Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The diagram below now allows merging of all 15 possible pairs. This captureMatrix is truly a powerful method for parametrizing chess variants. Here it is used for merging pieces and type-selective suppression of the friendly captures for pieces that cannot merge. It can also be used for canibalizing powers of enemy pieces that are captured (such as contageon), or type-selective ironhood. And it can be used for eroding pieces that only disappear after several captures (like in Golem Chess), by promoting to an opponent. In addition it can specify kamikaze moves or burning/atomic explosion, and hop bans, all in a color- and type-selective way.

Ah yes, you are right, I corrected that now. Still working on alfaerie compound images, I think I should have most now.

The article seems self-contradictory on this, because elsewhere it says a Queen is not a normal Queen because it can merge too. But getting any pair of basic pieces to merge takes effort enough, so I will leave it at that. It probably would not make sense to merge more than two, because most triples would have overlapping moves, which could depress the synergy so much that it actually becomes negative. Even  in the non-overlapping case of the Amazon I did not detect any synergy w.r.t. Q + N.

I assume merging of identical types is forbidden (rather than just bad strategy). The article is not clear about that either.

Even if you would only allow combinations of two

This seems to be the case, see the references to "basic" pieces as opposed to "queens".

[...] you would still have 6x5 = 30 combination pieces.

Half that, since the order of specification doesn't matter. The article mentions 15 pieces in the values section. (Still a lot of names, granted.)

The captureMatrix parameter in principle allows the Interactive Diagram to implement these rules, by allowing friendly capture, and specifying promotion to the combination pieces. As long as the pieces never split up again this works, and in the Diagram below I implemented it for R, B and N merging with each other to A, C or Q. ([Edit] And now for all pairs of mid-range pieces.)

Problem is the enormous number of combination pieces that you would have to introduce to allow arbitrary combination of all 6 basic types. Each basic type has at least one move that none of the others has, so all 2^6 - 1 = 63 combinations are different. (But 6 of those are just a single basic piece type, so 57 new combinations.)

It is a pity the article doesn't specify names for all of those, and you would quickly run out of sensible symbols to represent them. Even if you would only allow combinations of two, you would still have 6x5/2 = 15 combination pieces.

The game itself offers a very interesting strategic dilemma. Combining two pieces creates additional value through synergy. But if you combine too many, you run into the leveling effect, because you have too many high-valued pieces, which are all severely hindered by the much larger number of light pieces the opponent has. Like in Charge of the Light Brigade, where the Queens are crushed by the army of Knights.

[Edit] The merging is now forbidden on the first three ranks, by an = in the morph parameter for the basic pieces.

A game diagram in "Motif" may be more familiar to some readers. The Hussar (inverted knight) is called a Wizard in Daniel C. Macdonald's commercial variant Omega Chess - posted on this web site around the same time as Sheherazade. The Onager (inverted rook) is called a Duck by George Jelliss in 2002 on his web page "All the King's Men". The Spearman (inverted bishop) is defined on the "Piececlopedia: Phoenix / Waffle" page.

''Passing powers around'' is referred to in Comments of Joyce and Smith at Extreme 2D Chess now. This forgotten game in 1999 relays powers at option like later Delegating Chess(2002) of Neto. Scheherazade piece disappears, and the power remains, when the effect is chosen, unlike Delegating's.  A zillion extreme Variants on a theme. Duniho copies this type of effect later too, but also there are even precedents in 'ECV', as if reading were a privilege.