Do you honestly expect people to remember all of those pieces and moves?
It is wonderful you created a game no one will ever play.
People have trouble with normal chess.
Normal chess has 16 pieces and pawns.
You created a game with 80 pieces and pawns. lol
There actually are precedents to this. In the 14th century Japanese Buddhist monks designed large Shogi variants. Maka-Dai-Dai Shogi, for example, has 96 pieces on a 19x19 board.
Not many people play that game either, but that also has to do with the equipment that is traditionally used to play it: pentagonal wood chips with the name of the piece inscribed on it in Japanese kanji. This makes that even the versions of Shogi similar in complexity to international Chess have virtually no players outside Japan.
Once you cure the equipment problem Maka-Dai-Dai Shogi is actually a very interesting game. The trick to keep such large games playable is to have a few very powerful pieces that massacre the weak ones at high rate, and cannot be easily traded out of the game. Otherwise it would take impractically long to finish a game.
Do you honestly expect people to remember all of those pieces and moves?
The answer is, no, he doesn't.
His earliest version was his real variant; and, actually, it was at least more easily enjoyable to play than this. It doesn't even matter that very large variants resembling the ones here existed in the past, since those precedents likely aren't the reason why he made these to begin with.
It is wonderful you created a game no one will ever play.
Basically, he invented these mindless variants for superficial display rather than having anyactual intention of people playing it, as he was only trying to "crush the threat of competition" with me (which he stated in facebook; if only I could find that one passage again). That is my short answer. Read on, if you want the details. Otherwise, there you have it.
After having resisted my suggestions for his original version***, he saw that I put those such suggestions to practice by making an alternative version to that original version (with his permission granted, of course). I spent time considering positionality and learnability (which was what he wanted) to create a nice version that people could enjoy. Apparently, he was afraid that I might "win people over, after all the hard work [he] has put into [his]."
Since then, he acted rather strange by creating these massive variants without a thought. Very literally, in multiple random threads, he made new ones every week that at long last took on resemblance to the modified version; and then bigger ones and bigger ones (I'm guessing to make him seem 'cooler'?).
In effort to obscure people's understanding of my modified version, he then created one thread to include that version amoung his multiple large versions; posting rules to those other ones, knowing that people won't be able to follow along. To further this, he then pompously went into my thread on the modified version and had the nerve to instructed me on how to post rules for my pieces (when, in fact, I already did this), demonstrating how he apparently wanted me to create diagrams of the pieces movements and powers by copying and pasting the examples of his rules for his pieces.
Many of the pieces he mindlessly created are very random and baseless, with names and movement powers that don't really make a whole lot of sense for the pieces they are meant to be, arranged into a configuration more for its stylistic values and less on actual positionality and strategy. People seeing my version in the sea of his careless random ones would obviously see my pieces in that same light.
What was his intentions again for doing this anyways? It was the silly “threat of competition”.
Just to give you the long-winded answer to your question.
@BattleChessGN18
Yeah I figured as much.
People only show so many pieces like that out of amusement.
Many games which have extreme amount of pieces are to complicated to play.
Although that is often true, it is not always true. In Tenjiku Shogi each player starts with 78 pieces of 36 types. But the game is not tedious at all, but quite exciting. Because you have two Fire Demons which can capture upto 8 pieces with one move, somewhat similar to captures in Atomic Chess (except that they don't die in the process). That greatly speeds up the game. It had a reasoable community of players, before they realized that the advantage of the opening movewas a winning advantage (which, IMO, was due to a wrong interpretation of the historic rules).
Actually, XPlayerJ, HGMuller is right. People do play large variants and they can be quite fun; even at these sizes. (Hard to memorize, but still maybe worth the experience!)
My point was focused less on the general role of Titan-large variants and simply more personally on Ace's intentions.
@Wafzal2
I got an idea: Catapults!
@BattleChessGN18
I think he already has a piece like that.
@X_PLAYER_J_X
Do you honestly expect people to remember all of those pieces and moves?
The art of combining segments of convos that are extraneous to each other; to create a wholesome dialogue ^-^
The problem, however final_wars, is that I care more about large variants and am much more ready to study multiple pieces than XPlayerJ probably is. Gotta first get your facts straight before doing this ^^.
If you like large variants, what do you think of my own creation, Macadamia Shogi? This was my attempt to make a more accessible version of Maka Dai Dai Shogi, which is excessively large. My hope was that the game duration could be made acceptable, without losing too much of the essential features, by cutting it roughly in two.
I am not saying HGMuller is wrong.
What I am saying is his comment is directed to answering a different question.
