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Elven Chess. 10x10 variant with 4 new pieces, of which one can double-capture. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 4, 2021 09:17 AM UTC:

An anti-trading rule of this type is necessary to keep the variant Chu-Shogi-like. I admit that for a Chess player these rules are annoying and seem unnatural (like the ban on perpetual checking in Xiangqi). But they are pretty much a defining characteristic of Chu Shogi, and dropping them would completely change the character of the game. I already did simplify them a bit (dropping the exception for adjacent Lions, which would be taken by igui anyway, and dropping the double-capture exception.)

The problem is that the more effective such rules are in preventing trading, the more annoying they will be in the eyes of a player with a Chess background, as it is really the impossibility to disarm the attack by trading that causes the annoyance. I guess the trading problem with pieces like the Lion is much more severe than with the Queen in orthodox Chess (which also dominates the game value-wise) because he Lion is a short-range piece. Queens act from a distance, and tend to exert their tactical threats from behind the front line, to administer the final blow in a longer tactical exchange. Lions have to jump into the melee, and are so powerful that the only defense against them often is another Lion. So they seek each other, where Queens can easily avoid direct contact.

Of course different anti-trading rules are conceivable, but this probably would not solve the annoyance with them, and would just move the game farther away from Chu Shogi for no good reason. And Chu Shogi is a very well evolved game; one can assume they adopted the rule that works best. E.g. one could forbid Lions to capture each other unconditionally, but it would probably make the attacking Lion too powerful, and would not solve the problem of indirect trading. It would be possible to invert the rules: outlaw recapture of a Lion after Lion x Lion, and outlaw other x Lion when a counterstrike against your own Lion is possible. This might favor a defending Lion too much, though.

In Werewolf Chess I used 'contageon' as a means to discourage trading. This feels somewhat less unnatural / arbitrary (to me, at least). But it completely upsets how tactical exchanges work, which can also be perceived as annoying.

Anyway, the goal of this game was to transplant the 'Chu-Shogi feeling' to a smaller/faster and more Chess-like variant, and the anti-trading rules are an essenial part of that. People that are put off by those rules also would not like Chu Shogi, and they are not the audience I target with this variant.