Fairy Chess
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Jan 9, 2025
0
#24
Hello @HGMuller! I posted another chess variant for you.
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-variants/battleground-chess
Jan 18, 2025
0
#27
SacrifycedStoat wrote:
No idea how any of those pieces move
I'm waiting for someone to check Battleground Chess...
Feb 10, 2025
0
#28
HGMuller wrote:
jimlargon schreef:
So how long is a game typically?
That is typically the weak point of variants that put a large number of pieces on a huge board: they tend to drag on an eternity. Probably 500-1000 moves in this case. Early checkmates are impossible as long as there still are enough pieces to deeply bury the King.
What compounds the problem is that, due to the large depth of the board, the strong sliders will encounter each other first, and will get traded out of the game as these are powerful enough to easily attack each other. And then you are left with a host of weak pieces that slowly creep over the board.
The solution to this problem used in historically successful large games, such as Chu Shogi (2x46 pieces on 12x12), Tenjiku Shogi (2x78 pieces on 16x16) or Maka Dai Dai Shogi (2x96 pieces on 19x19) are to have just a few pieces that are very much stronger than the others, (often capable of multiple capture or hit-and-run capture, against which it is very hard to defend), and can easily destroy large packs of weak pieces. And then often have additional rules that forbid or make it impossible to trade these pieces out of the game. This enormously speeds up reducing the number of weak pieces compared when these had to fight each other, and facilitates locally breaking through a thick wall of defenders.
Tenjiku Shogi also has sliding pieces that can capture (and thus check) while jumping over an arbitrary number of normal pieces (but not over each other). Such pieces present a danger to the King from the very beginning, making checkmates a possibility even on a massively populated board. It is like an aireal battle taking place on a near empty board is conducted in parallel to a massive ground battle. And the possibility for air strikes makes the defense of the ground positions much more fragile.
What I am saying is basically that variants of this size sorely need the equivalent of cruise missiles and tactical nukes to make them appealing. Otherwise it is just too tedious to play them.
LOL THEY DO NEED HOMING MISSILES AND NUCLEAR BOMBS
plz compare it to mine
Well, your variant has 2x72 pieces, which makes it a lot larger than mine, which has only 2x56. (But I am currently working on a 2x80 piece variant on 16x16 using the same principles as I mentioned above.) Many of the pieces we use are the same, even though you appear to use less common names for those. (E.g. norrmally the Zebra is the (2,3) leaper, and a Giraffe a (1,4) leaper; what you call 'acquired' is usually called 'crowned'.) Your variant is designed in the tradition of the large Cazaux games (Zanzibar-XL, Gigachess, Terachess).
This leads to very long games: the Kings are burried behind 3 filled ranks, and against a serious opponent there will probably be no opportunity to even check it before the board population has dropped to some 2x20 pieces. That means some 2x50 pieces have to be traded first. The distance between the armies is very large (10 empty ranks). The leapers will need many moves to reach each other. E.g. a Camel can advance at most 3 ranks per move, so it will need 3 moves to enter the opponent's half.
So it can easily take 200 moves before there is any hope to check, let alone checkmate. The opening phase will be lengthy and uninteresting, as the first few moves will not depend much on the way you want to organize your army on the battle ground; they are just needed to transport the pieces to where you can start thinking about how to best involve them.
In my variant I try to avoid that by reducing the distance between the armies to 6 ranks, and allow the Pawns to advance to the mid-line in their initial move. Even in the 2x80-piece variant, where the armies are set up as 5 fully filled ranks. I also tried to put the leapers directly behind the Pawns as much as possible, so they need even fewer moves to reach the front line. The sliders can cross large distances in a single move, so the is little harm in starting those on the back rank.
This also makes the setup less vulnerable to Cannon attack. (And I did bury the Cannons deeply to prevent their early deployment.) In your variant the plan 1. Ec5 ... 2. Ee7 ... 3. a6 ... 4. Ca5 to quickly develop the Cannon cannot really be prevented, and by then moving that Cannon to a central file of its choice (g, i, j, or l) it would skewer some of the super-pieces. While the intrinsic value of the Cannon is less than a Bishop. It is not clear how black could defend against that; he would have to cure 4 serious weaknesses in only 5 moves.
So as a course qualification I would say my variant has a more carefully structured design, paying attention to several game aspects other that just amassing a large number of pieces on a large board.