Well, erm..
This is the first time I post a page here, so please be patient with me.
I liked ExCoCo Chess, and I found it to be a very neat idea. However, I tried to cut it down a little.
The board is 16x10 , 160 squares.
The pieces are :
16 Pawns, (look below for move description,)
2 Archers, (AD, also called Alibabas,)
2 Manns, (FW, also called Guards or Commoners,)
2 kNights, (N,)
2 Rooks, (R,)
2 Couriers, (B, move like Bishops: the name is taken from the original Courier Chess,)
2 Thanes, (R4,)
2 Viscounts, (B4,)
2 War-Machines, (DW, also called the Wazaba,)
2 Elephants, (AF, also called the Ferfil,)
1 Legate, (ADN, Knight + Archer, also called the Squirrel or the Rocket,)
1 Horseman, (FNW, Knight + Mann,)
1 Queen, (RB, Rook + Courier)
1 Duke, (R4B4, Thane + Viscount,)
1 Squire, (ADFW, Mann + Archer, or Warmachine + Elephant, also called the Jumping General,)
and 1 King. (the regular Chess King.)
Some of the names are the courtesy of Graeme Neathan.
The piece density is 50%.
The compounds (Queen, Duke, General, etc.) I all restricted to one by side. I added also a Squirrel (Knight+Alibaba) to the mix. And lengthened the Thane, Viscount and Duke to 4 steps instead of 3.
Pawns move as they do in standard chess. They also have the ability to step back one step orthogonally without capture. From the second rank, it gets the right to a triple step; and from the third rank to a double step. A player may move multiple pawns. For example, he can move 3 pawns from the second rank 1 step each; or 2 pawns from the third rank one step each; or 2 pawns from the second rank, one moving one step and the other two steps. A player may not move pawns from different ranks in the same turn. this doesn't apply to pawns beyond the third rank.
Promotion: A player may promote a pawn to any piece in the starting setup when it gets the 8th or 9th rank, and he must promote it when it gets the 10th rank.
The King may only castle once during a game, with either a War Machine, a Thane, or a Rook. It castles by moving all the way to square next to the piece he's castling with, and that piece jumps to the square he just passed. Usual restrictions apply.
The Starting setup, and Courier preset.
On balance I like this variant:
Pros:
Cons:
and now I feel inspired to apply a few of the positives to ExCoCoChess
Thanks Graeme, I really appreciate the comment.
Yes, I agree with you that the Pawns are complex. They're actually borrowed from several Chess Variants. It's always possible, of course, to play with normal pawns which promote on the last rank.
I made these changes to the pawns for a couple of reason :
1. If you only advance one pawn at a time the game is going to be a little slow. And besides, I learned chess with this rule in mind. I used to open with 1.g3/b3 .. It was a disappointment's to know it doesn't work like that. In short, the Multi-Advance allow faster development.
2. Pawns would better protect the King if they were on the second and he was on the first.
And the Courier thing, well, there are actually two courier pieces : the Bishop, which is the original Courier (and the piece I would call the Courier;) and the Alibaba, which is the Courier in Modern Courier Chess (which is one of my favourite variants.)
The point about faster development is a good one and I guess you could argue that the special first move in Courier itself sets a precedent for multi-pawn moves. I'm now thinking seriously about allowing it in some form in Double Courier.
And about the Courier piece, I should have expressed it more clearly; what I meant to say is that I would like to see a piece named or called Courier.
With Double Courier I have decided to follow Modern Courier and name the Alibaba pieces as Courier.