excuse me!! I meant to say Gothicchess.org;not Gothicchess.com. in my previous message.

I discovered something over the course of playing about 2000 games of Gothic Chess. The new pieces have a "dimension" to them that is not observed in the domain of regular 8x8 chess. That being, the value of the pieces vary as does the pawn population.

Consider this. Place a White Archbishop on a8. Place a White King on a1. Place a Black King on j8.

White to move will win, but it will take a very long time! With no pawns on the board, the Archbishop has "decayed" to being less important than a Rook. A Rook on the empty board mates much more quickly than the Archbishop.

So, should not the strength of the pieces become a function of the pawn count? I think so.

On a crowded board we observe Archbishops tearing down the house. So, in these instances, we rate it much higher.

I think the Archbishop derives a lot of its early power from its knight's move ability to jump over pieces ... this is the same as a knight in conventional chess. On a really crowded board the value of a knight increases, towards the end game the bishop becomes more pwerful as it ususally develops a longer range as there are less pieces to interfer. The Chancellor, I find, als o grows in power through the game, but i am not sure why. In the early game I actually prefer the Archbishop but will always swap for a Chancellor because I know as pieces disappear the Chancellor rises.

I myself am a bit more weary of the Chancelor's late-game abilities than I am of the Archbishop's opening abilities...perhaps because the openings I favor lead to somewhat longer, stodgier games that tend to lead to endgames where having the Chancelor's rank and file solidity is an advantage. Like Whisperz, I will almost always trade my Archbishop for a Chancelor, and have not seen much opening play (against an equal opponent, Ed and Rob!) where I feel the Archbishop solidified enough of a tactical advantage to counteract the Chancelor's heavy influence in endgames.

Speaking of Archbishop piece value, Ed and I played an interesting game recently where the Archbishop was traded early on for a rook and a bishop...it led to an interesting, unbalanced position. The side that had given up the Archbishop won, but then again, it was Ed v. me.;-)