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Well, it seems that girrafes ("camelopardus") in Tamerlane's epoch was exotical and legendary in Eurasia, as much as "unicorns" (rhinos). Perhaps, in chess girrafes had only symbolic meaning. (Well, so as rooks in standart forms of chess at some points of time was supposed to be roc birds.)
Good question, everyone knows Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant. And Indian Elephant piece belongs as part of military in original Chaturanga of India that's certainly not fanciful. What about Giraffe as military, perhaps historian John Ayer would know, or Gary Gifford, giraffes used for reconnaissance?
A historical question. Among usual military units, there are giraffes. Moreover - in another historic variant - Turkish Grand Chess - giraffe is the strongest piece, having the movement of amazon. (Of course, no question about the Grande Acedrex, as there most of pieces are named after exotical or fantastic animals.) Was giraffes actually used in army? Or it was simulation of hunt - as there was no mechanism that could control "neutral" piece (or there was no idea like that), opponent controlled giraffes you hunt?
I've noticed that i never seen photos of historical sets of this game. And ancient diagramm depicts pieces by ligature inscriptions. Is this game known only from old documents, having no surviving physical sets? It would be interesting to know, how non-standart pieces and variable pawns was originally represented.
If you don't like citadel to be a draw, you can make up the subvariant, moving king into opponent's citadel is a half-win. Maybe this way better.
Tamerlane Chess is my favorite chess variant. At first it may seem that the pieces are too weak, but I've found that when you are playing a chess variant with over 20 pieces to a side, it is better that most pieces have only a few moves. Otherwise the shear number of moves available that you have to consider each turn can be astronomical. Also, the fact that many of the pieces cannot be exchanged for the equivalent pieces from the other side actually makes the game more interesting. You must consider when it is worth it to make uneven exchanges.
I finally won a game of this against zillions of games. For those who have never played it, but would like to see what a game might look like, I've created an annotated description of the game at http://gamesinmichigan.com/annotatedgames/tamerlane.htm
There is a free on line font that has the pieces of chess as well as of shogi.. but also of Tamerlane chess(!). I made a screenshot that you can see below.
the link for this site is: en.grinningbit.com
This is THE REAL Shatranj Kamil!
(Murray, A history of chess page 344, line 21)
Eric Greenwood proposed '... the Ferz gains the power to move 1 square straight back ...'
See also the humpback in Whale Shogi. This is precisely the reversal of the moves of the silver general from Shogi.
Thank you, everyone, for the kind comments on the Variants! Mr. Gilman is correct: One of the purposes of the expanded ranks is indeed to allow for coverage of more squares. I have played games where the position more or less was color-stalemated. Part of the charm of the game is the weaker pieces; however, it is very frustrating to not be able to attack a particular square when you need to! Variant 1 is designed to keep the flavor of the game intact as completely as possible while expanding the piece range to both colors. The GUard is a very useful addition with the limited abilities of the rest of the pieces. Mr. Ayer is correct; the the Prince [promoted King's pawn] and the Adventitious King [third-time promoted Pawn of Pawns] are not Royal until the Original Monarch is Captured. At that point they become Royal. [mating the Original King is sufficient whenever the Prince or AK aren't present]. Variant 2 is perhaps my favorite; the picket/bishop is restored to the familiar chess move, the ferz is able to change color [without changing its basic function] the Giraffe is SLIGHTLY more mobile, and the war machines and elephants are MUCH more useful! The piece's powers are only slightly enhanced; the game flavor is retained while allowing a LOT more strategic options. Variants 3, 4, and 5 are for those wanting a little more firepower available. While the Queen and the increasingly Liberated Giraffes allow for more speed and tactical tricks, the rest of the pieces are the same, which makes for a nice alternative when the regular game [or Variants 1 and 2] gets a bit stale. [a temporary circumstance, to be sure! :) ] Regarding double-moving pawns: the slow pawns help to keep the game flavor, and that is why i left them as is. [Another part of the charm is the unique pawn designation on promotion]. However, feel free to use double-pawn moves in any of the Variants! It does make for a faster game, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, depending on one's individual tasted. Just let your opponent know! :) In fact, feel free to mix and match ANY of the rules to whatever your tastes are! For instance, Retain the Guard instead of the Queen in variant 5. My Variants are just a jumping-off point; Let your own creativity shine forth! Btw, there are a couple of alternate setups given. However, it is fairly universal that this one is the best one. Retaining the 'complicated' rules are, once again, part of the game's charm; And they are rare enough in actual play [except for the King-swap during a check] that they are hardly ever seen. just keep a set of Rules handy when playing to settle any questions. Thank you for the chance to explain the reasoning behind the Variants presented! :) Eric V. Greenwood
Wow.
I've never much cared for chess (except Xianqi which I can never get people to play with me), but this is great.
After Tamerlane I had to try some of the other applets as well.
Only found two new variants aside from this one that I like as much as this.
If I get a chance I'm gonna make a set and see if I can get some of the chess geniuses at my school to beat me at it.
I ended up making up my own board because i was bored... anyway, i think that the game is very good however i think that the opening could go a lot smoother with allowing the pawns to have the two jump as thier initial move, i would like some comment on this from someone more experienced because i'm not very experiecnced in this game, seeing as i haven't had an opponent yet, or played a full game out.
