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Ladder Shogi. Shogi variant on 10 by 10 board where pieces climb the social ladder by multiple promotions. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Andrew Kaczrowski wrote on Mon, Mar 7, 2005 11:57 PM UTC:

I would like to chime in on this topic...

Michael wrote:
'If the players can't see several moves ahead, let alone what's
happening on the current move, then the strategic depth of the game
suffers and play tends to be chaotic and heavily influence by
coincidence'

Mason and I have designed very large chess variants, and I have to say
from experience that strategy is a huge element in them.  We have
designed
two now, with the second being more complex, and playing a bit like d&d
meets chess.

Ok, without mentioning details about it, our first game features many
pieces, but most certainly all moves that COULD be done are relatively
unused for purposes of bringing out more powerful pieces.

But here's the catch...developing with 'less powerful' moves creates
alot of advantages later.  So the opponent analyzes the probablity that a
certain narrow range of 'very powerful' moves would be done.

Each time a player would choose instead to make a relatively innocent
developing move with a relatively weak piece, it catches the other player
off-guard, and creates tension.

Our first game has been played a zillion times as mentioned, and it
literally gave me a headache after playing it with all the strategy I
could summon.

Ask yourself if d&d has strategy, and if the answer is yes, then our
second games stands quite firmly, the clarity is realized when analyzing
only the most likely devastating moves possible, and prioritizing
backwards.

Suppose for instance a piece could simply transfer itself to another
square on a normal chessboard...some might say this is too complex,
BUT...what are the most likely places it might transfer to?  There might
be only a certain number of squares it would probably go to.

I rarely post to these forums, but I just had to talk.

Andrew