BIG BAD WOLF: Give black some penalty points (say -5.5) then a draw can't occur too.

BIG BAD WOLF: "since anyone can sit there and count up how many squares are being attacked."

I might be acting dumb, but i don't entirely get the scoring. I probably wouldn't play if i had to add up the points as well.

furbster: That is what I was getting at - there is no point in hidding the points since if someone "really" wants to know how many point there is, they can sit there for 3 minutes and figure it out. When I play, I try to play and move on so hiding the score would only slow down game play.

Basicly it's how many spaces your pieces are attacking. So on the first move, if you put a rook in a corner space, you would have 14 points (for "attacking" 7 in each direction). If then the player places a piece right next to your rook, they would take away 7 points from you since you are no longer attacking in that direction.

furbster: Why not do as in Connect6 for the turns? Have White make the first move of one piece, then Black places two pieces, then White places two, Then Black places two, then White places two, then Black places two, then White places two, then Black places his last two, and White places his last piece and the game is over. Would that even the game any?

Move 1: White 1 piece
Move 2: Black 2 pieces
Move 3: White 2 pieces
Move 4: Black 2 pieces
Move 5: White 2 pieces
Move 6: Black 2 pieces
Move 7: White 2 pieces
Move 8: Black 2 pieces
Move 9: White 1 piece

furbster: Another way would be to require them to be placed in a certain order. Queen first, then Rooks, then Bishops, then Knights, and the King last. Or the reverse of this scheme.

Walter Montego: That sounds like it might be a solvable problem ... maybe one of the programmers could put some thought to it ... I expect standard chess would be the same if the piece movement order was pre-ordained.

Walter Montego: The plan is already to make white first use King, and black use Queen. I've played it that was a few times as a "test", and found that white no longer gets blown out of the water. I was still able to win as black during those test, but that did not take into consideration the other changes to the game about what space scores what - so it should be a lot closer doing that.

The connect6 type of moving - that is also a interesting idea. Just looking at it, without making black use his queen early - I would still say Black would have an advantage because on their next to last move, a rook & queen places could attack a lot of the board that white would not be able to block with just one piece..... but I would have to play it to know for sure.