I really like the piece balance in this variant. No one type of piece is very strong (I think the rook is strongest), but there are a number of different pieces with different abilities, and I think they are balanced quite well. For instance, I disagree with the variant notes about liberating the giraffes; I believe they are limited the way that they are to prevent them from being too powerful; otherwise, setting two of them side-by-side could effectively control four whole files, which is just too much power for two pieces to have, even on a larger board like this. As the rules are given, though, they are not so overwhelmingly powerful because they can be blocked easily by relatively close pieces, and so to retain their power have to keep some distance from the action, or their close range has to be protected by other pieces (a job I suppose rooks would be well suited for, if they are not busy elsewhere). I thought at first that the war carts and elephants would be weak, but upon further inspection they are useful and complement the other pieces nicely. My only quibble with the elephants is that their moves are not very elephant-like (unlike the giraffes, whose move makes sense for that animal in a couple of ways). But that is a very small thing, and the elephants are as in Shantranj in any case. The general and the vizir seemed weak to me at first, and then I realized that without castling, the king will need something to hide behind, and that is why those pieces are not very mobile. Regarding the guard variant, I'm not sure whether it's necessary, though it does seem like it would help. The elephants and camels and war carts are balanced to some extent by the pickets (although I do like the idea of playing the pickets as regular biships, partly because it helps fortify their squares, and partly for symetry, since the horses and rooks are as in modern chess), and in any case both players are in the same bind for the squares those pieces can't cover. Then again, the way pawns promote could upset the balance further; for instance, if a player were to get his pawns of camels, war carts, and elephants all promoted, he could have a strong position on those squares then. On the other hand, getting one or two of those promoted on the opposite squares, plus the pawn of pickets, could have the reverse effect. I guess I'd have to play it a good bit both ways to be sure whether adding a middle column is a worthwhile improvement or not. I'm thinking it might be. I believe I would prefer to allow the pawns the initial-double-move option as in modern chess, mainly to help get things going at the beginning, since the board is a bit large. I think if I wanted to simplify the rules a bit, the first thing I'd do is toss out the citadels and the special draw and stalemate rules, and use regular chess rules for those things; I don't think that would upset the balance of the variant at all. I might also simplify the pawn-of-pawns promotion rule also, perhaps allowing it to promote (the first time) to any one formerly-captured friendly piece the player wants back. But these are minor quibbles. On the whole, this seems like a very nice, balanced, playable variant, with some fun pieces.
Yes, I think most people who are good at chess would know about this game. This is one of the first variants known to the west, being described in Falkener's _Games Ancient and Oriental and How to Play Them_, published in the nineteenth century, and again in Murray's _History of Chess_. It has been described since in many books about chess and its relatives, or more generally about board games.
Neat. Would you think most people good at chess know about this?
What are the image files for the individual pieces? I can see a good use for piece images of two sizes in several of my own variants.
I can suggest short names for these promotion rules. The rule in this game is the 'apprentice' rule, on the basis that each Pawn models itself on a particular piece from the start. Applied to most variants this would usually be the piece directly behind it. The rule in Chaturanga is the 'stabling' rule, on the basis that equipment is stabled there to equip the original piece as a Rook, Knight, or whatever and to equip arriving enemy Pawns (on pain of death?) to the same. Horses pulling chariots are taken to be a breed unsuitable for riding dierctly and vv!
Ah yes, I see now. Thank you for providing a clarification.
Not quite. Chaturanga allows a pawn to promote to the piece whose starting square it reaches--a pawn prmoting on a8 becomes a Rook, on b8 a Knight. It doesn't matter which pawn it is, only which square it promotes on. In Tamerlane's, the Rook's pawn always promotes to Rook no matter where on the back rank it promotes, the Knight's pawn promotes to Knight, etc. Here what square the pawn promotes on doesn't matter and which pawn it is does--pretty much the exact opposite of Chaturanga.
<i>The individualization of the pawns is a complete novelty.</i><br><br>
Doesn't <a href='http://www.chessvariants.com/historic.dir/chaturanga.html'>Chaturanga</a> use the 'pawn of ...' mechanic even though the pieces are neither so named or numbered? It seems the novelty exists only in making the pawns easier to identify. Is that what you are refiering to, the piece design and nomenclature?
It is my impression that, while the original king is on the board, the prince or adventitious king is not royal; that is, that it can be placed or left en prise, and can be captured by surprise. I don't know what anyone else may know or think about this.
I think this game was derived from Shatranj al-Kamil Type I, which has orthogonal-riders (the Rukhs), orthogonal-leapers (the Jamal), diagonal one-step movers (the Firzan), and diagonal-leapers (the Alfil). The game-designer filled out these two families by adding an orthogonal one-step mover (the Wazir, or vizir) and a diagonal-rider (the Taliah, or picket, which for some obscure reason is forbidden to take a one-square move). The horse was then made the basis for a third family by adding a one-square-farther leaper (the Jamal, or camel, the original camel being rechristened a Dabbabah, or war-machine) and a diagonal-plus-orthogonal-rider (the Zarafah, or giraffe; again, short moves are forbidden). The individualization of the pawns is a complete novelty.
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The extra file in the variants seems a sensible idea. In the original game all the back-rank pieces of one side are confined to squares of one colour and those of the other side to the other colour, while pickets are confined to the colours of enemy back-rank pieces. The extra file means that pieces of every kind except the Fers cover squares of both colours, back-rank can capture back-rank, and Picket can capture Picket.
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