New Position Workshop / Testing Thread

I’d thought of that, but that would really lock the rooks in. That could really change the feel of the game.

Is there a fairy piece that acts like a pawn, but can’t take crooked?

I thought about maybe a setup like this, as well, but I don't know how exactly it would work, with the initial move being 2 spaces, and where the pawns promote, etc.

How about a soldier on those files instead of a pawn? Soldiers always go forward, whether its a capture or a normal move

Oooh, that could work. That sounds promising.

Can soldiers move two spaces initially, like pawns?

yes

Awesome. I think that solves that problem.

That leaves the setup of the king, queen, chancellor, and archbishop. The issue there is the same as the difference between old standard, new standard, brsti, and brsti-invert. Should they stay the way they are, or should they be inverted for some players? I think the current way I have those pieces would work, but I don’t know.

current way is omatamix like, should be good as its the current standard

All fairy pawns have the double step move.

Including the soldier.

For anyone who wants to try testing 4PC Gothic, here's the position:

R-0,0,0,0-1,1,1,1-1,1,1,1-0,0,0,0-0-{'noCorners':true}-
x,x,yR,yN,yB,yH,yK,yE,yQ,yB,yN,yR,x,x/
x,x,yβ,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yP,yβ,x,x/
bR,bβ,10,gβ,gR/
bN,bP,10,gP,gN/
bB,bP,10,gP,gB/
bQ,bP,10,gP,gH/
bE,bP,10,gP,gK/
bK,bP,10,gP,gE/
bH,bP,10,gP,gQ/
bB,bP,10,gP,gB/
bN,bP,10,gP,gN/
bR,bβ,10,gβ,gR/
x,x,rβ,rP,rP,rP,rP,rP,rP,rP,rP,rβ,x,x/
x,x,rR,rN,rB,rQ,rE,rK,rH,rB,rN,rR,x,x

I played a game with this position last night, and it seemed to work pretty well! I’m personally pretty inexperienced even with normal gothic chess, but this still seemed very natural to play.

https://www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/26831550/35/4

Does anyone else want to test this position? I’d you do, please post the game link!

I think is boring, the position is to close than standart position

What about 2PC Gothic Chess? How is that not too close to the "standart" position?

My point in making this was to have a custom, new position, without it completely abandoning the theory of standard 4PC, much in the same was a 2P Gothic is supposed to bring something new to the standard setup, rather than throwing away the standard (as GS pointed out).

yep

That looks fun! Now I just need to find 3 more players to play... oh wait

to me the move just made the server more boring

Thanks for your thoughts, JK!

As for the placement of the four main pieces on the back rank (queen, chancellor, king, and archbishop), I chose that order because that was already the order of the pieces in Gothic chess in 2P. The back rank is a carbon copy of the 2P version.

Your thoughts on the soldiers are interesting. In the two games that I’ve played using the soldiers, it has worked surprisingly well as far as I can tell. They move in a simple enough way that they don’t make a huge impact on the game, and that was my goal: to have an unobtrusive way to keep the corner pawns from taking each other right off the bat. It also could end up being interesting having a soldier with the rook in the same file. There’s also the fact that soldiers can still do en passant, and that adds another level to it.

Your first comment about the length of the game is an interesting one. The two games I’ve played so far have been 2|10 and they took a while. Maybe for this variant it would be better to do 1|15 (like it was before the server switch)? The default time control is definitely something that we could play around with.

Thanks again for the suggestions, and I would love for you to test out this position! Any help is great (this is my first attempt at a NCV). Let me know what you think after playing!