I classic chess, the rooks can move in any direction. Forward, backward and sideways are allowed. The pawns are the only pieces that are limited to forward movements. So the arrows are only necessary for the those.
In this image we are seeing the two paths this took can take (“left” and “forward”). But forward is not the same as a pawn’s forward. The pawn would, about halfway down, “turn” away from the rook’s path
Personally I think the rook makes intuitive sense as shown. I would vote for the pawns following the same path even if it means they cannot reach the other side. Then remove the forward indicators and just make the pawns statefully indicate their direction.
The way I see it, is that for a rook, it is easy to know which path it can follow. You simply take it's current position and allow it to move to any neighbor tile sharing an edge, and then the opposite tile, and the opposite again, and so on.
For a pawn, it can also move to neighbor tile sharing an edge, but there are multiple ones, and only one is allowed. So how to you define which it is?
If we were to say, as I understand is what you suggest, that it will follow the same path as a rook, here is the problem that I see. If it was in one of those tiles you mention, we can't infer which path a rook would take from the pawn current position. We would instead need to know its starting position. And by just looking at the board in a given state, the pawn could come from 2 places ( see https://imgur.com/a/sExTqsP ). So that would require the player to always keep in mind which pawn comes from where. Which I think is really hard. Especially for games with no timer, as those could last days.
I'm much more in favor of a definition of forward which is comprehensible by just looking at the board, without having to think about the starting point. Which is why for now I've settled on using the direction of the tile edge. Even if there is a non-negligible cost of visual clutter.
Also, I'm quite keen on preserving the fact that all pawn can be promoted to a piece when reaching the opposite edge. As soon as you know that a pawn can't do that, they lose a lot of their threat potential.
But I don't want to close off this idea. It does make me think, and I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise. And it could very well end up as a variant inside this variant!
Well what I’m saying is you should make the pawns themselves have an appearance that denotes the direction they are facing (e.g. a bit pointy or just slap an arrow on them). That way you do not need to know their starting position in order to understand their current state. This way you can also remove the arrows indicating tile direction.
I think pawns changing from being relatively worthless because they’re not on a promotion track to very dangerous because capturing a piece has allowed them to shift into one is pretty fun actually. Diagonally capturing a piece would also occasionally cause the pawn to “turn” which would be a really Tricky change in its zone of attack
I kept thinking about it, did some tests, and you convinced me. So the pawns movements are now changed. It works like that now:
- pawns move forward in their "track", just like a rook would do, just one tile at a time.
- if the track reaches the end of the board, the pawn can promote as usual.
- if the track ends on the left or right side of the board, when the pawn reaches it, it changes track. If there are multiple tracks it can take from there, the one that reaches the end in the least amount of moves is selected
- when a pawn captures, it changes track following the same rule.
And I agree now that using capture to change the zone of attack of a pawn is a very nice addition.
On top of that, if multiple pawn are constraint to turn sideways at first, it's not simply a handicap. It also helps strengthen the defense in that area, as you can have more efficient pawn walls.
In all all, it's great, thanks a lot for arguing in favor of this change.
oh that is interesting, I haven't thought about changing the appearance of the piece to convey more info. That's definitely something worth exploring.
And I agree as well that pawns changing track when they capture can be a fun one. It could even make you reconsider a capture if the pawn is on a good track and would end up on one that turns to the side.
I'm not promising I'll change the current behavior, but that does make me think.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your question?