Replace 1 point queens by 1 point rooks

For a while I've been thinking that queens are too powerful pieces in FFA/Solo, and 1pt queens in particular. I'd like to bring up the idea of replacing the queen promotion by promoting into a 1 point rook, as I think rooks are better for FFA 4pc balance in general (can attack opposite).

What do you think?

I don't really get what you mean, could you please explain a little bit more?

i think he means when you promote a pawn in FFA it should be a 1 point rook instead of a 1 point queen.

I think it should remain as it is because we want ppl to push and promote as well as players doing all the work to stop it. With and extra queen you don't have any advantage if the other 3 players play smart.

I think 1 point rooks, bishops, and knights should be added in addition to 1 point queens, rather than instead of 1 point queens.

At least five moves are spent on holding pawns (not counting the moves of other pieces to support), pieces are often sacrificed for it. If only the rook is the ultimate goal of these losses, holding pawn strategy will lose its meaning until the endgame (but in the endgame, the situation will not change as dramatically after holding pawn as it is now).
Also, replacing the queen on the rook will probably make the game more passive. One of the popular strategies is to not spare the pieces on the attack, to finish off the flank player and to restore strength in the future by holding queen, since it is twice as easy to carry out pawns without one flank player than with two (from the game’s geometry, you can use not only the central pawns, but also pawns from the flank of the killed player).
It seems to me an interesting option for the first holding pawn to be the queen, the second - rook, the third - bishop and the fourth - knight (other options are possible, experiments are needed). This, for example, will help get rid in FFA, from such a rather stupid and wasting time strategy of holding an unmeasured number of queens.
Another important problem associated with the queen for 1 point is the strong discrepancy between the price and the effectiveness of the piece. This saves the initial number of points for all the pieces by a constant and this I consider a plus (this makes the game for points more competitive in comparison with the game of the last standing person). But perhaps it is worthwhile to increase its price with each new queen: the first costs 1 point, the second -3, the third - 5, the fourth - 9 (or something else). Or immediately make a price of 9 points for all queens (or another lower price, since moves were spent on it and for rivals it should be more unprofitable).

>>i think he means when you promote a pawn in FFA it should be a 1 point rook instead of a 1 point queen. 

Exactly!

>> I think it should remain as it is because we want ppl to push and promote as well as players doing all the work to stop it. 

This is of course all speculation, but I believe the main thing that would change is that players would be less concerned with preventing promotions, not that people would push pawns less. Promoting into queens is fine in the early stages of the game imo, the problem is in the lategame, where the game can easily get decided by who's allowed to promote or not. Queens being experts at dealing double checks should also be mentioned, although this is less of a problem after the recent change. 

>> Also, replacing the queen on the rook will probably make the game more passive. One of the popular strategies is to not spare the pieces on the attack, to finish off the flank player and to restore strength in the future by holding queen, since it is twice as easy to carry out pawns without one flank player than with two (from the game’s geometry, you can use not only the central pawns, but also pawns from the flank of the killed player).

One of the things I don't like about queens in the endgame is that it can on its own completely paralyze another player if his king is weak. For that reason I think it's the opposite of what you describe, removing queen promotion leads to more active play. Having a weak king is less of a disadvantage lategame if people can't get queens that they check you with forever. 

As you correcly point out, being in the middle in the 3 player stage would be less of a disadvantage because the flank pawns only turn into rooks. How is this a disadvantage of having rook promotion? 

Other ways of changing the promotion are also interesting, they shouldn't be too complicated though. 

>> Another important problem associated with the queen for 1 point is the strong discrepancy between the price and the effectiveness of the piece. 

Just like a certain other piece

>>  But perhaps it is worthwhile to increase its price with each new queen: the first costs 1 point, the second -3, the third - 5, the fourth - 9 (or something else). Or immediately make a price of 9 points for all queens (or another lower price, since moves were spent on it and for rivals it should be more unprofitable).

You mean that you lose points when you promote?

A very interesting discussion, especially what Hest1805 and ArsenyVitaly wrote.

Many things to say.

I'm afraid we could thus throw the baby out with the bathwater!

The game could be changed dramatically. A lot of experimentation is needed first before implementing such a dramatic change.

To replace with a "forced rook" (1 or 5 points, whatever): I don't like the idea.

