Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

One area that I think needs some exploration is the multi-move turn. In the
games I'm aware of, the extra moves are just sort of tacked onto the game
with no real attempt at rationale. Some games you move 2 pieces/turn, some
more, some depend on what your opponent did; sometimes the same piece can
move more than once, and capture, in other games if a capture is made, no
other move can be... Anyhow, no real attempt has been made to explain why
one rule or rule set was chosen over another. Being as conservative and
traditional in my outlook and design philosophy as I am, I felt the need
to change that, at least for me. So, in Chieftain, I changed 1 king to 4
leaders, and you *still* get as many moves per turn as you have leaders
left. Still? Well, chess has 1 leader with unlimited command control range
- you lose that leader, you don't get to make any more moves, game over.
But only 1 supreme leader, controlling pieces anywhere on the board,
mostly unlimited-range pieces, and a rather small world, only 8x8, to play
on - this FIDE chess is a very modern game reflective of the world we find
ourselves in today. Chieftain goes way back, when small bands of people
grouped together in tribes, and there was no 1 leader of all the people
for every circumstance. Commands were issued over shouting distance, and
to individuals. 
The superlarge I'm contemplating will fall in between these 2 extremes.
The 'high king' will be, like the FIDE king, checkmateable for victory
purposes and have unlimited command control range for any 1 piece per
turn. There will also be 2 more lower levels of leader, generals and
captains. These will command different numbers and strengths/types of
pieces, with command control ranges that would be roughly 5 and 10. I'd
also throw in a marshall, with the same command powers as the king. These
powers would include the ability to activate at least 1 local piece, as
well as the 1 unlimited-range activation.

HOW TO TRICK THE [Exclude Pieces not in Setup:] BOX. Entering 'Shatranj Kamil*' in the Game Courier Game Logs [Game Filter:] produces the usual abandoned games and game(s) of 'Shatranj Kamil X'. Both Ferzes and Pawns promote on the 10th rank to Great Elephants, which are not in the original setup.

Replacing /10/ in the game preset with /4{.EF}{.ef}4/ put two Great Elephants (White and Black ) in the middle of the board, adding these pieces to the Available Pieces list near the bottom of the page.

Typing @-e5; @-f5 in the [Pre-Game:] BOX deleted those annoying extra pieces from the game board, before the first move was made. The starting position in my test game will demonstrate that the initial setup is correct AND the Great Elephants are still listed under Available Pieces.

[EDIT 2009] Typing 'empty e5 f5' in the [Pre-Game:] BOX is now the correct procedure.

Thank you, David! That is a very useful bit of info to have; even with DSL,
the loading of all the pieces is annoying.

We've discussed the king, and then lower-level leaders, represented by
guard icons. What do the armies they lead look like? The standard FIDE
pieces will appear, though not a lot of them. They're mostly longrange
pieces, so we want some, but not too many. Now we need some medium and
some shortrange pieces. Cut-down versions of the FIDE sliders will do for
a start, though we may want to do more later. The reasonable ranges for
these limited Bs, Rs and Qs would  be, say, 6, 8, 12. Now we get to the
shortrange pieces. We've got knights, pawns, and leaders so far. Knights
cover 8 of the 24 squares immediately [within 2] around them, and none of
the 8 adjacent squares. This is known as a very porous defense. Kings and
guards [leaders] cover the 8 adjacent squares, and nothing else. This is
known as the limited, or 'speed bump' defense. It only slows up your
opponent a little. We'll let some leaders move an extra square, but this
doesn't do much for our defense of these leaders against pieces that move
many times as fast. And pawns are not noted as dynamic or flexible
defensive units. We need some reasonably powerful shortrange pieces to
complement our long and medium range ones. But we've already got a
complete set of FIDEs. How much more can we comfortably deal with?

How do we get a good mix of pieces in a superlarge game without giving the
player too much to remember? This is a key make-or-break question. If we
want an interesting and playable game, we must do this part very well
indeed.
I've proposed a 2-part system. It combines a few basic piece types with a
few movement patterns to give a range of easily identifiable and usable
pieces to complement what we already have. At least, that's the theory.
Can I make it work in practice? [Boy, after all this, I sure hope so!]
Okay, since the pieces are shortrange, I'll steal the basics from The
ShortRange Project piece builder. Our first 4 piece types are the Wazir [1
square orthogonal step], the Ferz [1 square diagonal step], the Dabbabah [2
square orthogonal leap], and the alfil [2 square diagonal leap]. Their
piece icons are simple, obvious, easy to combine with each other, and
it's very easy to understand the resulting pieces. Now, let's strip the
knight from the longrange Fides, and put it in with the 4 basic Shorties,
where it really belongs. Yes, it's really a combo of wazir and ferz, but
the knight icon is all but universally recognized for standing for that
'wazir then outward ferz' move knights make. And it looks so much
prettier on a combined icon. [See the High priestess and Jumping general
pieces in the Grand Shatranj Alfaerie set and see what you think.] Now we
are 5.

