💡📝Martin Nilsson wrote on Mon, Nov 18, 2024 06:54 PM UTC:
Did the following writeup to further explain my design thinking for this game:
Problem: Large variants easily become too complex for (average) human players to handle skillfully, and too sharp. Having too many strong pieces while keeping the standard king increases the probability of an early check mate.
Solution: Keep the standard pieces, but apart from that, introduce only short and medium distance pieces into the game. This will generate some localized situations of lower complexity.
Problem: Having only a single chain of pawns in a large variant decreases the density of pawns compared to standard chess. The pieces proper will easily stomp through the pawns' defence line. But having partial or whole double pawn chains makes it tedious to develop pieces, among other things.
Solution: Introduce a few Shields into the game, which kind of serve as a mobile pawn replacement.
Problem: Long leapers feel at home on a large board, serving a similar function as the Knight on 8x8, but they can have too powerful forking ability behind the opponent's pawn chain, especially in the early opening.
Solution: Move the pawn chain up to the fourth rank. Make the third rank consist mostly of empty space.
Problem: On a big board, shorter range pieces can easily become stranded in irrelevant areas of the board during the endgame. A stranded Kjempe could in practice be worth much less than 5 pawns.
Solution: This is actually somewhat of a feature. It will be a strategic element of the game to try to predict where the action will be, and move short range pieces there in time. Just make sure that the opening is sufficiently dull that all pieces have time to come into play.
Problem: What does a large variant bring, other than more of the same?
Solution: Make sure the new pieces contrast each other and the old ones, and that pieces can threaten each other assymetrically (either through different movement patterns, or by a defended weaker piece attacking a stronger defended one). Allow for a larger number of quasi-equal exchanges than standard chess, leading to various kinds of assymetric endgames.
Problem: Bishops are pointing at the rooks in the initial position.
Currently no solution: Yes, this is a problem which limits the opening possibilities a bit. At least fortunately the third pawn from the edge is triple defended... At one point I had the Kjempes starting at d3 and i3 to obscure the bishops, but I found this led to more kludginess in the opening.
Did the following writeup to further explain my design thinking for this game:
Problem: Large variants easily become too complex for (average) human players to handle skillfully, and too sharp. Having too many strong pieces while keeping the standard king increases the probability of an early check mate.
Solution: Keep the standard pieces, but apart from that, introduce only short and medium distance pieces into the game. This will generate some localized situations of lower complexity.
Problem: Having only a single chain of pawns in a large variant decreases the density of pawns compared to standard chess. The pieces proper will easily stomp through the pawns' defence line. But having partial or whole double pawn chains makes it tedious to develop pieces, among other things.
Solution: Introduce a few Shields into the game, which kind of serve as a mobile pawn replacement.
Problem: Long leapers feel at home on a large board, serving a similar function as the Knight on 8x8, but they can have too powerful forking ability behind the opponent's pawn chain, especially in the early opening.
Solution: Move the pawn chain up to the fourth rank. Make the third rank consist mostly of empty space.
Problem: On a big board, shorter range pieces can easily become stranded in irrelevant areas of the board during the endgame. A stranded Kjempe could in practice be worth much less than 5 pawns.
Solution: This is actually somewhat of a feature. It will be a strategic element of the game to try to predict where the action will be, and move short range pieces there in time. Just make sure that the opening is sufficiently dull that all pieces have time to come into play.
Problem: What does a large variant bring, other than more of the same?
Solution: Make sure the new pieces contrast each other and the old ones, and that pieces can threaten each other assymetrically (either through different movement patterns, or by a defended weaker piece attacking a stronger defended one). Allow for a larger number of quasi-equal exchanges than standard chess, leading to various kinds of assymetric endgames.
Problem: Bishops are pointing at the rooks in the initial position.
Currently no solution: Yes, this is a problem which limits the opening possibilities a bit. At least fortunately the third pawn from the edge is triple defended... At one point I had the Kjempes starting at d3 and i3 to obscure the bishops, but I found this led to more kludginess in the opening.