Kevin Pacey wrote on Tue, Oct 24, 2017 10:13 PM UTC:
For what it's worth, H.T. Lau's book on Chinese Chess gives R=9, CA=4.5, N=4, P(after crossing river)=M=CO=2 and P(before crossing river)=1. Quite a difference in valuation for both the N and the CA from yours, H.G., though it's given in the context of this game by itself, with no mention of comparing it to e.g. chess piece types. The high value for a R gives me a clue I may have overvalued the Cannon in Eurasian Chess due to not considering this last point. Taking it into account, I'd be inclined at first to put the value of a Cannon at 2.75 pawns in Eurasian Chess, as I put a R at 5.5 there, except that with the properties of a king in that variant, a Cannon does well in an endgame with any piece (even the lowly Vao) as far as basic mates goes. The latter is the same story as it is for a N. A knight's main disadvantage is its short range, especially on the huge 10x10 board, while the C's main disadvantage is that it captures purely by hopping. I'd suppose these factors roughly balance, and thus I'd adjust my initial valuation of a Cannon here to come up with my actual tentative estimate of C=N(=3.75), in the case of Eurasian Chess. For variants with normal chess kings, and 8 ranks, such as the original version of my variant idea Gamma Chess, I'd now go with your optimistic case estimate of Cannon=2, and recalculate my estimated value of a Cannon+Guard compound piece from there [edit: I've done this with edits to my previous two posts in this thread]. The Lau book was first released way back in 1985, if that comes into consideration.
For anyone still interested, I'm thinking I might now be able to salvage something from my latest test diagram (see my second last post in this thread, where I altered the setup slightly, by editing), if I redefine the Boat and Archer piece types as follows: the new Boat type would have the powers of an alfil (leaps 2 diagonally) and a guard, while the new Archer type would have the powers of a dabbaba (leaps 2 orthogonally) and a guard. Partly because neither would be colour-bound, I'd estimate they'd both be worth about 6.5 pawns on average. I'm not sure what name I'd give this new version of this variant idea if I decide to submit it, but Gamma Chess would be as good as any a placeholder unless I think of something better. This was my third version of the variant, perhaps somewhat justifying the name (Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet).
For what it's worth, H.T. Lau's book on Chinese Chess gives R=9, CA=4.5, N=4, P(after crossing river)=M=CO=2 and P(before crossing river)=1. Quite a difference in valuation for both the N and the CA from yours, H.G., though it's given in the context of this game by itself, with no mention of comparing it to e.g. chess piece types. The high value for a R gives me a clue I may have overvalued the Cannon in Eurasian Chess due to not considering this last point. Taking it into account, I'd be inclined at first to put the value of a Cannon at 2.75 pawns in Eurasian Chess, as I put a R at 5.5 there, except that with the properties of a king in that variant, a Cannon does well in an endgame with any piece (even the lowly Vao) as far as basic mates goes. The latter is the same story as it is for a N. A knight's main disadvantage is its short range, especially on the huge 10x10 board, while the C's main disadvantage is that it captures purely by hopping. I'd suppose these factors roughly balance, and thus I'd adjust my initial valuation of a Cannon here to come up with my actual tentative estimate of C=N(=3.75), in the case of Eurasian Chess. For variants with normal chess kings, and 8 ranks, such as the original version of my variant idea Gamma Chess, I'd now go with your optimistic case estimate of Cannon=2, and recalculate my estimated value of a Cannon+Guard compound piece from there [edit: I've done this with edits to my previous two posts in this thread]. The Lau book was first released way back in 1985, if that comes into consideration.
For anyone still interested, I'm thinking I might now be able to salvage something from my latest test diagram (see my second last post in this thread, where I altered the setup slightly, by editing), if I redefine the Boat and Archer piece types as follows: the new Boat type would have the powers of an alfil (leaps 2 diagonally) and a guard, while the new Archer type would have the powers of a dabbaba (leaps 2 orthogonally) and a guard. Partly because neither would be colour-bound, I'd estimate they'd both be worth about 6.5 pawns on average. I'm not sure what name I'd give this new version of this variant idea if I decide to submit it, but Gamma Chess would be as good as any a placeholder unless I think of something better. This was my third version of the variant, perhaps somewhat justifying the name (Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet).