Lily Dawn wrote on Sat, Mar 21, 2020 01:38 AM UTC:
This variant was very influential on me; I found it specifically because I was looking for variants that used cannons, but the pawns really hooked me.
I'm in agreement that the starting position is odd. I would push everything back a row, and then just find a starting square for the nightriders that makes sure they're not immediately attacking anything.
This is kind of a criticism of the nightrider itself, but in practice it's probably not fun to constantly keep track of what pieces it's threatening from far away. The piece seems fun but I feel like there are other possibilities that don't require so much 'proofreading' of the board.
I like the 'king reaches the last row' win condition. On such a large board, especially if everything were pushed back a row to begin with, it may be logical to change that to 'king passes the midline.' Not necessary, but not an extreme possibility either.
This variant was very influential on me; I found it specifically because I was looking for variants that used cannons, but the pawns really hooked me.
I'm in agreement that the starting position is odd. I would push everything back a row, and then just find a starting square for the nightriders that makes sure they're not immediately attacking anything.
This is kind of a criticism of the nightrider itself, but in practice it's probably not fun to constantly keep track of what pieces it's threatening from far away. The piece seems fun but I feel like there are other possibilities that don't require so much 'proofreading' of the board.
I like the 'king reaches the last row' win condition. On such a large board, especially if everything were pushed back a row to begin with, it may be logical to change that to 'king passes the midline.' Not necessary, but not an extreme possibility either.