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Eurasia-Chess chessmen set for Chess-XiangQi-Shogi & Variants

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      Cannon,         Elephant     &       Silver 

This review is a complement to previous one (here), that was only relating innovative Shogi-chessmen aspects of Eurasia-Chess.
You'll find hereafter photos of a new bicolor wooden chessmen set "Eurasia-Chess" (commercial handcrafted product currently on small-serie production process), enabling - for the very first time - the play of the 3 main kind of Chess (European, Chinese and Japanese),

European Chess (Orthodox)
XiangQi (Chinese Chess)
Shogi (Japanese Chess)


Moreover, such chessmen set is also enabling the play of :
- Historical Chess variants, such as Chaturanga (for 2, 3 or 4 players), Sho-Shogi (with a drunk elephant) ...
- or even recent Shogi-drop-like Chess/XiangQi variants, such as Chessgi, CrazyHouse, Drop-XiangQi ... and many other Chess variants ...

Chaturaji (4-handed Chaturanga) : Initial setup
Highly strategic and agressive game to be played with 2, 3 or 4 players

Well ! That's not that easy to recognize the camp of a piece...
but this is playable and enjoyable, even if 4 differents colors would be easier.
(Black&White team against Bicolor team)

Pieces

Chessmen are Asian Staunton-like shape, of recommended FIDE-dimensions (size 5).
There's 48 Chessmen (2 Kings, 4 Queens, 4 Bishops, 4 Elephants, 4 Silvers, 4 kNights, 4 Rooks, 4 Cannons, 18 Pawns), and 16 Discs :
  • Cannon piece is used for both Xiangqi, and Shogi (as a Lance).
  • Elephant piece (for XiangQi) is made the same way as a Knight: piece shape is Elephant's head.
  • Queen piece is also used as Advisor(XiangQi) and Gold-General(Shogi). The small sphere on its top is gold-painted.
  • Silver-General shape is similar to Gold-General, but on its top, there's a vertical notch and a crescent-moon silver-painted (moon = symbol of silver)
  • Piece height is not proportionnal to piece power (as in chess, Knight&Bishop are weaker than Rook), but are designed to make a beautiful setup.

Notes

SHOGI ASPECTS : Change of owner, and Promotion

In order to allow specificities of Shogi (change of owner when piece is captured then dropped back, and piece promotion upgrading piece movements) traditional Staunton chessmen pieces have been adapted into bicolor pieces (for owner change) and promotion is realized with a magnetized disc, as follow:
We're also thinking on a promotion disc embedded in each piece, with a spring mechanism (similar to the rectractable ball-point-pen mechanism, or with a rotative movement to lock/unlock), that would make piece promotion easier... but such mechanism will not be part of the first version of this game, as magnetized disc solution is easier to implement, and - regarding experience - already convenient for play.
- ~ -

All pieces are bicolor, enabling the change of owner when captured, then dropped again on chessboard, thus allowing to differentiate easily opponent's pieces from yours.
Then, each player see himself black, and white for the opponnent. The real color of a camp (who start first?) is the color of its King cross.
- ~ -

This set can be a good way to help "European-Chess" players - already used to such figurine chessmen - discovering easily Asian Chess and other Chess variants .
You'll find more info on http://www.eurasia-chess.com


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By Emmanuel Baud.
Web page created: 2008-06-18. Web page last updated: 2008-06-18