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Fusion Chess. Variant in which pieces may merge together or split apart. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Spanish Fan wrote on Sun, Dec 15, 2002 07:27 PM UTC:Good ★★★★
Why isn't 'triple fusion' allowed? This is, letting a Queen merge with a
Knight (or a Marshall with a Bishop, or a Paladin with a Rook) to form an
'Amazon' (piece moving like Bishop + Rook + Knight).

More combinations are possible with royal pieces, although the resulting
royal pieces may prove to be too powerful. But, at least, Amazons could be
allowed, and then let Pawns promote into 'fusioned' pieces as well.

The article doesnt say anything on how to denote the Pope, Dragon King, or
Eques Rex.

Finally, the correct Latin plural for 'Eques Rex' should be 'Equites
Reges' (and not 'Eques Rexi' as it appears in the article).

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, Apr 12, 2003 07:25 AM UTC:
The Spanish fan's Latin is correct, but his suggestion of triple combination could really complicate things. Along with the Amazon (alias Dragon Paladin or Eques Regina, plural Equites Reginæ) it would allow three triple combinations with the King - Dragonpope or Kingrider (King+Rook+Bishop), Eques Draco Rex (King+Rook+Knight, plural Equites Dracones Reges), and Eques Papa (King+Bishop+Knight, plural Equites Papæ) - or even a combination of all four basic pieces, the Eques Draco Papa!

🕸💡📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Apr 13, 2003 04:27 AM UTC:
Fusion Chess was preceded by Sentai Chess, a Power Rangers inspired variant
in which every type of piece could combine into one mega-piece. Even
though the most basic Sentai pieces were weaker than Chess pieces, the
mega-piece was capable of checkmating a King on its own. Overall, Sentai
Chess was not that good a game. Based on similar ideas, Fusion Chess was a
considerable improvement over Sentai Chess. One of the main improvements
came from limiting fusions to two basic pieces.

Besides this, I have regularly found that the Amazon is too powerful of a
piece. It hurts gameplay, and I normally avoid using it in any of my
games. If Fusion Chess allowed fusion to an Amazon, it would be a worse
game. Likewise, a Multi-fused King would be too difficult to checkmate.
British Chess sat on the shelf for a couple years until I figured out how
to make the royal Queen more checkmatable.

Nevertheless, multiple fusions might not hurt the gameplay of something
like Metamorphin' Fusion Chess, Thunder Chess, or Bedlam. For in these
games, the Metamorph Chess rules would turn any multiply-fused piece that
makes a capture into the piece it just moved as. This would limit the
destructive capability of such pieces. But even so, the Amazons would be
more menacing, and the mutiply-fused Kings would be harder to checkmate.

Actually, a Thunder Chess variant might not work, for the Metamorph
capturing rules and the Assimilation capturing rules would conflict. One
compromise between them would be for a compound piece to convert to the
simple piece it moved as whenever it could not assimilate the piece it was
capturing.

I may try to implement all-out fusion versions of these during the summer.

Charles Gilman wrote on Sat, May 17, 2003 07:11 AM UTC:
Having seen a few other long-range rulers elsewhere I have a question about your combined pieces: can they move through check? Disallowing such a move is a good limitation in Fergus Duniho's light-hearted British Chess, and has a certain logic as an extension of en passant. Obviously standard Kings cannot because their moves are too short.

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