I did not ask for the duration of the game.
Having a boss piece which crushes half of the army does speed things up.
I fully understand this concept.
However, if the boss piece doesn't crush a specific unit you still have to be able to know how that unit moves.
Which means you still will have to know how each piece moves.
For example:
In normal chess the queen is like a boss piece it can crush a lot of units.
We could make up a scenerio were the queen kills 2 bishop than ends up getting traded or captured for the opponents queen.
The pieces which are left over still have to be used to try and win the game.
Which means the opponent will still have to know how the 2 knights + 2 rooks + king + pawns move!
If they do not know how those pieces move than how can they proceed with the game?
Huge games like that proably need a reference page with them during the game so people can understand the pieces movement.
Indeed, remembering how the pieces move can be a burden if there are some 70 different types. Especially if the representation of the pieces is such that it gives no clue whatsoever to how it moves. Such as the traditional Japanese Shogi pieces, which even if you could read Japanese kanji would only tell you a fanciful name like Dragon Horse or Ferocious Leopard. But there is a solution to that: use a 'mnemonic' piece representation, that for the bulk of the pieces immediately tells you how it moves. Almost all Shogi pieces slide along diagonals or orthogonals, just over different distances in the various directions. This makes a systematic representation of the move as a shape quite easy. E.g. for Chu Shogi (with 46 pieces of initially 21 different types, where 7 more types can be obtained through promotion):
This makes it quite obvious how the pieces move (i.e. in which directions they have infinite slides, single steps, or no move at all). The only pieces where this might not be entirely trivial are the two standing before the King (whose royalty is indicated by a cross), which have orthogonal or diagonal jumps of two squares, in addition to the step moves that fit in the system. And of course the Lion standing before those (next to the Queen), which is the 'boss piece', with a quite complex move that deserves a study in itself. So it takes one minute to understand the system, some time to learn a single piece, and you are ready to play Chu Shogi! (Well, I guess you should also learn which piece promotes to what.)
Note that in your example you mentioned that after crushing two Bishops the Queen could be traded. But one of the original features of these large games is that such trades would be virtually impossile. It is a bit like adding the rule in normal Chess that Queens cannot capture each other. (It is actually a bit more subtle than that: in Chu Shogi a Lion can capture another Lion only if the latter in unprotected, so that it isn't a trade. And if someone captures the Lion with another piece, on the next turn you are not allowed to capture his Lion by any means.) In Maka Dai Dai Shogi they have the interesting rule that what captures one of the two 'boss pieces' promotes instantly to that same boss piece. Which also guarantees that the boss pieces cannot disappear from the game by being captured.
If you like large variants, what do you think of my own creation, Macadamia Shogi? This was my attempt to make a more accessible version of Maka Dai Dai Shogi, which is excessively large. My hope was that the game duration could be made acceptable, without losing too much of the essential features, by cutting it roughly in two.
Muller, your Shogi variant looks awesome!
On the other hand, one of the things that turn me off regarding Shogi is that most pieces "charge" forward to the finish line just so that they can become a weaker piece with very short range; a kind of demotion that I don't look forward to, since I like Knights and Bishop pieces to maintain their abilities...and their ranges.
I haven't gotten the chance to read your posts and chessvariant.org instructions on this neat looking game, so maybe there's more to it than what I think I understand. Honestly, however, my caring limitedly for Shogi does influence my general outlook on all Shogi variants.
It's possible that yours would be one to prove me wrong. When I have more time and am less stressed from Gradschool applications and such, I can take time to read it.
edit - My bad, it seems I got SHogi down wrong. A Bishop CAN move in all directions. It's only the Knight and the Lance that can't retreat. In fact, the Bishop, after some sort of promotion (which I need to read about) can become a Bishop+King compound; likewise, a Rook+King for the promoted Rook.
Now, it actually starts to sound just a little more interesting. ^-^
Note that in Chu Shogi pieces promote in general very different from regular Shogi. In the latter Pawn, Lance, Knight, and Silver all promote to Gold, which is not that much stronger (except in the Pawn case, where it is a really valuable promotion) than the original piece, and short range. In Chu Shogi there is no Knight, but the Silver promotes to Vertical Mover (basically a Rook where the sideway motion is limited to a single step), and the Lance to a 'White Horse', which is stronger than Rook (slides along files, and forward diagonals).
