Thanks for correcting me on the name of the piece that moves one space diagonally and then one space orthogonally. In its footnote, Wikipedia gave two examples of alternate move descriptions for the Knight, the first being diagonally then orthogonally and the second being orthogonally then diagonally. It only named the latter as being for the Xiangqi. When writing my last post, I missed the word “latter” and assigned the Xiangqi to the wrong move. Wikipedia did not mention the Ferz, which led to my confusion on the moves. I have never played the other ancient chess-like games, so I am unfamiliar with their pieces and moves. So I should have said….Harm’s Ferz move – one space diagonally and then one space orthogonally.
I will definitely take your comment to heart about not giving choices to the players for how the Knight moves and leave it as it currently is – the “L” shaped move. That will save a lot of editing of the rules, keep coding at a minimum, and keep the Knight stay at its strongest.
I never have liked en-passant because it seems like a rule that goes against what would happen in medieval battle – if a warrior runs past an enemy warrior on the battlefield, the one being passed would not yell out an order “Hey, you did not give me a chance to kill you, so come back here and let me behead you with my sword.” He would surely only get a medieval gesture similar to the ‘bird’.
I want to keep my games as true to a medieval war as I can. However, I know that many chess purists feel that en-passant has a place in chess. That is why in my rules for Castle Siege Chess, I say that the players must agree at the beginning of the game whether or not they are going to use the en-passant rule. In the electronic version, I will make it a definite part of the game. The main audience for Castle Siege Chess is chess players, so I don’t want to create any friction with any of them by completely ignoring the en-passant rule.
For my other board games (Castle Action Chess, Castle Attack Chess, and Castle Challenge Chess), which I want to have turned into electronic games later, I am trying to appeal to both table top game players and chess players who don’t mind (or may even enjoy) mixing in some elements of chance when playing chess.
Your comment about my rule for castling is also good. I was trying to indicate that castling in Castle Siege Chess works as normal because for a King-side castle, the King move toward the Rook to the starting position of the Knight and then the Rook is moved over the King to the starting position of the Bishop, which are the same things that happen in traditional chess. And for the Queen-side castle, the King moves toward the Rook and is placed on the starting position of the Bishop and then the Rook is moved over the King to the starting position of the Queen, which also are the same ending positions in traditional chess. So I will take your advice and edit my rules castling description to hopefully be more clear.
So thanks Evert. I feel like you are helping a lot and I definitely appreciate it. For the past 4 years, I have been heavily play-testing my games at many chess clubs. The reception has been very good. Without any advertising, other than having an Etsy.com site, I have sold 54 games (including both online sales and in person sales). I starting to have a lot of confidence about eventually having a Kickstarter. But I think it is very important that I first have Castle Siege Chess playable online (or as a compter app that can also be played online). So there is still a lot of work to be done.