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sirius628 wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 02:38 AM UTC:

Pieces promote by capturing a piece of equal or greater power. The goal is to capture both Jeweled Generals.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 03:41 AM UTC:

I also find the platinum general name better than "drunk elephant"


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 03:42 AM UTC:

It is clear when pieces promote, but not clear to what they promote, may you please expand?


H. G. Muller wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 09:45 AM UTC:

Interesting. A sort of conditional contagiousness. Is this promotion optional or mandatory?

The danger of games with so many forward-directed steppers is that you get very easily in stand-off situations, where you cannot approach a closed rank of generals without being captured. Mini-Shogi already suffers from that. A closed rank attacks every square in front of it 3 times; it is not possible to attack a square more often. So this game seems very drawish.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 10:14 AM UTC:

@HG,

I did though about that, too. I think is rather obvious what you've just said :)! I was wondering would replacing the back wazir moves with back dababah moves, and back ferz moves with back alfill moves help? If so maybe not enough, otherwise how so solve this problem :)?


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 10:56 AM UTC:

My last idea was quite silly, it does not seem to solve anything :(!


sirius628 wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 03:18 PM UTC:

Pieces promote in the order of: Iron --> Copper --> Silver --> Gold --> Platinum --> Jeweled. Do you think that these problems could be solved by adding a leaper or rider? Another problem is that an iron reaching the back rank would be trapped. Currently, I solve that by saying that only the iron promotes on the back rank, and only to copper, but that seems to make the promotion optional, even though I want it to be mandatory.


Greg Strong wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 03:36 PM UTC:

If you change the iron generals to shogi pawns and replace the platinum generals with a phoenix/kylin pair, I think that would do it.


sirius628 wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 04:27 PM UTC:

True, but I included the platinum general because I wanted a clear intermediate step between the gold general and the jeweled general. A Phoenix or Kirin would be probably be slightly stronger than a jeweled general, due to it have two square moves. However, I could add a Phoenix/Kirin, pehaps even with the promotions to Queen or Lion!

It seems like this would solve the problem:

  1. Move the iron generals forward by one rank, giving more space for pieces.
  2. Add a promotable Pheonix/Kirin pair just in front of the Silvers.

However, this has no initial riders or oblique leapers. Oh well, there's always some problem with any variant.


Aurelian Florea wrote on Sat, Nov 4, 2017 05:00 PM UTC:

Personally I'm not very happy about the introduction of Kirin or Phoenix as the alure of this game was as you mentioned, Nicolino. But you may promote irons to copper on the back rank and that's it :). I don't see how this makes promotion optional, just make it always mandatory, by capture or by last rank :)! When a platinum promotes to a jewelled general does it make it an extra royal that has to be checkmated?


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