Comments by AntoineFourriere

One thing I disagree with Ultima (and Rococo or Maxima) is the presence of
two Long Leapers and one Withdrawer, because a Long Leaper is even
stronger than an Advancer. The Immobilizer and Pincer Pawns are also too
strong, (Maxima demotes them slightly.) As for the Coordinator, I am not
so sure.
In that respect, Chess is very balanced.
(2 Knights are slightly inferior to 2 Bishops, which are slightly inferior
to 8 Pawns, which are slightly inferior to 1 Queen, which is slightly
inferior to 2 Rooks.)
I would suggest to use a King, a Withdrawer, an orthogonal Coordinator, an
orthogonal Immobilizer, two diagonal Chameleons, two Leapers capturing
like the Knights in Peter Aronson's Jumping Chess, and eight Pincer Pawns
moving one square forward (two if they are on their starting position).
Castling, promotion (as is already the case in Rococo) and en passant are
back. The Immobilizer and the Chameleon still immobilize all adjacent
pieces, but the Chameleon captures a Pincer Pawn with a diagonal move.
Maybe adding one or two Advancers in hand (perhaps moving like a King)
would constitute a good subvariant.

I'm presently losing my game of Pocket Mutation Chess against Peter
Aronson in Invent-and-Play Section 2, and it is obviously a very enjoyable game.
I blew up my position at move 5:

1. Rook h1 - WP = Nightrider
1. Pawn d7 - d5
2. Nightrider WP - f4
2. Queen d8 - BP = CardinalRider
3. Rook a1 - WP = SuperBishop
3. Pawn g7 - g6
4. SuperBishop WP - e5
4. Knight g8 - f6
5. SuperBishop e5 x c7 ??
5. CardinalRider BP - g5
6. Knight g1 - f3
6. CardinalRider g5 x c7...

Despite this outcome, I am afraid that the sole advantage of being White
was bound to give me a quick win. (Peter is not so sure.) The Nightrider
can be dropped on c4, threatening King and Rook, or f4, threatening Queen
and Rook. It is forking a fork, so to say.
So, I think that White should be barred from using the Pocket at his
first move. (Peter agrees with me on this.)

I have just found an incredible bug in the zrf. Black cannot castle! It is
entirely my fault, I have playtested the game extensively against
Zillions, but always as White after I managed to introduce the Elephants.
(It is a symmetry thing, the move of the Elephant requires (symmetry e w)
and the like because of the usual (symmetry n s), and I didn't think to
replace e and w in the castling macros by (if (am-white) e else w) and
vice-versa.) Sorry about that!

Well, King John was himself replaced by his infant son in 1216. Doesn't it
open the way to a calibrated number of (King-moving? Wazir-moving? Firz-
moving?) Princes, which could act as substitutes, instead of a Queen?
Maybe the French provinces call also for a second 4x4 (5x5?, 3x3x3?)
board, with a crossing of the Channel which would take a delay of two or
three turns...
(3x3x3 is of course debatable, even if it allows your Duke, but shouldn't
there be different laws regarding succession in England and in France?)

I don't know whether it is of any help for anyone, but my zrf for Chess on
a Larger Board with not so few Pieces Dropped provides a contrived example
where the first player to drop Halflings chooses them for both sides.

Like Glenn, I cannot give your game a rating, but it is because I cannot
decide between Good or Excellent. The game looks very clever, and there is
a commendable attempt to bring in pieces of comparable value. I would like
to play it some later month/year, but I have a couple of criticisms, which
may or may not prove useful for future versions. (I take it for granted
that there will be future versions if there is playtesting enough.)
Two Zednicks would not be a luxury, at the expense of the Existentialist
or the Bobber. (Indeed, you have too many Queens. There are already two
Schizzies and promotable Yanzees (and Pawns). A third Queen type should be
a Cannon Queen or use baroque, non-rifle, capture.)
The Squire seems also a bit too strong, and I would prefer a simple Rook,
which would be a bit too weak. But too many pieces have a King's move. Or
did the Teleporters make it necessary?
However, the confabulations, the Dazzlers, the Hyena, the Schizzies and
the Teleporters make your game really interesting.

When I managed to accept an invitation as White and close the window, as I
did twice stupidly for Achernar before and after hitting Continue, it
seems no one can act and the system is stuck. (Yes, there was no need to
do so.)

Like Tony, I would like to be able to flip the board, but also as a
spectator, and if possible to choose which with font I'll watch.

Voidrider Chess has no Voidriders any more.

But your Game Courier is already terrific. Thanks a lot.

The problem, if any, would be that it is always the Anti-King which gets
checkmated, and that the King is here only to prevent the players from
discarding all their pieces or to lose by double check. So, if you want to
checkmate the King nearly as often as the Anti-King, it's no use
weakening the Anti-King by allowing the enemy pieces to jump it.
Stronger armies, say with a Cardinal and a Marshal on a 10x8 board - not
10x10 which also weakens the Anti-King, unless you post the Pawns on the
third line as in Grand Chess -, make the King more vulnerable, but the
setups of Capablanca Chess or Gothic Chess make it also more difficult for
the Anti-King to avoid mate, because the Cardinal and Marshal have less
difficulty in escaping the zone of the Anti-King than Rooks, Bishops or
Knights, and it might be better to report them on the outer files.