To oblige people to "pay" with negative points for promotion: YES it could definitely be very interesting. It would become a trading game, with always an assessment between other players' forces and points so far; in some cases to promote would become very risky as you can easily become 3rd or 4th if the new queen is not sure to guarantee you 2 checkmates and the 1st place for example. Definitely I like this idea a lot; to be tested.

And another idea: haven't you ever tested simply... the suppression of the promotion?! A pawn remains a pawn, whatever happens. (Or, another possibility, still becomes a queen, even a FULL queen worth 9 points, but only once you are at the very very end , like in 2p chess!). That would solve a lot of issues.

I think that you should have the choice of promoting to a 1pointer piece. When you promote to a queen it should be worth more so then it would be targeted more. The rook would be a little less than the normal rook but still would be targeted. This is what I think is a fair value except just do normal value.

• promoted queen=7
• promoted rook=3
• promoted bishop=3
• promoted knight=1 （yes I think the knight should be one）
• If there is a promoted king it should be 2

  ---

  These are just random ideas that popped in my head.

Promoted king?! And how the mate would be done?

>> I think 1 point rooks, bishops, and knights should be added in addition to 1 point queens, rather than instead of 1 point queens.

I've been thinking about this idea myself; I never understood why it hasn't been done already. However, it turns out to be technical issues with having 2 versions of each piece, due to how the FEN notation works. Also it wouldn't change much as people would choose the 1 point queen pretty much every time. 

There's the same technical issue regarding other values for promoted pieces.  

>> To oblige people to "pay" with negative points for promotion: YES it could definitely be very interesting. It would become a trading game, with always an assessment between other players' forces and points so far; in some cases to promote would become very risky as you can easily become 3rd or 4th if the new queen is not sure to guarantee you 2 checkmates and the 1st place for example. Definitely I like this idea a lot; to be tested.

Could be made as a variant perhaps. What you say about assessing other players' material/points sounds a lot like FFA +3 by the way. 

>> And another idea: haven't you ever tested simply... the suppression of the promotion?! A pawn remains a pawn, whatever happens. (Or, another possibility, still becomes a queen, even a FULL queen worth 9 points, but only once you are at the very very end , like in 2p chess!). That would solve a lot of issues.

This can already be done by changing the promotion rank settings.

how about you can choose to progress you pawn to get something better

example:

move a pawn to 6th rank: you get a knight you a pawn

move the same pawn to the 7th rank and you get a bishop, rook, or pawn

move your pawn to the 8th rank you get a queen

move it to the 9th rank and you get a 1pt queen

Galaxy: interesting suggestion; BUT in fast games it would become terrible, you lose 2-3 sec. simply by having to choose...

Hest: "This can already be done by changing the promotion rank settings." : Ok, but have people tested the idea already? What was the outcome?

@Indipendenza I haven't seen optional promotion ranks tested much. I remember trying myself a few times a year ago approximately, using promotion rank 9, 10 or 11. I found it interesting because you have to push your pawns into the opposite's territory creating awkward tension between opposites. I felt like rank 14 (opposites back rank) promotion is way too hard. Would be nice to test more for sure, unfortunately most people don't seem interested in testing these sorts of things. 

Removing promotion completely is a new idea. Intuitively it feels like it'd lead to passive play. 

It's worth being tested. I'm pretty sure that it's easy to find 5-10 players ready to give a try. I'm in. 100-150 games should be enough, and it's certainly enough to put 4/1 for test purpose, so that could be done within 1-2 days in fact

I do not think that would give a passive game. I would bet rather on a very strategic game with a lot of position war, and also quite a lot of hesitations whether to eat or not, to trade or not. Because in the current version sometimes it's not a big deal to lose pieces if you still have reasonable chances to make 1-2 queens eventually. Whereas with no such hope, people will have to think twice before giving up material. Could definitely be interesting. And alliances would become certainly much more volatile, spontaneous; I'm helping the guy in front on one flank, 3 moves later I do the opposite, hoping in fact to weaken BOTH of them, in order to be stronger for the Endspiel. Could be interesting.

i would be interest in trying that with pawn promotion on the 9th or 10th rank but 11+ seems to hard

And 14th ?

that's too far

11-14th rank is just too far