Trench Warfare
Description: Track your opponent's movements in this foggy battlefield to strike a fatal blow on your opponent's royal alfil.
Additional notes: Huge thanks to @CoConCone, @gamer10514, @NadiaAbood, @jensen_R, @FriendDelay1523, @Mironovich_Liza, @PANDACHESSEMASTER, @WingfeatherFan, @Minetechstarship, and @prestonboy123 (www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/76756671) for their help with testing!
This is my first variant that I have proposed. I recently changed my username from honeybeee91 to QtSeSc.
There is a bug in these games, where if Yellow captures Red's king, the outcome is marked as a draw rather than a 0-1. Similar anomalies occur when Red resigns or runs out of time.
Dead pawns: The dead pawns in the middle 4 ranks are useful for tracking your opponent's movements (you can see what pawns your opponent has captured, so you can 'see' their relative positions).
Alibaba-rider usefulness: In most of these games, the opponent's king was sniped by an Alibaba-rider- this can be prevented by shielding the king at all times (usually with an alfil).
Piece values: Due to the unusual board shape, the knight and general are weaker than usual, with values corresponding to about a dabbaba and a grasshopper, respectively.
Shuffling: The game www.chess.com/variants/custom/game/77212349 features a shuffling strategy. However, you can tell when your opponent is shuffling (via the dead pawns), so one could develop an anti-shuffling strategy (as shown in the game).
Comments
5
Few ideas for revision so far:
-Make royals capturable but maximally vulnerable (like camel) so that you know where the opponent's pieces are
- Add pawns, either through spell chess (while maintaining the original position) (not ideal) or with vertical openings on the two sides (which allows knight parity swap)
Any thoughts on these thoughts? I'm currently looking for advice to make this mechanic more implementable.
I believe this variant was autodeclined due to the lack of pawns on the fog board (I drew this conclusion from the fact that this variant was declined before the verdicts on some variants posted 2 days before this were released, as well as the fact that the decline message did not mention the mechanic and did not have any additional testing games). Personally, I believe the dead pawn mechanic prevents instantly shuffling because you would know when your opponent is shuffling, as you would see no new dead pawns show up on their capture counter, and you could develop a strategy to counter it (see game 77212349, link in description). It is true that when pieces are exchanged, this variant *could* become a shuffling variant (because most of the pieces can not access all the squares on the board), but you could track your opponent's captured pieces and when a 'colorblind' situation arises, you could play accordingly.. I still believe that this variant still has potential for implementation, as there is a lot of strategy with choosing which pieces to attack with (e.g. the alfil corresponding to the same squares as your opponent's royal can be a good choice), choosing which ones to trade, choosing which dead pawns to capture, employing grasshoppers' horizontal movement, tracking your opponent, and analyzing the parities of your opponent's remaining pieces. Is there a way to contact the testing team or suggest a reevaluation?
Yeah due to dead pieces range is seervereley limited, I’d recommend removing all the dead pieces