Kevin Pacey wrote on Sat, Sep 9, 2017 12:38 AM EDT:
It occurs to me it may be possible to have classes of variants that are interesting which have one royal kraken per side, with an anti-trading rule (i.e. both krakens must stay protected, or else they would be captured by the opposing kraken). That's provided each side also has a royal king that's ruled immune from kraken capture or check, and/or each side has an anti-king (again immune from kraken capture, but also not in any way in check by it).
One strategy of such variants might then not be necessarily to checkmate the other side's kraken by eliminating its army, but rather to now and then check the other side's kraken with other pieces, forcing said kraken to move to a different protected cell, or the owner to play another kind of disadvantageous move, to block the line of attack against it. The idea would be that this produces a weakening of the defences of the more realistic target, which might be the royal king (and/or anti-king, alternatively).
It occurs to me it may be possible to have classes of variants that are interesting which have one royal kraken per side, with an anti-trading rule (i.e. both krakens must stay protected, or else they would be captured by the opposing kraken). That's provided each side also has a royal king that's ruled immune from kraken capture or check, and/or each side has an anti-king (again immune from kraken capture, but also not in any way in check by it).
One strategy of such variants might then not be necessarily to checkmate the other side's kraken by eliminating its army, but rather to now and then check the other side's kraken with other pieces, forcing said kraken to move to a different protected cell, or the owner to play another kind of disadvantageous move, to block the line of attack against it. The idea would be that this produces a weakening of the defences of the more realistic target, which might be the royal king (and/or anti-king, alternatively).