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Fairy chess piece values

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Lunar000

While some are just guesses and assumptions by me (marked with ?) others are basically factual, based on many computer games.(Credits to HGmuller for those)

Pawn:1
Knight:3.25
Bishop:3.25 (0.5 for pair)
Rook:5
Queen:9.5
Empress:9
Princess:8.75
Ferz:1.35(0.3 for pair) (?)
I'd say a pair of them (on opposite colors) are around the same value as a knight.
Wazir:1.125 (?)
Prince (non-royal king) :3 (?)
Knight rider:4 (?)
Wildebeast:5.75 (?)
Camel:2.25 (?)
Amazon:13.25 (?)
Jester (Can move like a wazir,3 times in one turn,basically wazir to the power of 3):8 (?)

HGMuller

A Nightrider is stronger than a Rook (~5.25).

A pair of Ferzes was indeed worth 3, as you indicate (2 x 1.35 + 0.3), so slightly less than a Knight (3.25). I never tried to measure the pair bonus; the Fairy-Max engine is not a very good tool for that, as there is no pair bonus in its evaluation. So it often needlessly trades a pair advantage away. I should really do a systematic study of pair bonuses one time with an engine that recognizes those. Lately I have started to suspect that pair bonuses have little to do with color binding, but are a consequence of the fact that the move patters of two unlike Bishops can have so many orthogonal contacts.

Wildebeest is more like 6.5-7. That is a lot of synergy, if N=3.25 and C=2.25. But the value of the Camel is much suppressed compared to other 8-target leapers because it is very easily lost in the end-game: chasing it away from the center brings it very close to the edge, where so many of its moves fall outside the board that it gets easily trapped. The Wildebeest no longer has that problem.

Lunar000

I thought that the 8x8 board was too small for a knightrider to shine that much but it has a lot of attacking potential.

About the pairs,i think its a combination of both,while checkmating with 2 bishops,we are taught to place them next to eachother as thats the way to make a trap,however if we only have one bishop that means half of the board can't be covered by bishops,and bishops are the easiest long ranged piece to activate,so that hinders the attacking potential.

About wildebeest,my opinion was that its camel movement still struggles,but the compound makes it way stronger as they (N and C) cover eachothers weaknesses,that being short range for the knight (can't snipe pieces sitting in the backrank) and colorboundnesss and hindered movement for the camel.

HGMuller

You are right that in the Wildebeest the color binding of the Camel is lifted; this likely also contributes to the synergy.

If the main weakness of the Knight is speed, I can understand the Nightrider is a strong improvement. It might not have so many extra moves when centralized, but in that case a Knight would not really need the speed. But it does have the speed available when it counts, namely when it is near the edge.

Lunar000

Another weakness of the knight is square control,it controls only 8 at max while an equivelant bishop can control more on average.And another one is its mobility,yes its more mobile than a camel but it still takes 3 moves to get to a square thats orthodogonally next to it and 4 moves if the square is an alfil jump away.Camel move helps with square control.

HGMuller

Well, a Bishop controls more on average on an empty board. On a half-filled board, like you start with, B and N provide approximately equal control. And the Knight can attack 8 pieces at once, the Bishop only 4.