I have previously observed that games with nightriders are hard to design as their long jumpy forks are very difficult to stop. I remember seeing people over here thinking also along these lines but I can't remember who. I'm sorry.
For this exact reason I though that the nightriders are game breaking in my 3 games mentioned above. I have put them there because I have though them to be natural fairy pieces to be used. When first confronted with the final versions of the games I have feared that the black heavy pieces will be easily forked by white and in doing so creating an unhealthy advantage for black.
But last night I have played a few openings, in each of the games, by myself intentionally testing for this. I seems black can always defend somehow, by blocking or running, and then counter by attacking the advanced nightriders and gaining tempi on them. The games are thick enough so that early on nightriders are not such troublemakers anymore. Careful maneuvering of the nightriders should still be an important late opening- middlegame theme, but it does not seem to be that dangerously unfair then.
What do you guys think about games with nightriders in general?
In my three games described below I have nightriders and even their compounds the unicorn and the varan.
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/grand-apothecary-chess-alert
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/grand-apothecary-chess-classic
https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/grand-apothecary-chess-modern
I have previously observed that games with nightriders are hard to design as their long jumpy forks are very difficult to stop. I remember seeing people over here thinking also along these lines but I can't remember who. I'm sorry.
For this exact reason I though that the nightriders are game breaking in my 3 games mentioned above. I have put them there because I have though them to be natural fairy pieces to be used. When first confronted with the final versions of the games I have feared that the black heavy pieces will be easily forked by white and in doing so creating an unhealthy advantage for black.
But last night I have played a few openings, in each of the games, by myself intentionally testing for this. I seems black can always defend somehow, by blocking or running, and then counter by attacking the advanced nightriders and gaining tempi on them. The games are thick enough so that early on nightriders are not such troublemakers anymore. Careful maneuvering of the nightriders should still be an important late opening- middlegame theme, but it does not seem to be that dangerously unfair then.
What do you guys think about games with nightriders in general?