-Ludic (Jianying Ji)
Introduction
This is a not-quite-modest variant, that I am throwing out there for you to critique. The main idea here is to have a very egalitarian game where all the pieces are equally powerful. To be specific all the pieces have roughly knightish values. To accomplish this the following substitutions are made:
Pieces
Half Rook
Rook is replaced with the halfrook that only slides up to four squares. For those using Alfeary set, use this: 
Half Rook moves as captures as below.
True Knight
Knight remains the same as FIDE. The name true knight is a play on ‘fide’ as in ‘fidelis’
True Bishop
Bishop also remains true to FIDE
Guardian Queen
Queen is replace by Q1 that can move only one space in each direction. For those using Alfeary set use: 
The name is for the fact it moves as a guard, as follows:
Fuddly King
King now has a fD added to its FIDE move allowing it to jump over a square, whether attacked or not. This is in compensation for king's royalty status which restricts its movements.
In below the orange and the cyan circle denote where the respective fuddly kings can leap to. The square leaped over is not important, it can be attacked or even occupied. The Blue and white circles are where they can step to.
Double Pawn
Pawn is replaced by double move pawn that can make up to two consecutive pawn moves, anytime. So the pawn can either make one pawn move, that is one noncapturing move forward or a capturing move diagonally forward, or make two pawn moves making two capturing moves, two noncapturing moves or one of each kind. Direction change is allowed.
Special Moves
Castling
Castling remain the same as FIDE. King move two toward rook, rook leap to the other side of king. Both pieces having being unmoved, and king not start, move through or end in check. Centering the rook is more important in Equs than FIDE, because a centered rook is more powerful than a rook in the corner; and a rook in the middle of the board is more powerful still.
Before
After
En passant
As a counter-balance to pawn's mobility, the en passant becomes more common as well. To capture en passant, use a capture move of a pawn to move to a space where an opposing pawn move to as first half of a double move.
Promotion
When a double move pawn enters farthest rank from the player, it must promote. The double move pawns promote to any captured non-pawn pieces. If no non-pawn piece exist to promote to, then the double move pawn, may not move to the last row.
Object
As FIDE, the object is to checkmate the king.
Layout
Below is the layout using black and white pieces
Balance
With the mobility of the pawns there maybe an even greater advantage to first player. To address this, second player has a number of restricts that could be use to restrain the first player's pawns. As yet they are not tested, so there use are only adviced.
Alternate diagrams
In the spirit of the game, instead having one side black, the other white. The two side could be of all one color oriented 180o with respect to each other. Also the board rotated 90o, so that the two sides are East and West.
Strategic hints
- King is weakest in opponent's teritory, strive to drive opponent's king into your territory and smother it.
- Pawns has choke points, where opposing pawns can threaten enpassant if they move. So use them to suffocate the opposing pawns.
- Always look for opportunities for strategic exchanges, since pieces are roughly equal valued, position is everything.
Hi, ludic.
Your game looks interesting, moving the power from the FIDE strong pieces to the weak ones. Have you played it yet? I started to make a preset, but didn't find all the pieces, so this is as far as I got: Equs
I modified my Short Chess preset for it. Are your other icons in the Alfaerie set, so we can use them [though the guard *is* a 1-step queen, so that icon is technically correct], or do they need to be put into Alfaerie? You might also consider putting this game in with the 8x8 variants, as it fits nicely there.
Joe
I might move this page under 8x8 after I complete it. Not all pieces are in the alfaery set. For the rook you can use the Halfrook in the set, instead of what I have. I was only trying to preserve the height of the pieces for aesthetic reasons only. As the halfrook, it is a R4. The only new pieces are the fuddly king that has a fD added to it, and the double move pawn, which are the shock troops of the games. I'll explain the double move pawn more soon.
I have thought about this a lot, but has not have a chance to play it yet. So thanks for starting an implementation.
Keep an eye on this page, I'll try to clarify matters, as I plod along. Thanks for the questions as well.
If right, I think the Half Rook may be somewhat over-strong and perhaps should be replaced by a War Machine (Wazir+Dabbabah) with a value of 3.3
I am writing a Zillions implementation for Equs - it will be interesting to compare values.
Hi, guys. For what it's worth, the standard valuation for the guard is 4. And, if I remember correctly [which is sometimes problematical], the [Betza?] value of a half-rook was also 4 [80% value for half-range pieces, if I remember the general idea right]. And the elephant [alfil + ferz] and warmachine are both generally rated a little less than the knight, possibly because of mobility.
Those are the standard ratings. But I'm curious about the rating of the knight vs the warmachine, because I seem to find that if 2 pieces attack the same number of squares, the more powerful is the one with the shorter range. So your value for W+D of 3.3, slightly more than the knight, is quite interesting. The values I've seen given are between 2.5 and 3 for the D+W, and about the same for the elephant. There's some debate over which, warmachine or elephant, is more valuable. The elephant is colorbound, but has 2 directions of forward attack, and can cross the board more easily. The warmachine has 1 forward direction, and limited mobility, but is not colorbound, and can checkmate a lone enemy king with its own king's aid, something neither knight nor elephant can do.
Might be interesting to see how this game would do as a CWDA vs some version of Short Chess [probably replacing the falcon with a jumping general or guard (1 or 2 step) type of piece]. But I would certainly play a game as is to see how it plays before making piece swaps, as the D+W is a bit of a plodding piece, and will slow the game down some. The basic warmachine is truly a shortrange piece. The half rook is as accurately described as medium range, moving up to 4 squares of a possible 7. This should be enough to make a difference in the tempo of the game.
Thanks Greyhawke for starting a zillions implementation!
As for the values, from Betza's augmented knights, commoner, AKA guard, is beter than a bishop but worse than a knight. Due to tactical concerns. From Betza's monster chess and double move pieces, he reckons that double move pawn ideally be 6 times a pawn, but pratically much less due to its fowardness, so if we use 0.6 like colorbound pieces, we get 3.6, so that brings it somewhat in line with other pieces.
But the final proof is in the play-testing so we have to get some more experience in before we can decide.
As a puzzle, try to figure out the fool's mate.
but the code needs checking - especially the en-passant move.
Also a question, Ludic - you say
What happens if there are no captured non-pawn pieces?
Interesting. those values lines up closer to my expectations, though more play might get it even better. The double pawn is probably under-valued though, but I'm not entirely sure 'till I work out some opennings.
As for promotion, I have clarified that point in my latest edit, basically, if there is no piece to promote to, then the double move pawn can't move to the last row.
The enpassant is a difficult move to implement. May be have the double move pawn on its second move, leave an invisible piece for the opponent pawn to capture. And have this capture somehow trigger the capture of the original pawn.
I think I've coded the double-move pawns correctly - they sure are interesting with their ability to capture twice.
The zip file with the zrf and graphics is available here
Thanks, greyhawke for the implementation. I don't have zillions unfortunately, but I will take a look at the code. If I remember the syntax right, I might be able to verify correctness by inspection.
Thanks again.
You're welcome, Ludic. If you have any questions about the code just ask. I'd also be grateful for any suggestions for impoving the code.
I hope to produce a PHP implementation of Equs shortly
Cool! Sorry I didn't respond sooner, have been sick.