darth_ender said:
S*1d
S*5d
This will probably be my last move until Easter Monday, unless you move -before 4:30-ish today. In my family we have a tradition of keeping every screen in the house turned off on Good Friday, so I won't be able to post then. I leave Good Friday for Saskatchewan, and will be gone all weekend, so don't expect any moves then.
[...] And games with so many strong pieces as sheet 5 often either find their moment of exploitation far too quickly, or else they last forever with no such moment ever arising. Do you see what I mean? It's just hard to analyze, and so if a person were to make a huge blunder, the other could perhaps drop the right piece in the right place and win the game. Or else there would be so many pieces controlling so many squares simultaneously that basically there is never anything that can be exploited.
That's an interesting point. Because there are so many powerful pieces which are almost always able to capture another piece, I thought there would be more exchange of pieces. I think I may tone it down a bit, raising the strength of pieces just a bit above Ito Shogi, which is probably far more balanced than the other games I made, because it's been tested and played.
To add to that game's problems, you have an emperor. What makes the emperor work in Maka Dai Dai and Tai Shogi is that it still can be captured: you just have to capture any piece that can defend it, meaning eliminating the entire opposing army first. But how can one possibly do that when any trade keeps every piece still in play? You can't gain an upper hand, then narrow down material till you have one extra piece and your opponent has zero. All the pieces are always in play. It would never work.
I think I misunderstood the way the emperor works. I thought it could jump to any square on the board that was not covered by an enemy piece. The way to capture the emperor in this game would be to cover every square on the board. Once you've done that, the emperor is dead. I may have to play a few games to determine what could be changed to make that more possible.
Additionally, the powerful pieces are so numerous that there is no point in keeping any weak pieces at all. I noticed that such a case sometimes seemed present in Ito Shogi as we played: the pawn or heavenly horse wouldn't play much. But at the same time, shogi has its weak pieces that don't get to shine, yet could be useful at just the right moment, so I thought it worked out. But here, there are so many powerful pieces that the weak ones are literally pointless.
Good point, I should probably cut down on the number of pieces. Sometimes I get carried away when I'm bringing new pieces into the game...
Sheet 3 is probably the most interesting game to me. It's not quite 1D, yet it retains aspects of 1D and 2D play. I'd suggest being truer to the 2D move while retaining the 1D. For example, the flying swallow has the 1D move, plus one square diagonally forward. It should be unlimited diagonally forward, as the original piece moved. Of course, this means a maximum of two squares, but still, it's a truer combination.
In some cases, this makes the piece moves too complex, but I think that the FS, among others, could retain the full 2D move. I was concerned about making some pieces too powerful that way, but if you think it's better to stay truer to the 2D move, then I'll modify the pieces a bit.
Yes, I'm working mostly backwards. I like subtle games, as I mentioned before, and sheet 2 has potential with such weak pieces. It could be just as good as my game. What I like about my original intent is that it has pieces that have so many different types of moves that various combinations could occur. Such may not be present in a weaker piece game, but other value could be, and it might play just as well, or possibly even better. As I mentioned before, the ranging pieces sometimes outshone the steppers and leapers. Perhaps not having them might let the other pieces have more time in the limelight.
My intent was to create a version like yours, but different at the same time. I removed all ranging pieces, leaving only stepping and jumping pieces so that there would be a bit of a different dynamic. I think that changes the style of the game a little bit, but good combinations can still be made. It's probably the most similar to Ito Shogi, which is probably why it works better. Ito Shogi is a strong, balanced variant, and by shifting the balance too far one way or the other, the game becomes less playable and enjoyable.
So those are my brief thoughts, taking just a few minutes to look at each game. Keep up the good work, and consider what I've said, but remember that they are your games and you may do whatever you want in the end.
Thank you, I appreciate them all. I will continue to tweak them, and probably rework the powerful piece variant quite a bit. I think it could be made more playable with the addition of some unique rules, maybe restricting drops and modifying the emperor's move, or exchanging it for another piece.