RicOlie_2

C-28

Got it. SC-24

Whaa??

Do we have different boards again? :P

EDIT: Or did you make a bad move that I didn't see?

GCx20+SC

P-18

Gsx14...and this time it's on purpose. ;)

I think you're right about the fire demon. I'm thinking of making a board that's two or three squares wide but about the same length as the one we're using now. Maybe a weak fire demon-type piece could work there since there would be more pieces. Another idea with the fire demon is that it could only burn the piece in front of it, allowing it to capture up to two pieces. And if we wanted, we could make its demoted side a pawn or something to balance it out. But you're probably right about keeping it out of Ito Shogi. We do want to keep it Ito Shogi after all, so it's best to keep it similar to the original.

Your kirin is already on 10 (see post 1001). If you meant either K-8 or K-12, then GC-23.

This seems like something that should be fairly easy, so I figured I would mention it. I don't know how many people besides myself would be interested in it, but it would be nice to receive notifications of new threads in certain forums. However, it's just a small thing and I can easily live without it if it isn't easy to implement.

It happened again with Warbler's chess thread.

I'm noting every time it happens here so it's easier to figure out any patterns. And there may be something in common between the threads that only Jay can figure out.

I've had this happen to me almost a dozen times in the past week or two. I get a message that I "can't connect to the server" like I do when I have no internet connection. I still have access to all the other sites I have open, however. I've noticed that this usually happens within an hour or so of noon (MST time). It seems to be irregular though, as I've been unable to connect for an hour some times and had no problem around noon other times.

And quit complainin' because it's a lot of work to build a website from scratch and we can't have it all.

I have another idea...

What if, rather than always trying to balance the pieces, you split this into two Shogi variants. One with weak to medium-strength pieces and another with more powerful pieces? You can have a powerful piece in the former and a weak piece in the latter, but you wouldn't have to worry as much about finding the kind of balance you need now. The one with powerful pieces could be played on a longer board, since powerful tends to be synonymous with long-range in most cases.

What do you think? Do you want to keep just one single-dimensional variant, or do you want to experiment with two and split up the powerful and weaker pieces?

There are some interesting pieces there. I had no idea there were so many different ones...

Something like a limited fire demon might be worth a try too. The piece regularly has a value of 83, so it is obviously a very powerful piece, but on a one-dimensional board, it could only burn pieces on either side of it. This would still allow up to a three piece capture. If we do decide to use it, I suggest we limit its moves so that it can only move like a kirin, or something like that. Maybe it could be the opposite value of the lion. Those other generals are definitely worth a look though, and I'll try incorporating them into some set-ups.

Great, now I've trapped my goose. :P 

Kn-22

Yes, I did mean dragon horse, not dragon king. I'll play around with the RC/SC idea and maybe some other combinations. Would it be a bad idea to also get rid of a jumping piece and add another general or two (maybe a stone general/iron general)? Or that piece could replace the gold cannon and lance instead, replacing medium strength pieces with weak pieces instead of getting rid of them altogether. That might be a bad idea, but then there would be more generals defending the king, like other shogi variants have it. I haven't given the idea a whole lot of thought, so it might not be very good, but I'm just brainstorming...

Here's another idea for the piece arrangement:

(centre square)
-
-
P/GB
-
-
-
HH/Cm
Kn/Ln
Gs/Ph
-
GC/SC
B/DK
-
C/S
K

I kept the board the same length, but made a few changes in piece position. I moved everything between the pawn and the copper general back a square. This way, all three front pieces can make the first move and the pawn doesn't get in the way of any of them. The heavenly horse gets in the way of the kirin's second move, but I don't think that'll be much of a problem. The bishop is stuck behind the kirin, but it works as a defense early on.

I also made the RS/B a bishop/dragon king and of course made the changes you suggested (removed the lance and changed the knight to a heavenly horse).

There we go. ;)

And it's really dumb how you can't reply to, thumbs up, or thumbs down the older comments anymore. The rest of the changes they made to the comment section aren't bad though.

Haha! I suggest you fix the first one and leave the second one if you're going that way. The first just looks and sounds awkward....

Well, in the first line, the word "to" shouldn't be there. You don't use the infinitive "to have" in that context because the pronoun "I" modifies the verb.

In the second line, yes it should be "broken" rather than "broke" because you are using the present perfect tense ("you have").

So there's your little grammar lesson for the day. ;)

DuracellEnergizer said:

SIRI: Still ... I can't help but to have a bad feeling about this.

ZULL: (cont'd) (subtitled) You've broke me.

 The nitpicker is back!;)

Are those grammatical errors intentional? I can see the second as being that way, but the first just looks like a mistake to me.

February 22:

A.D. 1630: Pilgrims are introduced to popcorn by native Americans.

A.D. 1784: The first American ship to trade with China sets sail from New York.

A.D. 1821: Spain sells the eastern portion of Florida to the U.S.A. for $5 million.

LOL!

Thanks, I'll move L-20 instead (yes, I know your knight can take it :P).

I've been pretty busy lately, but things will slow down in a couple weeks or so. Then I'll have plenty of time to play around with the board.

P-18

I can't believe I did that. I was in a rush, so I forgot to promote your pawn and didn't realize my goose was in danger. :(

I think you may be right about the lance. However, in the first game we played, your lance/reverse chariot was all that really prevented me from dropping pieces on your side of the board and gaining the upper hand. So it does have its uses. If we do decide to keep it, the middle rather than the front seems to be the best place to put it. But if you want to get rid of it, then that's fine with me as well.

As for the heavenly horse being the unpromoted value of what is now the knight/cavalryman, I think that's a good idea. The knight has no ability to retreat until it captures and with its promoted value now being the cavalryman, there is a huge difference between the two. So heavenly horse it is in future set-ups.

As I said, I'll work on some alternate ideas in a couple weeks or so, when I have the time to properly analyze the board and explore a bunch of different options. Meanwhile I'll just work on minor tweaks and whatnot.