Very interesting, especially when compared to shogi (Japanese chess), where captured pieces can be dropped in anywhere on the board. So for shogi players this "ideal square" calculation can be even more natural and more flexible as well: besides the "getting existing pieces from A to B", the "drop on B" is a lot simpler. No wonder that piece exchanges (so there is something in the hand to drop) are basic feature of the gameplay.<p>(Source: being a fan of shogi but very very very early in my learning journey, so experts would likely describe this differently.)
The unrealistic squares issue could be resolved by using legal moves for the piece. You could then evaluate the best for 1 move, 2 moves, up to e.g. 4 moves. You could also eliminate moves that visit a square already reached by a previous square to avoid duplicates.<p>It may be interesting to apply weights to reduce the score of squares many moves away. This would need to handle advantageous positions like check or checkmate.
> This exercise involves looking at a piece and imagining which square it would be best placed on, without initially worrying about how to get it there.<p>Without using Stockfish, how does one do this in their head? What rubric can you use to evaluate whether one square is better than another? (I’m a very low level player, obviously,)
Nice, long time lichess player including blitz arenas but had no idea they had articles.<p>Some interesting analysis here and how to approach the problem domain (pawn structure as a concern) but that first example, there is just no way to get that knight there in any reasonable way. Talking about unrealistic moves.