Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Equine flesh was still available on menus in places such as Ni^mes,
Narbonne, or Carcassonne, as recently as a quarter of a century ago; and
perhaps it still is.

Given that bovines are now raised in heavily polluting factories and fed on
a diet that consists of antibiotics, hormones, noxious chemicals, and
nameless gobbets of unidentified (best not to know) flesh, don't you think
it would be more salutory and more rational to devour an equine than a
bovine? And if the horse talks, so much the better.

One cannot subsist on ratatouille alone; at times, carnivory is necessary
to sate the taste; so what if it's Bambi's mom, or Black Beauty?

Jeeves was thought to have eaten gobs of fish, and therefore such a brain;
but nowadays the FDA recommends (NY Times, a week or so ago) that you not
eat too much fish because we have befouled the limitless depths of the
inexhaustible oceans with our poisons. Given that chicken is a worse
factory food than beef, one can eat neither fish nor foul....

Today, if you wish to eat meat, your best chance if survival lies in goat,
rabbit (there is a reason why the furry rabbit foot is attached, you know),
horse, venison, and the like. Your local ethnic butcher may be able to
supply you.

Those who scorn the equine feast merely reveal their ignorance of the sad
state of affairs to which we have brought ourselves.

Of course, there is always the escargot as an alternativ; or perhaps four
and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. But why not horse?

O thou naysayer, bridle your anti-equine passions and mount a saddle of
horse ribs on your table; and hope it does not give you the galloping
trots.

Sorry if my previous criticism of the names was wholly negative. The piece
here called a Castle is called a Squirrel in the Piececlopedia. The one
here called a Chevalier is more usually called a Camel, including in
Tamerlane Chess. The name Courtier has no confusion with anything else,
but that piece is known widely enough as a Zebra for that to be a better
name. I know nothing of the culinary use of squirrel, camel, or zebra!
	A slightly different piece is called Cavalier in the P'pedia, one from
Rennchess, but either way it is a poor name for something distinct from
the Knight. The Rennchess Cavalier I would call a Reversible Gryphon and
the Rennchess Duke a Reversible Aanca (see Bent Riders under the Gryphon
entry; I use Duke and Duchess for orthogonal+triagonal combined pieces).
The Cavalier here might be called a Concubine, reflecting Tamerlane's
polygamous lifestyle (although this has occasionally been used for other
pieces), or for uniqueness a Gryphoness, as the heraldic Gryphon is
sexually dimorphous. Either would reflect its Queenlike interchangeability
of orthogonal and diagonal moves.
	For the game itself I would suggest the name of Tamerlane's chief wife
if I knew it, reflecting its status as a Tamerlane-like game but with a
Queen.

For those interested, here is a link to a page with an excellent resume
about Tamerlane's life

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/timur.shtml

I really like this version though, as well as Tamerlane and Pacific.

I was just browsing the pdf of Falkener Book (available on line for download) and I noticed that for Tamerlane chess he modified some piece names for people of the west (Americans in this case but also true for Europeans) to better understand them. Some names that he gave to pieces were precisely the ones given in this variant.
Most probably the inventor was familiarized with Falkere's book.

By the way, Falkener goes further back in time than expected: The Dover reprint was made from an 1892 edition!

Falkener, Edward, Games Ancient and Oriental, Dover Publications 1961 (reprint of 1892 edition)

Mideast is my favorite decimal Tamerlane, but I am making some changes for my second addition to Grand Chess & Beyond, "Grand Tamerlane". First,  upgrading to a Wizard (FL) and a Sorcerer (WJ). Second,  simplifying the Cavalier to a Griffon. And finally,  I personally like the Pasha/Mastadon better than the a Squirrel, but I am using the Jumping General name for alphabetical reasons and I am a fan of Joe Joyce's work.

The Camel attacks the opponent's Knight immediately when both are on their most natural developing square. I think this is a major flaw in games featuring both camels and Knights. Since Camels are worth less this hinders the development of the Knights. It would be better to have the Camels on b and i instead of c and h.

Mideast Chess reported in D.B.Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Chess Variants (both editions) has a different Cavalier's move.

Instead of :"The cavalier first moves one square diagonally, and then an arbitrary number of squares horizontally or vertically, or it moves one square horizontally or vertically, and then an arbitrary number of squares diagonally. "

It is "The cavalier first moves one square diagonally, and then an arbitrary number of squares horizontally or vertically, or it moves an arbitrary number of squares horizontally or vertically, and then one square diagonally." Thus, the cavalier has a choice of two path to reach a square. It is the move of this piece at Renn Chess too, which is a follow up of Mideast Chess.

Maybe this difference could be mentioned on this page.