Game Reviews by CBagleyJones

yes this is a great game, David and i had a game on game courier, it is
nice playing with the general (dragonhorse) and cannon, combined with rook
knight and elephant/fers (which i like to call 'ferfil').
Opening pawn set up is very interesting too. All these things makes for
open and exciting play. Cool game. (David, i was trying to email you, but
there is a prob)

Well i think this looks great, it has my fav pieces. With promotion zone
last 3 ranks and game played with drops, play should be fast paced. It has
a nice shatranj feel to it.
Even though i most likely prefer promoted pieces reverting back to pawns,
i think it is interesting and fun the way it plays in this game. For sure,
when promoting, you would have to consider things differently.
Gary, i was going to say, defence will be important, because pro zone is 3
ranks, pawn drops will be deadly, and wazir and fers could often be hard
pressed to defend, and just before i looked at your game going at the
moment on game courier :)

hmm this place is a bit frisky lately, anyway, i'm going to rate some
unusual games, and what better place to start than here. 
This is an amazing game, no need to say anymore. Highly original,
strikingly beautiful concept.

this game is so bent i can't understand it at all, but it reads extremely
interesting, to say the least .. check out here, direct link to game
explanation - http://www.geocities.com/chessdp/ttchsrules.htm
now how bizzare is this explanation of the game!
How can i rate a game i can't understand, pfft, it is so easy :))

hey, u would have to walk on the board to make move would u? (lol)
love how big it is, probably would be hell to play :)

what is the difference between 'step' and 'slide', is 'step' different from 'leap', i dont kinda understand.

Heya Fergus, after our talk last week about pawns i thought i'd check out your game here. And i must say, it's been a lot of fun!!
Now, if u don't know, i am a big fan of the more 'chaturanga, shatranj' etc etc styled pieces, and have only played games with these 
kind of pieces for years now. So, this game, looked very daunting to me, to say the least, as i pondered my first move, hehe.

After the first couple of games, i was all over the place, the game seemed hard the manage, very dynamic and nearly chaotic. But 
then, after a few more games, i started to get a feel for it, and i had some wonderful games. I'm rating 'excellent'.

Nearly right from the start, the game seems dynamic to me, and it stays that way throughtout the game, but there seems to be a 
steadiness of play, the 'chaotic' i felt at first, was 'controlled', still there, but it's balanced and 'held' in the game. 
The Cavlier's i think put a uniqueness to the game. They do act as 'pawn's' but they are more flexible than a pawn, and 
when they get to the 8th rank they are in striking distance of promoting.

Nice piece placement for the opening, and great seeing the 'nightrider' playing too. Sometimes, in a somewhat wild position, it 
was interesting playing a cavlier non-threateningly up the board and feeling it was safe and the best move.
I really feel the cavlier makes this game unique and exciting. Great work.

Hey this game looks great, love the big board and not too many pieces added, really like the 'duke' too. I will have to check out the game courier logs, i like this type of game because one can learn more about gameplay with fairly short range type pieces on a very large board. Great stuff.

Great game Mats, congrats. 
The pyrrhus, what a piece, i found it really painful at first, lol, i thought it's power of paralyzing pieces was too much, the knight being the only piece that could attack the pyrrhus! I wondered if the pyrrhus's range should be 'cut down', like say paralyzing 4 or 5 squares range on the queen lines. However, once i got used to the piece, it seems to me the game is very smooth and heaps of fun and very nice. I think the way the pyrrhus is is the best.

The knight in this game is actually a pretty powerful piece, much more powerful than the bishops and probably more powerful than the rooks too, because it can attack the pyrrhus. If both pyrrhus's are paralyzed, you wouldn't want to have two bishops against two knights, lol, that's for sure.
I'm rating excellent.

Oh i notice you have a 10x10 game with two pyrrhus's a side, how does that play compared to the 8x8 do you think, i'll have to check it out.

