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I hacked together a crude ZRF for the game last night (I'll clean it up and post it today or tomorrow), and it was interesting. Zillions, with its usual preoccupation with material, seemed to head to armies of 13 Knights, 1 Queen and 1 King per side. Nothing very surprising there. <p> However, on reflection I find myself wondering if the game doesn't make it too easy to make passive moves. A pair of Knights, for example, could pass back and forth a stone all day without substantially changing the board position. I wonder if a two move approach, as used in many of Ralph's recent board connecting games might be better. Each player would have two moves a turn: the first is obligatory, and requires moving a stack from one space to another; the second is optional, and consists of moving a stone from one stack to another. Or alternately, maybe a player could be forbidden to make two transfers in a row. <p> Another issue (and this one was illuminated both by Zillions' play and John's earlier comments) is that the relation between the number of stones in a stack and the power of a stack is very irregular. Two stones are much more powerful than one stone, but three stones are hardly any stronger than two, while four stones are a fair bit stronger than three, and five stones are no stronger than four and six stones are much stronger than five. I wonder about this approach: <table border=1> <tr><td><b># of Stones</b></td><td><b>Piece Type</b></td></tr> <tr><td align=center>1</td><td>Pawn (mfWcfF)</td></tr> <tr><td align=center>2</td><td>Mao</td></tr> <tr><td align=center>3</td><td>Bishop</td></tr> <tr><td align=center>4</td><td>Rook</td></tr> <tr><td align=center>5</td><td>Cardinal</td></tr> <tr><td align=center>6</td><td>Queen</td></tr> </table> Yes, I realize it isn't FIDE Chess anymore, but at least there's a more even power gradiant.