It also makes a lot of difference when you have to continue a game after 1. e4 c5 or after 1. d4 d5. That doesn't make the Queen's Gambit and the Sicilian different chess variants. It also makes a lot of difference whether you get 90 minutes or 2 minutes or 30 days on your clock. Not every difference, no matter how large, creates a new chess variant.
Throne Chess has different rules from orthodox Chess. In fact so different that at no time you can enter the game tree of one from a position in that of the other. The more the game progresses, the more this difference will be felt. (Like in the more popular King of the Hill, based on a similar idea.) This in contrast to, for instance, Seirawan Chess. Where after trading Hawk and Elephant you just end up in an orthodox game. Even from Chess with Different Armies you can eventually convert to an orthodox Pawn ending.
So you should not be fooled by the term 'modest'. That term means something very specific here, and in any case not that the change in rules cannot have huge impact. If I am not mistaking, even Ultima and Arimaa count as a modest variants, because they can be played with an orthodox Chess set on an 8x8 board. (Of course I take the position here that they are not even Chess variants...)
It also makes a lot of difference when you have to continue a game after 1. e4 c5 or after 1. d4 d5. That doesn't make the Queen's Gambit and the Sicilian different chess variants. It also makes a lot of difference whether you get 90 minutes or 2 minutes or 30 days on your clock. Not every difference, no matter how large, creates a new chess variant.
Throne Chess has different rules from orthodox Chess. In fact so different that at no time you can enter the game tree of one from a position in that of the other. The more the game progresses, the more this difference will be felt. (Like in the more popular King of the Hill, based on a similar idea.) This in contrast to, for instance, Seirawan Chess. Where after trading Hawk and Elephant you just end up in an orthodox game. Even from Chess with Different Armies you can eventually convert to an orthodox Pawn ending.
So you should not be fooled by the term 'modest'. That term means something very specific here, and in any case not that the change in rules cannot have huge impact. If I am not mistaking, even Ultima and Arimaa count as a modest variants, because they can be played with an orthodox Chess set on an 8x8 board. (Of course I take the position here that they are not even Chess variants...)