it likes, regardless of distance of pieces in the series from eachother. Enemy pieces may only move directly towards the puller on the move directly after.

Pusher; pushes any number of pieces as far as it likes. Enemy pieces may only move directly away from the pusher on the move directly after.

Retreater; captures by doubling distance between it and a piece.

Skewer; can capture a connected linear series of pieces, landing immediately behind the last piece. The 1st piece can be any distance from the skewer.

Skipper; can capture a linear series of pieces, by performing a series of hops equal in size, regardless of whether there are other pieces in the space inbetween. Must be able to finish by landing on an empty space. In the same family as the long leaper, crazy hopper, and skewer.

Spy; adopts ability of any enemy piece it is in LOS of.

Tracker; captures by landing on the last square a piece occupied.

Trapper; restricts all enemy pieces in surrounding 5*5 square, to movement within that square.


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