General strategy for shogi?

This game looks fun but I have no idea how to play it.
What are the general principles in shogi?
I think getting my king out of the center early on is a good idea, and pushing pawns on the flanks.
But when captures start happening it becomes total chaos. Both sides can drop pieces everywhere and it's impossible to follow.
What is the relative value of the pieces?
I can solve mate in 3 puzzles but other than that I have no idea how to play.

#2 I can't recognize the pieces. I play with international pieces here.

A lot of the theory on specific openings is displayed with the traditional, or simplified traditional pieces, so that is a surefire way to get access to a lot of material (the playlist in #2 is very very good). Other than that, there are a lot of proverbs that you can read up that will help you regardless of what piece set you prefer

I picked up a few principles in shogi:
- Keep king away from rook. Rook attracts attackers.
- Surround your king with gold generals. They are defensive pieces.
- Use rook, bishop and silvers together to attack.
- Piece in hand is worth more than on board because you can drop it anywhere. Especially knight is much stronger in hand than on board.

For values of pieces I heard:
- Two generals are worth more than a rook/bishop.
- Knight + lance is worth more than a gold.
- Promoted pawn is the strongest type of gold because when captured, it's just a pawn for the opponent.

I still don't have a full picture of the values of the pieces. Feel free to add more information to my lists.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi_strategy

It's values depends on situation. So it's just numbers. Start playing and learn some strategy and you'll understand it's value (for yourself) when you'll understand how to use them in various cases.

In some cases a pawn can be way better then dragon.

The pieces values are used most for evaluation by machine but not players.

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