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#Post#: 599--------------------------------------------------
Stack Shogi
By: ebinola Date: March 11, 2018, 6:02 pm
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This is a simple variant that has been thrown about in my mind
for a while. I have no idea if this has been put up elsewhere,
but here goes.
In shogi, you can drop captured pieces back onto the board as
one of your own, with a few exceptions (nifu, uchifuzume, can't
drop pieces where they'll have no legal moves on subsequent
turns).
The thing is, you can't drop pieces on occupied squares. But
what if - you could drop pieces on squares occupied by your own
pieces to make it stronger?
Here's how I think 'stack shogi' would work:
In addition to the drop rules present in shogi, a player may
drop a piece onto a square that is occupied by another friendly
piece. These pieces will fuse into a compound piece - a stack
that moves as its two constituent parts. You cannot drop on a
square occupied by a stack.
When promoting, only the piece on top of a stack promotes (which
makes a knight on a gold different to a gold on a knight).
Placing a piece that is forced to promote on the last rank on
top of another piece that is not lifts the forced promotion
rules.
When a stack is captured, it splits into its constituent parts,
and the player receives both pieces in hand to drop back onto
the board. So, capturing a stack (which is technically one
piece) gives you two pieces. And if you know your shogi - having
the right pieces in hand can turn the tables really quickly.
You cannot drop a piece on the king, and like shogi, you cannot
drop a pawn on a friendly piece to give checkmate.
As for applying nifu to this new rule, two options are possible:
[list type=decimal]
[li]You cannot drop a pawn to form a stack on a file that
already has a pawn on it[/li]
[li]You cannot drop a pawn to form a stack on a file that
already has a stack that consists of a pawn and another
piece.[/li]
[/list]
Here's some interesting pieces that can be formed:
Ninja (忍者/忍): pawn+knight. If the pawn is
on top, tokin+knight can make a very scary frontal attack. If
the opponent captures it, he will only get a knight and a pawn:
[spoiler]
HTML https://i.imgur.com/iTH2eDT.png[/spoiler]
Queen (奔王/奔): rook+bishop. Everyone's
favourite FIDE queen. Can it break through traditional shogi
defenses? Probably.
Gold Sword (金剣/剣): gold+lance. It can
target the opponent's camp from afar and threaten a frontal
attack:
[spoiler]
HTML https://i.imgur.com/GZDV1rK.png[/spoiler]
Silver Spear (銀槍/槍): silver+lance. Can do
the same as the gold sword, but its silver move allows it to
move past pawns more easily:
[spoiler]
HTML https://i.imgur.com/ihLL3cR.png[/spoiler]
I think it's doable with a regular shogi set, but there is the
problem of notation, the fact that a stack with piece A and B is
not the same as a stack with piece B and A, and also, a player
might forget the piece on the bottom of a stack. Online, you
could use respective kanji to represent the pieces, but this
won't do for Western players who will find learning the kanji
more difficult.
With combinations that are the same regardless of who's on top
(e.g. the queen, gold+silver) you only need one set of kanji
characters, not two.
What do you guys think?
#Post#: 614--------------------------------------------------
Re: Stack Shogi
By: HGMuller Date: March 20, 2018, 4:36 am
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I wonder if it makes sense to extend the nifu rule. For one,
even the extended rule does not prevent that you will get
multiple (stacked) Pawns in the same file, because you can move
them laterally after stacking. So what is the point? Secondly,
the original nifu rule is to prevent the players from creating
'chains' of Pawns, which would be practically invulnerable,
because Pawns aren't worth much, and you cannot afford to break
the chain by sacrificing one other piece for two of the Pawns. A
chain of, say, (Knight, Pawn) stacks in the same file would not
be any more difficult to break down than a chain of the same
stacks along a hippogonal. Or indeed, as a chain of pure Knights
along a hippogonal. The very fact that they are stacks makes
them more valuable (and thus vulnerable) than the most expensive
piece in the stack. There are no rules against chaining 4 Lances
in the same file, and allowing pieces stacked with Pawns to fom
a chain in a file isn't any more disruptive than that.
So my idea would be to treat stacked Pawns as Tokins, i.e. do
not count them towards the Pawn population in the file.
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