Re: Classes of chess pieces for chess variants
Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2020 7:00 pm
HGM, in continuing to discuss my attempt to create a dozen classes for chess pieces to use with my chess Action cards, you had indicated earlier that my values were much too high. I agree. I know that the more dynamic nature of the CirSquare board, the 'fork in the road' aspect of the 4 triangular shaped spaces, and the ability to attack the opponent's castle from 3 directions increase the power of the major pieces. But I think Zillions goes overboard with the increases. Maybe cutting the Zillions values in half (except for the Pawns) will create values that are more realistic.
In the attached tables, the table on the right side is my list of classes with some of the Zillions values slightly modified. The table on the left shows all the same number of classes but with the piece value ranges cut in half and the piece values cut in half and rounded up. Do the piece values in that table look more in line with other chess engines? Is 18+ a good cutoff point for the most powerful chess pieces?
The main thing that want to accomplish is (for the CirSquare 96 board) to keep the relative strength values among the various pieces compared to each other realistic. The actual size of the numbers being realistic is less important than having realistic ratios of power among the pieces. Also keeping the class numbers low and the quantity of classes low. I think that 0 through 12 works good. That keeps the number of pieces in each class low (probably 6 to 8 max per class), without being too low.
Thanks
In the attached tables, the table on the right side is my list of classes with some of the Zillions values slightly modified. The table on the left shows all the same number of classes but with the piece value ranges cut in half and the piece values cut in half and rounded up. Do the piece values in that table look more in line with other chess engines? Is 18+ a good cutoff point for the most powerful chess pieces?
The main thing that want to accomplish is (for the CirSquare 96 board) to keep the relative strength values among the various pieces compared to each other realistic. The actual size of the numbers being realistic is less important than having realistic ratios of power among the pieces. Also keeping the class numbers low and the quantity of classes low. I think that 0 through 12 works good. That keeps the number of pieces in each class low (probably 6 to 8 max per class), without being too low.
Thanks