RicOlie_2

RQx1e

darth_ender said:

[snip]

You are correct about its move: it can go to any square that is not covered.  But so many squares are covered by other pieces, and every square is covered by the other emperor.  The only way to stay defended is to always make sure a friendly piece is attacking the square your emperor is on, otherwise the other emperor could capture it.  So as long as you have a friendly piece, your emperor is safe from the other emperor, because you can move your emperor to a square guarded by that piece (unless I suppose the "safe" square is attacked by a different opposing piece).  It would take a lot to whittle down the opposing army, it seems to me.  You might think, "Oh, then I'll create a special rule where emperors cannot capture each other ever," but then you have a problem of every single piece being vulnerable to the opposing emperor at every moment if not constantly defended by another piece.  You move a single piece to an unprotected square, and then the opposing emperor gets it without retaliation from your own emperor.  You see what I mean?  The emperor and drops and pretty mutually exclusive.

What if the emperor wasn't able to capture at all? I think that would help.

[snip]

Well, who is to say that the game we designed together is best?  Perhaps this variant of yours is better.  If not, it still certainly looks like a good game and nothing less than an interesting alternative.  I don't mean to beat up on it.  It looks like it could be really fun.  I wouldn't mind trying it in the future.

I think it's certainly the best so far. It may be possible to tweak one of mine enough to make it better, after play-testing it like we did with Ito Shogi. In their current forms, I would say they are all weaker than Ito Shogi.

I don't think they're all bad, I just think they're inferior to Ito Shogi. Ito Shogi went through a big transformation from what we started with to the end, and I think my variants could work with equal or greater transformation. The mini variant I made might need the least tweaking because it is more heavily based off of the type game of Ito Shogi, and probably has fewer problems as a result.

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.

 Keep working on them.  Some look great.  The Taikyoku king moves two squares instead of one.  Maybe you could consider an adaptation of that.

 Sure, I'll take a look at that. I'll do something different with the emperor anyway, whether it's replacing it or restricting it.

What do you think about the fire demon? Is pairing it with such a relatively weak piece a good or bad idea? How about its' ability to completely destroy other pieces? I really like the idea, but if you think it's better off in a 2D variant, than I'd like to know what you think. And do you think I have too many lion-like pieces? What kinds of pieces do you think would be best for a 1D variant with powerful pieces like this?

F-6 what? Both 6b and 6d are available to you. I'm guessing 6b, and if so, S-4d.

You're right. I thought that because you hadn't moved your waffle over to where my king is I would be able to prevent your pawns from reaching the end and avoid checkmate. But I moved one turn too late and can't get to your pawns anymore.

h4

I used to be an extended canon-ite, then an everything-er. Now I'm not anything on that list. I love the OT (Adywan's versions above the originals), enjoy watching the PT sometimes, but think it isn't that great, love much of the EU, hate a lot of the rest, but still enjoy it all to some degree. I like reading Star Wars books for their own sake, regardless of how well they fit into continuity, or how much they contradict other books/comics/video games. I love all the different aliens, planets, space ships, and weapons, to varying degrees of course, but I still love them. That's my favourite part of the EU and the prequels. The story and the universe is the best part of the OT, and that is what my interest in Star Wars is founded on. The rest is icing on the cake. Sometimes it's nice to scrape the icing off and enjoy the cake by itself, but sometimes I like to eat the whole cake, icing and all. Other times, when the icing is good, I eat it by itself and save the cake for later.

It snowed again. :(

h5

There's a good possibility that this will end in stalemate if I avoid checkmate much longer.

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.

K-b8

April 17:

A.D. 1492: Christopher Columbo signs a contract with Spain to find the Indies by sailing west.

A.D. 1534: St. Sir Thomas More is imprisoned in the Tower of London.

A.D. 1793: The Battle of Warsaw.

A.D. 1939: Joseph Stalin signs an anti-Nazi pact with the British and French.

April 18:

A.D. 310: St. Eusebius begins his reign as Bishop of Rome.

A.D. 1506: The cornerstone of the current St. Peter's Basilica is laid.

A.D. 1521: Martin Luther is questioned by Cardinal Alexander in the Diet of Worms.

A.D. 1775: Paul Revere and William Dawes ride from Charleston to Lexington, warning the advance of the British, which is the beginning of the American Revolution.

A.D. 1783: Fighting ceases in the American Revolution after exactly eight years.

By giant, I'm guessing you mean big? Giant means 500+ gallons in my house. :P

EDIT: Thanks for sharing though. That is what this thread is about, not fish sticks. :\

Yes, but I prefer photographing, feeding, and watching the three hundred plus fish living in my living room (see what I did there?).

EDIT: To clarify, I prefer photographing, feeding, and watching said fish more than eating fish sticks, not more than photographing, feeding, and watching them.

If that is indeed an AT-AT foot, I would be really happy to see AT-ATs in the desert (or anywhere new, for that matter).

Do you think any of my Ito Shogi variations are worth playing (not necessarily here, but in general), or can you tell? Or have you not had the time/motivation/desire to look at them? :)

I'm just curious. I didn't expect you to be excited about them or anything, but I tend to like complexity, variety, and big numbers/sizes of things, so I don't know if I should cut down on any of those before I try a game with someone, or make another variant.

Again, because you're usually so busy, I don't expect an in-depth analysis of them, just some quick words of advice or suggestions if you can.

Most of the snow from yesterday has already melted. :)

The sky doesn't look very springish though.

We're getting two new 10 foot tanks (each 430 US gallons) sometime next week! I can't wait!

Right now we have a 15, 20, 112, 180, and 300 gallon tank. We're keeping the 15, 180, and 300 gallon, and selling the 20 and 112 gallon tanks.

Fish are so much fun. :)

I can't believe I'm the only one around here who likes fish (and/or owns them). :\

April 16:

A.D. 73: The Jewish fortress of Masada falls to the Romans, ending the Jewish Revolt.

A.D. 1871: The German Empire ends all anti-Semitic civil restrictions.

Only to have them replaced less than three quarters of a century later....

A.D. 1922: Annie Oakley sets the woman's shooting record by breaking 100 clay targets in a row.

A.D. 1922: A German-Russian treaty is signed and the Soviet Union recognized.

A.D. 1945: The Red Army begins the Battle of Berlin.

I'm beginning to suspect George fell off his rocker around the time of the Special Editions.

I have also noticed no change in the number of times, or the length of time, it goes down for, so there has been no improvement.

Yet again, I failed to notice that a piece was in danger. Well, I'm not going to last much longer unless I manage to promote a pawn.

Pxf4

Ph-3g

Well, as long as it shows the moves well, I should be mostly OK. After all, I played several small variants with only Japanese Kanji.

C-3f

K-a7

Sx5c

Yeah, that other software might be hard to work with. Unless I'm missing something, it only shows the Japanese kanji, which I am very unfamiliar with. I'll try ShogiVar again later, and if I get it to work, we can play a game.

N-f4

Man, I really wish I still had my rook...