The first part of our 'shortrange pieces for longrange boards' discussion
has given us 5 basic piece types with 5 simple symbols for easy
combination. Combine the wazir and dabbabah into the warmachine. The
dabbabah icon is a wheeled tower and the wazir icon is a plus sign, so the
warmachine is a wheeled tower with a plus sign on its side. The generic
piece can be identified like this: 'DW'. This identifies the components
without specifying any particular movement pattern. Now let's define some
movement patterns with the help of this example piece. Then we associate
symbols with these patterns. Again, to keep things simple, we'll use the
basic movement patterns discussed in TSRP. 
1] Or. The warmachine may move as either one of its components, that is,
like a wazir or a dabbabah. It steps 1 orthogonally or leaps 2
orthogonally. As this is the simplest movement pattern, it doesn't need
anything extra on the piece icon. So a combo icon with no info other than
the various piece symbols may move as any one of the pictured pieces. This
can be distinguished in writing by the slash '/' symbol. Our piece
appears on the board as a wheeled tower with a plus sign on its side, and
in writing, it looks like this: 'D/W'.
2] And [linear]. The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It may not change direction during this move.
To the basic 'DW' icon, we will add a square around the central symbol.
In writing, we will indicate this by D+W.
3] And [nonlinear]. The warmachine may move as either or both of its
components, in either order. It *may* change direction during this move.
To the basic 'DW' icon, we will add a circle around the central symbol.
In writing, we will indicate this by a 'plus/minus' symbol: D +/- W.
4] And-Or [two-step linear rider]. Our basic DW piece may move as either
of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again. It may not change direction during this move. The basic
icon gets 2 'speed lines' on its side. Written, it uses the plus sign
between 2 of the [written] piece symbols: D/W + D/W
5] And-Or [two-step nonlinear rider]. Our basic DW piece may move as
either of its components, then it may [or may not] move as either of its
components again. It *may* change direction during this move. The basic
icon gets 2 speed lines connected by a crossbar, making a 'Z' on the
piece side. Written, it uses the plus/minus sign between 2 of the
[written] piece symbols: D/W +/- D/W.

[cont'd from prev:] Alright, what have we got? We have: a king and leaders
[guards]; queen; rook; bishop; knight; pawn; alfil, dabbabah, wazir; ferz
for our basic piece types. That's 11 basic icons, but all or most should
be familiar to players. We also have 5 Movement Patterns, 4 of which have
specific identifying mini-icons to be used on the piece icons. So we've
got 10 or 12 things to remember, and we don't have any medium-range
pieces yet. Oof! 
After a few brief moments of panic, I came up with this: Christine
Bagley-Jones made some fide icons with black diamond-shaped spots on them
to indicate they were shortrange pieces, moving as many squares as they
had dots. If I use those pieces and make each dot represent 4 squares of
movement, we have 2 sets of medium-range pieces, moving 8 and 12 squares,
at a cost of only 1 new movement pattern and icon. 
But there's still 13 things we gotta remember now, and we haven't taken
this stuff to the board yet. On the plus side, we have a very versatile
system with those 13 things, and many if not all are familiar. Each
individual component is simple, easily explained, and visually obvious.
This could work.

Alright, let's take a look at another piece series that will be on the
board, and also what may be a side issue: battlefield promotions. The
movement rules we're using allow us to easily create promotion ladders,
which are an arranged piece series. So we will lay out a piece series to
be used on the board in ascending order of piece power, and that order
will be our promotion ladder. 
Let's consider the modern elephant, generic 'written' description of
AF, or a combination of alfil and ferz. It's lowest 'rank' is modern
elephant, written here as A/F, to indicate it moves once only, as either
an alfil or a ferz. It's board icon is an elephant with an 'X' on its
side. 
When it achieves promotion, by capturing a piece or crossing a line, say,
it becomes a 2-step piece, the [linear] shaman, which moves as either A or
F or moves twice, in a straight line, once each as A and F, in either order
the player chooses. The basic elephant with X icon gets a square box drawn
around the X, and it's written A+F. 
The next promo is to the bent shaman, which moves like the shaman, except
that it can change direction between the first and second step of its
move. The icon is the elephant plus X with a circle around the X, and
it's written A +/- F. 
The next is to oliphant, a linear, 2-step, modern elephant-rider,
symbolized as the elephant plus X with 2 parallel speed lines on its side,
written as A/F + A/F. 
The final one is to twisted knight, the bent 2-step modern elephant rider.
The board icon is the elephant and X, with a 'Z' [2 parallel speed lines
connected by an angled crossbar] on its side, written as A/F +/- A/F.

