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Rococo. A clear, aggressive Ultima variant on a 10x10 ring board. (10x10, Cells: 100) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

George Duke wrote on Wed, Oct 12, 2016 05:18 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★

Robert Abbott was inventor of Ultima in the 1960s. Abbott commented 13 years ago on Rococo:

Abbott.

Rococo is my single preferred CV whether Orthodox style or Track Two Heterodox style like Rococo. It themes every piece moving like Queen but capturing differently. Contrary to Abbott, the border squares substantially make the game, because different pieces and Rococo Pawns react differently with those "half-squares" variously accessible according to the piece-types divergent Rules. "Divergent" is carefully picked to describe because all Rococo pieces are divergent in the CV sense that they move and capture differently. But then Abbott has a narrow specialty having invented several (not a lot) of great game rules and secondly made challenging mazes. He admits here and there he does not play games, CV or not, very much himself. He seems to have just chanced on 2 or 3 great Rules sets in card game Eleusis and CV Ultima. Or maybe Ultima gets attention because it was one of the first modern ones in between Parton and Boyer and just prior to Betza. There is not much follow-up insight on Abbott's part, where for instance most revisions of his suggestion worsen the great original. Abbott never really delved into CVs and does not consider Ultima even to be one like we do, but just using Chess equipment in his words.

However, over-all we have played Abbott's great Eleusis quite a bit more than Aronson and Howe's Rococo, no comparison really. Eleusis, so thanks aplenty to Robert for countless hours at Eleusis.