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Joe Joyce wrote on Sun, Apr 4, 2010 03:32 PM UTC:
Alicing represents an extreme form of limiting the size of a dimension,
which is a very common method of controlling higher dimensional games. But
I think it can easily go too far. 

Take boards of sizes 8x8x2 or 6x6x3, for example. These are a pair of 3D
boards that have a common flaw, in my opinion. They are too narrow in one
dimension. A dimension of size 2 or 3 is too small to give the standard
chesspieces enough scope to move as themselves. These narrow dimensions are
in some senses more gimmick than full higher-dimensional boards. 

My rough rule of thumb is that a dimension of length L [Length of side in
squares] should be large enough that a knight placed on a 2D LxL sized
board can move from any square on that board to any other square on that
board. This gives a minimum size of 4 for any dimension used. Admittedly,
that's personal prejudice, and I've used smaller boards myself. Learned a
good bit from using different boards, including the bit about liking the
knight to be able to move freely. In the games with less than all sides of
length 4, the knight does not have full x-dimensional freedom. And of all
the standard chesspieces, the knight is the most beautiful in higher
dimensions.

Raumschach uses a board of 5x5x5, 125 positions, double the standard 64 of
FIDE. This is more than big enough for free knight moves, and it also seems
like a lot of places to move to, but it's not, really. Look at it this way
- from the center, a king, using 3D movement, can move to any square on the
board in 2 turns. On a standard FIDE 8x8 2D board, it's 4 turns, so in
that sense, the FIDE board is twice the size of the Raumschach. And that
size difference means a lot, because the smaller the board, the worse the
edge effects.