I have just submitted my contribution to the large-board CV category
(called Cataclysm.)  I have tried to create a variant on a large board
(16x12) that develops quickly, has more strategy than tactics, has a lot
of interesting pieces of similar value that can be exchanged evenly, and
does not last hundreds of moves as large board games tend to.  The
submission should be approved soon.  It also features mostly short-range
pieces, so it easily fits in the Short-Range Project.

Hey, Greg, great! Cataclysm looks very nice; we'll have to play a game. I
like the low density, and that you're starting to stretch out the piece
ranges. We need some good midrange pieces. And 12x16 is a nice size to
work with. It's a clear bump up in size, by a factor of 3, giving scope
for a lot of ideas. Welcome to insanity in a big way!

'If you think the piece is worth a Bishop, you will trade it for a Bishop; and in that game, it will only have been worth that much. This is why playtesting without the theory of piece values could never succeed in establishing values well enough to make chess armies that were equal in strength, yet different. (And when I realized in 1976 that playtesting alone, would not do the job, I set out to create the theory!)' - Ralph Betza, in Revisiting the Crooked Bishop

Rose Chess XII is almost complete - not sure if low piece density on a 12x12 board still qualifies as a Large Variant these days :>) My theories on piece values (and how they change as the boards get larger) are part of the background to Rose Chess XII, so it would be reasonable to include a few explanatory paragraphs on the game page. Not sure if I can come up with precise values for the Rose and Bison, however.

Those who prefer their Bisons broken down into Camels and Zebras can check out Samarcanda and its newly posted preset. The Noblemen in this game move like Crooked Bishops.

The superlarge test game design outline is just about finished. After
clearing up a few loose ends, it can be taken to the board.
One thing not discussed yet is castling. Because we have those big,
beautiful 'forts' in the corners, there is a good place to castle into.
So we'll work out some castling options in the rules.
The leader rules are quite nebulous. There are a number of ways we can
handle leaders; the simplest way is probably the best for now. 'Leaders
have specified 'activation ranges'. Leaders can activate any one
friendly piece within range.' More realistic/advanced/difficult rules can
be looked at later for play balance if necessary. But the simple requiring
of activation for a piece to move gives us a lot in controlling superlarge
games' tendencies to get out of control. Any leader can move a queen
across the board, but how does the queen get back? 
Leaders are a new class, 'semi-royal' pieces. Loss of one does not end
the game, but it does penalize the losing player more than just losing a
non-royal piece, because the player also loses movement opportunities. I
fully expect using several leaders will prevent the superlarge game from
becoming either tedious and boring or going chaotically out of control.
[How's that for putting yourself out on a limb?] Now it's time to
demonstrate just how well all these ideas will really work. Jeremy Good
has generously given me enough rope to han... um, has created a number of
new Alfaerie piece icons that will allow testing of all the ideas
presented here. Jeremy, thank you. Without your help, I couldn't have
done this. [Maybe not everyone will thank you for this.] I'd also like to
thank those who poked, prodded, and contributed to this so far, including,
but not limited to, Mats, David and Greg.
There is one final loose end which I am leaving hanging, for now.

After Jeremy created the pieces for Fortress Chess, Antoine Fourriere was
kind enough to put them into the Alfaerie: Many piece set, so the game is
on the board. If you shrink it to around 50% size [I used various methods
that gave me between 52% and 45%], you can see the entire board at once.
Put it in a second window with the full-size game in the first, and
you've got everything, basically. Following is the URL:
http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/play.php?game%3DFortress+Chess%26settings%3Dfortresschess1
Playtest is just beginning. I encourage people to kibbitz the game or
leave comments here. And they don't all have to be nice. I'd expect some
people would think what I'm doing is ridiculous on the face of it. Feel
free to call me an idiot, but please give some reason why. And if you're
sure it could be done better, or as good, in a different way, please tell
me how. This seems to be a rather new field, and there is a lot of room in
it... :-)

How do the pieces move ?

