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Upgrade Chess has extremely weak armies. Counting the levels, Upgrade Chess has 15 levels per side (compare to Shatranj with 29 levels or FIDE Chess with 56 levels).

Probably the winner of the first battle will win the whole game, making opening theory very important and almost a mathematical puzzle. Here is one opening (not a very good one, but illustrating some features of the game): 1. e4 d5 2. exd5?? c6 When the pawn goes on capturing it will be taken by the Crab on b8 which promotes to NN2 -- winning advantage for black. 3. c4 Kd7 Black brings the King to the front. There is no danger because of the weakness of the armies, and by capturing with the King he can distribute the additional levels to a piece of his choice.

BTW, Stackable piece would make a nice physical implementation of the game.

Re-reading some of my old variants, I thought about Knappen's comment. And I think, the possible solution of the game's "weakness" is to add the "treasures": non-movable neutral pieces, that could be captured by euther player and add 1 level. It would also add some more spirit of adventure RPG. But how to introduce them? Possible variants:<br/>

1) They are initially set in fixed position. But what position is the best?<br/>

2) Sometimes they appear randomly, with certain limitations (the most obvious - they should not be able to be captured on the sybsequent turn, but shouldn't there be more complex restrictions?).<br/>

3) Players do drop them, again, with certain limitations (e.g. - they should not be under one's pieces attack, or they should be on the opposing half of board).<br/>

4) They are initially placed randomly and hidden, and don't obstruct the movement, and once piece moves, it gets the number of treasures around (as in Minesweeper game). Alternative variant - rather than being placed randomlly, they are placed by player on his half of board, and of course, one can collect only opponent's treasures.<br/>

Another solution - respawning pieces, retaining they level (or reducing only by 1). But it also should be somehow restricted...<br/>

Do somebody have other ideas?