Single Comment

Lol, I'm certainly not the one to be serious about others taking a day or two to respond - look how long this took! Charles, it took me 2 days to come up with that slightly flawed analysis. Grin. Obviously I should have run it at least 3 days - I only looked 2 moves out. Would've helped if I'd used an actual board and pieces. Realized the Viceroy changed colors, but didn't adequately follow up, or I should have realized a third move would give the combination. [Moral of the story: don't try complex visualizations when you're sleepy, and always re-check the next day. Too bad I'm better at giving advice than following it.]

So you think my analysis is too reductionist [in using A' and F']? If it causes others to make the same mistake I made, I'll agree with you. But for now, I think it was just mental sloppiness. If the piece move is diagrammed, you won't have someone like me pointing into empty air with both hands while calculating which imaginary cells the piece can or can't move to. I was thinking on the odd levels that it's one color, and on the even, the other. Full descriptions of piece movement and movement potential should prevent others from falling into my error.

But it's easy enough to replace the F' with V and the A' with E. It's just that I think my version carries visual directional information [certainly it does for me] that isn't apparent using V and E. It's easier for me, at least. [And it saves letters, something I like.] Compare:

 [DWAF]  PASHA,  [DWAF]
  [FW]+[AD]     [FW]+[AD]
  [DW]+[AF]     [DW]+[AF] 
  [AW]+[DF]     [AW]+[DF] 

[DWA'F']  KHAN,  [DWEV]
  [WF']+[DA']   [WV]+[DE] 
  [DW]+[A'F']   [DW]+[EV] 
  [WA']+[DF']   [WE]+[DV] 

[AFA'F']  IMAM,  [AFEV]
  [FF']+[AA']   [FV]+[AE] 
  [AF]+[A'F']   [AF]+[EV] 
  [FA']+[AF']   [FE]+[AV]

One thing I do not do is think of the Baron as a variant of either the ferz or the viceroy; I've played enough compound pieces to know better. 

As for the setups, I still think mine is more immediately dynamic. If a piece on this board has to spend an extra turn or two to combine into pieces that are then left on the back rank, good development by the opponent should beat that tactic. However, if the pieces, as they move toward contact, can join on the way, in a good location on the very small board, then that would be even better, most likely. The only way to see how it goes is to try it out with a board and pieces. Game Courier has a large range of pieces. Do you have any preferences for a preset for R3D? The 2 setups should be played against each other, as well as against themselves.

Following is me quoting you quoting me... ? Anyhow, goes like this:
''The Eunuch is colorbound, rankbound, and filebound, and given the particular geometry of this board, can only access 3 cells by itself.' True, but as the rules specify, it can never actually be by itself in this game. '
So the eunuch only adds a couple moves to the piece it's part of, but gives it the potential to jump to a [somewhat] different area of the board. This adds to the 'chaos potential' of the game, but to a limited extent given the max move is 2. And given the tiny size of the 3D board, with only a 4x4 cross-section, the jump moves of the elephant and viceroy may provide needed maneuverability. 

I've been comparing and contrasting our pair of 3D games while trying to put this reply together. The similarities are strong; thus the differences should be instructive. The differences include: simple vs complex pieces, pawns vs no pawns, and a tight board vs a looser one - a lot of little questions for the theory boys to play around with. But what are the odds anyone will play either of these games?