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Wildeursaian Qi. Variant on 10 by 10 board combining ideas of several existing variants. (10x10, Cells: 100) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]Contrary to what this page says, Eurasian Chess has not inherited anything from Grander Chess. If there is any similarity between these two games, it is because of a common similarity with Grand Chess, which influenced the design of both games. Grander Chess was not an influence on Eurasian Chess, because I never gave it any thought when designing Eurasian Chess.
Looks interesting, but King is e1, Gnu in f2 seems to be a better initial setup.
There's no such threat. The Gnu is a compound, and thus it's stopped by the river.
Thanks to everyone who has commented on this. 'Inherits from Grander Chess' should indeed be 'shares with Grander Chess'. It was an incomplete correction of 'inherits from Grand Chess', as Grand Chess does not have the Queen centralised but Grander Chess does. I notice that I have also managed to miss 'whether capturing or not' from the 'Korean-style' subvariant. The (as it turns out non-existent) smothered mate threat is, I suspect, reminiscent of Ecumenical Chess (hyperlink from Castling here).
The author states that this variant is an homage to other variants. It does itself and them credit. It is not a bad knockoff, but an homage, as it claims to be, and a good variant, in my opinion, very enjoyable.
Jeremy, I did a search on the word homage on this page and all the comments on it, and the only instances were in your comment. So it seems that the author has not stated that this game is a homage to other variants. Also, in my comments on the 'Grand Chess 2' page, I did not call this game a knock off of Eurasian Chess. It is different enough that it is not a knock off. But it does seem to be a bad game. In particular, the rule against compound pieces crossing the river would seem to strengthen defense and weaken offense, making this game very drawish.
True, the author doesn't say 'homage' but his prominent references to the variants out of which this game emerged makes it clear that this is his intent. In the presentation of this variant, the author demonstrates respect and affection for those variants which inspired it and that is what an homage is. The prohibition against compound pieces crossing the river is perhaps its most original facet and helps to ensure that more powerful pieces are not overly dominant, fostering a greater balance between offense and defense.
The point Fergus is making is that strong pieces are confined to their own half of the board. Both players can avoid these pieces simply by keeping their Kings on their own halfs of the board. This doesn't really restrict the Kings' mobility. A way to get a draw in a bad position is trading all compound pieces for attacking non-compound pieces, sit back and see that the enemy compound pieces can't do anything against your King. I still think that the game is a harmonic combination of games on these pages making it a good game for a contest celebrating 10 years of Chess Variant Pages.
Joost Brugh has the right idea, but it is really worse than he describes. Suppose I am playing this game in a tournament with someone I know is a superior player. The rules are such that I can choose to play for a draw and easily get one. All I have to do is keep all my pieces on my own side of the river, exchange pieces for any he sends over to attack my King, and finally have a draw when he runs out of pieces that can attack my King. You see, the pieces available for offense can also be used for defense. When a player chooses to use all his pieces for defense, there isn't much his opponent can do, since he has fewer pieces available for offense, and worst of all, his strongest pieces aren't available for offense. Although Xiang Qi, upon which Anglis Qi, the game from which this rule comes is based, also has pieces devoted to defense, they are the weakest pieces in the game, and the Pawns are unable to mount the same kind of defense Pawns can in Chess. Thus, Xiang Qi is much better balanced between offense and defense. This game is tipped too much in favor of defense.
One point about this variant is the total strength of the array. The simple pieces have all the moves of the compound ones twice over. The key could be to think of the usual goal of capturing enemy pieces quicker than they capture yours into gaining offensive advantage by capturing simple pieces while preserving ones own compound ones and gaining defensive advantage by the reverse. The FIDE thought proces is often interms of exchanging pieces of the same type. The question here might be in terms of thinking in terms mainly of evaluating a compound piece against a number of simple ones (typically three given the restraints to compounds?). All the same I can see that a subvariant in which compound pieces can indeed cross the River in some limited way would be less divegent from FIDE Chess and might go down well. A thought occurred to me to allow crossing orthogonally forward and diagonally backward, or in the Gnu's case Knightwise forward and Camelwise backward. Within each half of the board they would be unrestricted, as would promotion on both end ranks. I could envisage a similar subvariant of Anglis Qi itself, and also of Alibaba Qi (http://www.chessvariants.org/index/msdisplay.php?itemid=MSdualdirectionv), an all-compound varaiant whose basic form allows crossing orthogonally or Knightwise but not diagonally or Camelwise. Perhaps as all three vasic variants end in Qi the subvariants should substitute some other Chinese word conveying the divergent crossing. This might be better than the other alternative, prefixing with some attributive word resulting in long names - as well as being in keeping with the existing Anglis and Wildeurasian indexing. Suggestions are welcome.
Since my last comment I have a posted a variant that relaxes River restrictions in a simpler fashion
It insists that the King and at least half the compound pieces of the same army remain on their own side of the River. This can make for a sudden need to withdraw if enough compounds pieces are captured. How does that sound as an option for Wildeurasian Qi itself?
How about this: ompound pieces still cannot cross river, but can check (or 'capture king') through it?
Another one variant: instead promoting to weak wazirs, pawns promotes to queens, gnus and tanks, wich also cannot cross river (cannot rettreat).
You did read about Wazirs being further promotable on reaching an end rank, didn't you?
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