Hi, Abdul-Rahman. My 3 comments on this specific topic are on 3/11 [1] and
3/14 [2]. But I'll to try to lay it out in a simple form right here. 
The piece set is Alfaerie: Many.
All the standard FIDE pieces are used: King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, kNight,
Pawn; as are the 4 basic ancient pieces: Ferz, Wazir, Alfil, and Dabbabah,
although these 4 are mostly combined with each other. All these pieces have
their standard moves. 
Combo pieces: The modern Elephant combines the piece icons for Ferz and
Alfil, and may move like either one. The Warmachine combines the icons for
Wazir and Dabbabah, and may move like either. In general, any combo piece
that contains only basic piece icons moves as any one of the icons.
To generate intermediate-range pieces, 5 easy movement rules [patterns]
are defined. They are represented by simple symbols. These symbols are
combined with the basic piece icons to generate families of pieces. The
symbols are:
Diamonds: 1, 2, or 3 small black diamonds on FIDE Qs, Rs, and Bs mean
those pieces may move only 4, 8, or 12 squares maximum in a turn.
Squares: An elephant or warmachine with a square around the central icon
mave move as either or each of its components [in either order] in a
straight line. [Currently found in Chieftain Chess II]
Circles: An elephant or warmachine with a circle around the central icon
may move as either or both of its compnents, and may change directions
between the steps of its move. [Found in Lemurian Shatranj]
2 Parallel 'Speed' lines: All these pieces are 2-step linear riders. A
modern elephant with what looks like an equals sign on its right side may
move as an alfil or ferz, then as either of the 2 [not necessarily the
same as the first time] again, in a straight [diagonal] line. [Grand
Shatranj]
Zigzag Speed line: very similar to the 2 parallel speed lines, this symbol
looks like a 'Z' on the right side of the piece. A modern warmachine with
this symbol may move as a wazir or jump as a dabbabah, then do either
again, and may change directions between steps. [Atlantean Barroom
Shatranj]
The leader units are Guards, plain and fancy. A leader moves 1 square for
each 8-pointed star on its icon. Leaders with a grey tint may change
directions during their move. If they don't have a grey tint, they are
linear movers. The Marshall, 3 stars with grey tint in the center, moves
up to 3 squares, changing direction as desired, and may leap any adjacent
square to land in the square directly across from the original square.
This counts as moving 2 squares, so the piece may only slide 1 more square
during its turn.
No piece may make a null move.
Before any piece can move, it must be activated by a leader. Each leader,
including the king, may activate 1 piece per turn. Activation ranges: L1 =
2 squares; L2 = 4 squares; L3 = 6 squares; marshall = 12; king = 99.
That's all of it. If anything at all is unclear, let me know.

I've been following the development of Fortress Chess with great interest and eagerly await it being played. It seems to me that this variant is actually going someway to bridging the divide between Chess and Wargaming.
Wargaming rules usually include elements governing missiles, movement, melee, morale and command. Fortress Chess can at a stretch be said to incorporate 4 of these: command through its hierarchy of leader pieces; movement through its short-, mid-, and long-range pieces which can be seen as cognates for (ancient)wargaming's troop types of infantry/cavalry with light/medium/heavy armour; melee through the usual replacement capture; amd morale by the ladder of promotion with pieces getting stronger as they achieve success in battle.
In fact I think Fortress Chess may well mark the start of a new gaming genre - not merely another Big-board CV, but the first example of 'Warfare-Chess'.
I'm looking forward to future developments

Hi, Graeme. Sheesh, dude, I'd accuse you of reading my notes, except you
got the name a little wrong. I actually call the genre Warchess [shorter
names make better titles]... :-)
Seriously, thank you for the compliment, and you are right; this is an
attempt to push chess right to the edge of wargaming, but still keeping it
chess and not a combat simulation wargame. The specific chess features that
I think are key here are: perfect information; symmetrical armies; no
random events [eg: combat results table]; checkmatable [high] king;
directional pawns; and the essential 'chessness' of the pieces [in that
they are in theory an 'army', but in practice, each piece has moves that
are very non-real-world]. I hope you find it worth the anticipation. It
still has to 'play well' to be any good. A game that size that plays
poorly, or merely 'okay', is a catastrophe.
I think fort is a bit of a kludge. I think it has too many pieces
[100/side] and an awkward starting setup [too deep]. I'm also trying to
test several things at once, which is rarely a good idea. But I think
it's got a real shot at playing well in its simplest, easiest form, and
is also very tweakable, if necessary. I'm ready to find out now, the
invite is up.

