Comments by Daniil Frolov

It's not bad, but 'I was kicking around the idea of how to do a 4 player game of chess on an 8 by 8 board' - such game was probably the world's first chess variant - Chaturanga. It can be played by modern rules simply moving elephant as modern bishop and giving pawns duble step (and en-passant).
It's interesting to make 3-players game on 8x8 board.

How about these rules for chess with several kings: moving any king into check is illegal; if several kings are checked at the same time, player must 'save' as many kings as possible; leaving king (or kings) in check is legal only there is no move, wich can save it; if there are no kings, wich are in check, but any move will cause check of at least one king, it's stalemate and it's draw (or, if you are playing variant of some oriental game, lose for stalemated player); goal is to capture all opponent's kings.
Is there game, wich uses such rules?

There is one unclear thing: can pawns promote to Shogi pieces? If can, can these Shogi pieces promote further and can pawn promote to dragon pieces in one step?
But it's not important, as most of promotions will still be to queen!

I like this idea.
I can see one problem in Xiang-qi variant: tank can capture queen on first turn without being captured on next.
Also, i don't like that in Xiang-qi there is jumping wildbeest: what the problem with non-jumping variant of it? Non-jumping camel move must be 2 steps orthogonally and when 1 diagonally outward.
Interesting, that if play chess in this way, game will start with 5 queens.
There is another idea: instead of being compound with piece of corresponding direction, original pieces simply changes to these corresponding pieces. Or each piece changes after each move in this way: rook (knight) - bishop (camel) - queen (wildbeest) or only rook (knight) - bishop (camel). Or, after each move all pieces changes (in one of same orders).

But how about this: instead of droping only Shogi pieces, there can be used rule that only pieces, wich are captured by Shogi pieces. are to be droped!
It can be reason of promoting Chess pawns to Shogi pieces (mainly to flying chariot, of course)!
In original game there is rule that only Shogi pieces can be droped is probably because if you have Shogi set, this game is playable. But i think that opposite rules, wich i just described are a bit more intersting.

I like when chess, xiang-qi and shogi are played at the same time. How about this: on chess board square d4 corresponds to xq d5 and e5 and shogi d4, d5, e4 and e5; e4 corresponds to xq e5 and f5 and shogi e4, e5, f4 and f5; d5 corresponds to xq d6 and e6 and shogi d5, d6, e5 and e6; e5 corresponds to xq e6 and f6 and shogi e5, e6, f5 and f5; xiang-qi d5 corresponds to shogi d4 and d5; d6 corresponds to shogi d5 and d6; e5 corresponds to shogi e4 and e5; e6 corresponds to shogi e5 and e6; f5 corresponds to shogi f4 and f5; f6 corresponds to shogi f5 and f6?
Not as complicated as it sounds.

One unclear thing: if player have lost silver general, but not gold general, can pawn be immeditally promoted to gold?
By the way, have anybody ever played this on game courier? I really want to play it, but, looks like, nobody need it...

I have made game courier preset, wich don't enforce rules for this:
http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game=Alapao&log=flowermann-cvgameroom-2010-117-606

In beggining, there is only one possible move for each player, so we can think that opening setup is this:
DFFQMGGSBBS.S...s.sbbsggmqttd
By the way, there is problem with notation: snail and spider uses same letters! Also, i think, for better storage, better names for pieces must be more or less standart: snail - wazir, bee - ferz, spider - prince, mouse - rook, frog - bishop, dragonfly - queen, queen - king (double step leaps are compared with diagonal moves on 2d board). However, themed names are also good, but spider needs another letter in notation.

I like this. Good if there will be game courier preset.
By the way, what about this variant on 8x8 board, with only gold and silver pieces:
arracbbc
--g--s--
pppppppp
--------
--------
PPPPPPPP
--S--G--
CBBCARRA

P-pawn;
G-gold general;
S-silver general;
R-rook;
B-bishop;
C-chariot;
A-angle.

Palaces are 4x4 areas. Promotion zone is still last 3 ranks.