'rarely seen as much chatter' -- it's a combination of two things, I think;
first the story is pretty good. You must understand that after I wrote it,
I also read it, and even I was affected by it. The idea of the ancient
Lovecraftian city that existed before the world was finished being built
kinda grabs me. And the details that make it real (by the way, the reason
that Nemoroth was destroyed when Luna was floated up into the sky after
being built in its harbor was that the project was given to the lowest
bidder) -- well,when I wrote it, in the heat of the moment I thought it was
merely corroborative detail intended to add artistic verisimilitude to an
otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, but when I read it, it sounded
so suspension-of-disbeliefable and I could picture the city and the harbor
and the Moon and the little boats carrying pieces of craters to the work
site, and golly gee gosh how amazing.

The second thing is that the game itself is pretty interesting. Although I
was so caught up in the story that I really did a bad job of describing the
game, it's non-trivial and it's very different (in terms of how it feels to
play it) than most chesslike or ultimalike games.

This *will* cause chatter, even in the most silent of times.

Since The Game of Nemoroth came out shortly after I had said strongly that
there wasn't enough chatter, well, what would you expect. :-)

'values of Nemoroth pieces' -- quite impossible. Likewise Nemoroth with
Different Armies. The various non-capture effects have values that are imho
impossible to estimate numerically. The useful Go Away has a value that
depends entirely on what it can push, just for one example. 

In practice, I think the Zombie is most valuable, and the second tier
contains the Go Away, the Basilisk, and the Leaf Pile. The Leaf Pile is so
easy to use; an advanced Basilisk, even if it gets petrified (but you gotta
calculate if the foe can push a Leaf Pile onto it!) can be crippling, and
the Go Away transforms positions completely.

But even the humble Human is strong. Leaving one's Basilisk at home invites
the Humand to advance and petrify themselves in blocking positions. 

The Ghast is so powerful that it is outside the range of values. However, I
have not yet played a game against myself where I captured a Ghast, so in
effect the Ghast is always neutralized by the enemy Ghast. Pushing a statue
to d4 or d5 neutralizes the enemy Ghast and allows you to reposition from
b6 to f6; this happened once and was very strong. All in all, I like the
way the game works.