Hi Joe - Warchess is already taken I think! ;O)
What about Chessgaming?
I am wondering how far Chess can be pushed towards Wargaming without losing the essential Chess features you list. The wargaming areas where Fortress seems a bit light are melee and missiles. I'm currently exploring the possibility in my own designs of replacing the chess 'replacement capture' with a Diplomacy like melee phase where captures result from non-random assessment of a pieces attack/support. Such a system would also enable the introduction of missile pieces that can attack/support from a distance (possibly needing a screen as with the Cannon?).
As for the initial set-up I think mimicking a traditional ancient wargame battle array with a line of skirmishers backed by central infantry and cavalry wings might be worth exploring. And maybe a central fortress?
Another, as yet totally undeveloped idea, is the introduction of 'terrain' via offboard multi-cell static pieces dropped prior to the first proper movement phase.
And I just couldn't resist the invite - even though I'm a pretty poor chess player and an even worse ancient wargamer.

Ah, the Voice of Doubt speaks... ;-) 
Truthfully, you've expressed what I imagine most people would think as
soon as they see this game: 'It's too big! How can I ever understand it,
much less play it?' Maybe you're right, maybe it is too complicated for
anyone to even be able to play... 
My original answer went on a lot longer, and got nowhere, so I'll give
you the short answer: No. 
This is not too hard to play. It is a bit more complex than FIDE, with a
few more things to remember, but it's a lot more straightforward and much
easier to understand how to play well than Alice, for example. On a 1-10
scale, with tic-tac-toe as 1, checkers as 2 and chess as 3, this is 4,
max. 
There are 10 piece types, some of which can get modified by 5 movement
symbols. Not all that bad, maybe; let's look a bit...
The diamond symbols are speed limits for the familiar FIDE sliders. Yeah,
you have to count to 4, 8, or 12, but you do that sort of thing anyway in
chess, figuring turns in advance, where a knight can get, can this pawn
queen before... And the use of the other 4 symbols is as obvious, and they
only apply to the modern elephant and dabbabah. 
It comes down to interest. If you're interested, this is not difficult to
learn, given any familiarity with variants, in my opinion.

Hi, Graeme. Thanks for taking me up on the invite. I believe the game will
move along fairly quickly - one thing I did was increase the tempo of the
game a little - 100 pieces/8 leaders means that 1 in every 12.5 pieces in
'Fort' can move each turn. With FIDE, it's 1 in 16 at start. Even
though I moved only 7 pieces, that's still better than 1 in 14 on the
first move. 
I next plan to do a 20x30, with a more traditional battle line setup. But
I need to see how Fort plays, first. I've thought of a central 'fort',
and even a small 'city' in the middle of the board surrounded by a
besieging army. I suspect that if this game works, we could recast any
number of military conflicts as chess variants. 
The traditional games of non-traditional capture are Ultima[Baroque],
Optima, Maxima, Rococo, Fugue... but you are looking at doing a more
military game. I recently tried that myself in the utterly ignored
SpaceWar, my 12x16 space opera entry into the field. I'd love to discuss
ideas with you on that. We might get a game people would actually play!
[Even if it's just us. lol]
Like your ideas about the possibilities. Got some truly strange ideas
about what can be done with an actual 'large variant'. Yes, David, 12x12
*is* small [and I'm doing my darnedest to prove it]. ;-)

My remarks have been misinterpreted as skeptical criticism. I wasn't asking whether the game was playable. I assume it is. I enjoy the other game I reference, Knappen's Quinquereme, very much -- another inspirational game. Your example of trying to visualize future moves, e.g., knight moves, is another good point about how it isn't necessary for moves to be instantly visualizable to be part of a good game.

For more practice visualizing future moves, I recommend people play actualized potential chess, including my soon-to-be released doubly actualized potential chess, which uses pieces that exist two moves into the future. :-)

I was just asking whether the routes for these new multiples of four pieces could become instantly visualizable with enough practice. Your answer was no. I'm not so sure. As we start playing more with pieces that act on multiples, we might find ourselves becoming fluent with this. So it may be in fact that I am more optimistic than you about the future of your already aesthetically satisfying new game.

LOL! And here I just thought you were playing Devil's Advocate. 
I decided to take the question seriously for purposes of an answer because
I do think a lot of people will not look beyond the size. If I could
squeeze all the basic info to play the game into a couple long comments,
fort can't be all that hard. 
And I still think it's clunky as a game - I deliberately overstuffed it
to test out a bunch of features.
Finally, I disagree with this statement of yours: 'I was just asking
whether the routes for these new multiples of four pieces could become
instantly visualizable with enough practice. Your answer was no.'
My 'No' was to the question: 'Is this game too difficult, by virtue of
its non-visualizeable pieces, to play?' Again I say 'No!' to that.
But I do agree with what you thought I said: No, the pieces aren't
instantly visualizeable. But anyone can count by 2s really fast on a
checkered gameboard... :-D So you are overly optimistic. ;-)