Single Comment

I agree with Peter that deciding on piece values can be a very difficult proposition, and I certainly claim no special expertise on the matter. I usually take the word of the experts, like Betza and Schmittberger, on such matters, whenever I can. But sometimes it's clear between two pieces which one should have the greater value, and if Zillions is willing to give up strong pieces for weak ones, then getting them into the right relationship is a good thing, even if it's not a precise evaluation. For example, Zillions thinks a Leo (queen-moving cannon-taking piece) is worth as much as a queen, whereas it is clearly worth less. So in my variant that uses that piece, I boosted everything except the Leo so that the pieces have the correct value RANK if not necessarily the correct value. In other cases, of course, it is much harder to decide even what the rank is, and Ultima and its variants would be a very good example of such a situation.