No, once His Majesty gets motivated enough to make a move he's gonna do it...thanks all the same...
As for promotion zones, we could shrink it to just the last row or allow pieces to reverse out without promoting or teleport them back to square one...anything to avoid the dead ending bit. Without something of the sort few of our pieces caught below the garden have much strategic value.
Also, if this is post-nuclear my side must now be zombies...or mutants...or mutant zombies!