How about a quarterly Recognized Variant Cup on a random draw with direct
elimination, in which the contestants would play the latest Recognized
Variant, beginning with Alice Chess or with the next RV? (A draw would
qualify Black, and some players might have to play an extra match. But the
interest would be less to pick a winner than to get several hard-fought
games of the latest RV.)

j'adoube is pronounced zhadoob, with zh like s in pleasure or vision, a -
german or spanish a - like in ask, but shorter and oo - german or spanish
u - like in balloon, but also shorter. There is no tonic accent.

If I may use the thread to depict my own preferences for a Rococo-like game
(please, one or two more votes to make Rococo eligible for the Game
Courier tournament, it is at least as interesting as Ultima), I would keep
the Cannon Pawns, which are a significant amelioration against the
Immobilizer, also with their non-capturing jump, but on an 81+40-square
board which would weaken them a bit. (It looks too big, but the outer
squares seldom carry more than one or two pieces.) I would retain only one
Long Leaper (the outer squares make two Long-Leapers too strong), and I
would bring back the Coordinator and introduce a new piece.
(I am thinking of the Bureaucrat, which would move as a non-capturing
Queen, but would also be able to turn as a move an enemy adjacent (or
perhaps a Knight's move away) piece into an already captured piece (not a
Pawn). In case it would act on adjacent pieces, either it wouldn't be
able to act on the Immobilizer or the Immobilizer wouldn't be able to
immobilize it, which is why having the Bureaucrat acting at the distance
of a Knight's move might be best.)
I am also thinking of pitting them on a 91+36-square hexagonal board, with
all the major pieces moving as hexagonal Rooks, but there the Cannon Pawns
might promote too easily, so allowing only a non-capturing move on a
side-adjacent piece or a capturing jump should be best.

I also think that a qualifying round of eight games is better than two
qualifying rounds of four games, because
a) it insures every player will play at least eight games
b) it gives the players more flexibility for entering each move, say five
days before beginning to consume time units
c) all games retain full weight (in the proposed scheme, players are
induced to keep their favorite games for the second round, when the
qualifying spots will be much harder to secure, especially if there are
nine or ten entrants).

Yes, Rococo and Ultima should both thrive, somewhat as the open standard
and as the closed standard of the same kind of game. That open or closed -
strategic - character derives from the Pincer Pawns in Ultima and from the
edge squares and Cannon Pawns in Rococo.
Where I disagree is about tactics, that is, the officers. I would enrol
one Coordinator, one Swapper, one Withdrawer, one Advancer, one Long
Leaper, one Immobilizer and one Chameleon in both games. I don't see what
makes the Advancer, the Coordinator or the Long Leaper worthwhile only in
Ultima or only in Rococo. Indeed, I find the lack of either frustrating.
(Should one or two new pieces - not pieces capturing by replacement -
prove valuable in a future Ultima-Rococo spin-off, I would also call for
adding them.)
As for evaluation, well, I would reverse George's values for the Advancer
and the Long-Leaper and also for the Swapper and the Chameleon.

Two remarks.
1. It seems White can swallow a Pawn by opening 1.d3 and following with a
Bishop attack on a5 or g5. To prevent that outcome, I wish to give Black
the choice of the initial -- common -- state of the polypieces. (Falcons
or Windmills, Knights or Alibabas, and Bishops or Rooks.) Thus Black can
protect his outer Pawns by choosing Rooks. 
2. George Duke suggested that the game was worth at least 64 squares. I
agree. (Takeover Chess is clearly more enjoyable on 64 squares than it is
on 41.) Hence the idea of a fourth polypiece on a 73-square board (a 9x8
rectangle, which would be a 72-zone or Arena, and the Pocket).
Since it may be a bit too easy to guard polypieces with Pawns, I am
thinking of a baroque polypiece capturing with a strictly limited move, a
Leaper/Withdrawer. The Leaper would move neutrally as a Queen, but would
capture as the Overcaller in Achernar. The Withdrawer would also move
neutrally as a Queen, but would capture by withdrawing only one square
from its victim. (Of course, their Arena moves would turn non-Pocket
Leapers into Withdrawers and non-Pocket Withdrawers into Leapers.)

Peter, I think your proposal is superior to both the original Rococo and to
what I suggested. The Archer (or the Bird, but I prefer the Archer) brings
in a rifle capture element which is quite overdue. (Should the Archer
prove too strong, I would suggest to have it capture only at a distance of
a Knight's move (or only at a distance of two squares), so as to retain
the possibility of an Archer acting upon an Immobilizer.)
True, Ultima or Rococo probably shouldn't feature a Coordinator if there
are already four officers which capture more or less through relative
position (not to mention the King and the Pawns). However, although the
Coordinator is somewhat arbitrary and sometimes inefficient, it offers a
flavor of delocalized capture which I would like to revive into another
piece, maybe on a bigger board. How about a queen-moving piece which would
capture an officer (maybe not the King) by reaching its starting square.
Or by reaching the square it last occupied?

The suggested mechanism looks fine, but just in case some players feel
swamped, it might be worthwhile to let them propose their opponents a
common raise of $sparetime, perhaps limited to $sumofcommonraisesinagame.
Surely some of these would accept the offer.
It also depends on how many games we play simultaneously, of course.
And what about illegal moves? Three days for the opponent, loss on the
third offence?