Note that Maka Dai Dai Shogi (and my adaptation Macadamia Shogi) is rather unusual w.r.t. promotion: you don't promote by reaching a zone at the opposite end of the board, but by capturing something! In addition many super-strong pieces 'promote' to the comparatively worthless Gold (which is a bit like 'promoting' a Queen to Knight in Chess). But promotion is only mandatory when you capture a promoted piece. Which makes the Golds you obtain through promotion not as worthless as you might think, as they are relatively immune to capture by other strong unpromoted pieces, to which capturing them becomes sort of a kamikaze action.
I rarely have seen such impolite persons hiding behind their keyboard and telling silly things. When you don't know the persons don't tell lies.
Ace is simply an idiot when it comes to his behavior. Mulitple members can confirm this.
However, he does have a point. Please quit with the spamming and keep "Musketeer Chess" out of other people's threads, unless it's relevant. You have the freedom to start your own thread on this variant, and we wonder why you don't.
lol. Battlechess you always give me a good laugh. You forget I don't feel emotion. So most everything you said, simply is not possible. Because I can not think like that. Please stop thinking that I am just as emotionaly driven like you are.
Aside from I found others to play. I have been very busy. My father is still not doing well. Tho he has turned has 3-6 month life expectensy. In to a year and 5 months now. The doctors have given up, and want to put him on hospice, now. Which I am working to fight. As well as just spend as much time helping him, as I can. Because I do not think he is going to make it more than a few more months, at best. He is my only prority.
As for my game. I said why I stop posting here. (aside from I hate that the spell check on this site, won't work on my browser) I was sick of Battlechess having a tantrum over things he made up in his head. All I wanted was people to play against. To test what mods I needed to do. Plus I enjoy talking with Muller. He is the man. He made all this possible.
I made it so big. Because it makes taking 10 minute to take a turn. Not helpful, but hurtful. Because there are to many varibles. To plan for them all. I went into great detail as to why it is as it is. Countless times over. In several diferent OP's. Do not listen to Battlechess's nonsense.
I found a Several japanese players. I am more than happy with playing. Sadly the players I play. Seem to prefer playing with 4 sets over 6. So I had to make a winboard to suit that desire. As well as talking with them is very hard to do. Google translate, is not that great. Aside from that the game is unchanged mostly.
Here is the difference between the 6 set and the 4 set. I still prefer the 6 set. Yet the 4 set. Removes all the hard to learn pieces. Leaving mainly only variants of the rook, knight, bishop, and queen. I personaly still prefer my 6 set the best. Most all the oieces are easy to learn. Because of how they are variations of more or less all the same moves.
As for the piece that move as a rook and attack as a queen. I have close to that. The prince moves as a queen, captures as a rook. princess a bishop. The cannon moves as a bishop attack as a rook. While jumping the closest tile. The archer does the same but moves as a rook and captures as a bishop. So I more or less have that piece already, or at least close enough to not want to add it too.
@Ace569er
Sorry about your dad man.
I know from experience what you are going through.
God bless.
I think you're the one who turns everything I say into a "tantrum", dude, and in turn respond with a tantrum. No one really cares about the long rants that you post over a silly thing like my "being emotional". See?
You're a 35-year-old man picking puerile fights with a girl 10 years or so your junior. I think it's time for someone to re-evaluate his priorities in life.
I went into great detail as to why it is as it is. Countless times over. In several diferent OP's. Do not listen to Battlechess's nonsense.
Then again, one asks: who actually reads your 'details' in your threads? (Since most to all of it is based on superficial fluff that you come up with after a few thoughtless short moments.) How many people do you actually think care to try your variants, considering how you make them and then throw them away shortly after you post them?
After all, didn't I try to promote one of your older variants to help you along? (In fact, If the first one counts, I helped with 2.) Didn't you inconsiderately throw it away in the midst of my trying to promote it, giving no thoughts and thanks to the people who try to support you?
I found a Several japanese players. I am more than happy with playing. Sadly the players I play. Seem to prefer playing with 4 sets over 6. So I had to make a winboard to suit that desire. As well as talking with them is very hard to do. Google translate, is not that great. Aside from that the game is unchanged mostly.
Aw, well see that. How funny that HGMuller brought up a large Shogi variant, and then just so serrendipitously, Mr. Ace here brings up this myriad of Japanese players who so happened to have played him.....
It irritates me that you don't even realize how easy it is to spot your making up things as you go.
I think he already has a piece like that.
MY question to him, on the other hand, is: what's happening with this variant? Has he dropped it? Is he still pursuing it? Is he persuing all his other relatively similar (more so, obnoxiously undifferent) variants?
One thing's for sure, he's not superficially making new ones every week; now that the "competition" has been over.
I bet he won't even respond to this for another few months; like in the past.