Yeah i like the pieces too. I'll be releasing something to showcase over 200 fairy pieces (not a game), i'll add these 2 pieces.
I don't mind the 10x10 board, and as far as it making most pieces too slow, i think that really is a matter for personal taste. I do think though the piece density might be a bit heavy.

Do the knave and debtor move the same as in Charles Gilman's game 'Knavish Chess'. I first thought these pieces moved fully as a knight with one piece having the horizontal dabbaba leap and the other the vertical dabbaba leap. 

oh don't worry, i see that they do, these pieces are better than i thought!

This looks a great game, love the dragon piece, also i think the extra side squares are useful, i'm sure they will be used.
Site loads fine to me.

You can speculate all you want, but in the end, it is all speculation. What governs what is considered the 'oldest' chess is what records are the oldest found, that is it. I dont think this is correct of course, so much records of the ancients has been lost. 
I consider it unclear where chess began, no one can say for sure. An earthquake could happen in China revealing an ancient tomb and chess writing 2,000 years ago are discovered, then chess would be said to have come from china.
The idea that chess always evolves to something better also is debateable. People love inventing things and trying new things, it does not mean the newer idea is a progression. There is no reason to consider that the modern pawn, moving 1 square forward and capturing diagonally could not have been the first pawn to exist.
One thing i can't help thinking, the date we give as chess beginning, seems to me to be highly unlikely, i feel chess is much older, in India, 
China and Japan. The ancients were NOT stupid. They were highly advanced. To think that all they played was a 'race game' .... well, really?
Look at the mahabharata verse, where Yudhisthira talks about 'delighting the king with his play' ... he is going to delight the king with his play in a race game? Come on ... Chess most likely has been around in India and China and Japan for thousands and thousands of years.
But of course, this is speculation.
It's interesting what you saying though, don't get me wrong.

Nice big board shogi like games, wonderful array of pieces.
Goldpashtun and Silverpashtun great pieces. Lots more, have not looked at fully but i will, just thought i would post first off anyway. Congrats.

The 'Bishop' in this game moves as a 'Ferfil', and the 'Councillor' moves 
like a 'Centaur' (knight, wazir, fers).
Would this be the first appearance for these pieces?
Anyone know an earlier game they are in, or another old game anyway. 
I know 'Ferfil' is in the game 'Shako', 1990, by Jean-Louis Cazaux.

The 'Queen' in this game moves like an 'Alibaba'.
It does say there is a special rule about queen capturing another queen and 
to look in 'rules' section, but i can't seem to see anything.
Edit: oh capture might be 'concourse of queens' rule.

Anyway, would this be the first appearance of an 'Alibaba' in a game?
Anyone know of an earlier game with the 'Alibaba', or, any old game it 
plays in?

Hi all, I dont think there can be much advantage having first move, not
with so many armies on such a big board.

Yes 'Qin' have the dream start, most space around them, 'Chu' and
'Yan' have next best start.  I dont think this gives an advantage though
really, because of the nature of multi player games, anyone that is looking
stronger than the others will naturally become a target for everyone else,
hehe.

Interesting pieces 'crossbowman' and 'archer' and 'cavalry'.  I dont
know if i have seen such pieces before. 
 
Also the start position is interesting for 'Qin' in relation to 'Yan'
but mostly because of 'Chu' with 'crossbowman'.

Oh, do you have link to wiki site, i cant seem to find it.
http://chessvariants.wikidot.com/

Very interesting game, i have never noticed this before.
It appears to me the pawn is checking the King, and also attacking the pawn on a2.
It would be good to know what the author says about the Knight. Hans says 'The rules do not state exactly the way knights move. One could assume a knight moves one square orthogonally, and then one square diagonally, skipping again attacked squares.'
This is one way to describe the Knight move, but some people describe it as moving 2 squares orthogonally then 1 to the side, or even moving 1 diagonally and 1 orthogonally outward. If you assume it moves like Hans says, then it does appear it is checking the King.