Exile_Ian
Apr 03, 2002, 02:46 PM
This thread was prompted by a throwaway remark in Civ3 General Discussion related to how realistic Civ3 was.
I’ve been playing Chess for the past few weeks, and although it’s a very enjoyable game, I feel I have to complain about many of its unrealistic aspects.
Board/Map
Obviously the game has to contain some compromises (presumably to avoid excessive turn-time) but limiting us to a fixed 8x8 layout is surely unreasonable. To accurately model real conflict, we need to be able to define large board sizes (not necessarily symetrical either). I’d love to play a game on a 50x20 board myself.
Unit Values
Overall I think these are reasonable, but some of the choices and their movements are a little suspect.
Pawns (or Infantry as I prefer to call them) are fairly good in that they generally only move straight ahead (although a sideways move would have helped me out of a few jams in a recent game!) – the bit that seems absurd though is that if they advance all the way to the board limit, they can be converted into any unit you choose. That seems a bit generous to me – perhaps they should only be able to upgrade to Knights at best? Its probably irrelevent because I can’t imagine anyone actually achieve this feat in a game without cheating!
Knights are one of my favorite units, and their ability to circumvent the ZOC (zone of control), that restricts all other pieces’ movements is superb. Their ‘jumping’ ability reflects well on their real-life counterparts. I would prefer though that their move range of 3 could be in any direction – not the 2+1 or 1+2 options that the game limits you to.
Rooks (strange name considering they look like Castles!) – I prefer to think of these as Siege Towers since Castles couldn’t have the freedom of movement in real-life. Their unlimited range seems somewhat unrealistic but ok.
Bishops (hmm surely an idea way out of ‘left-field’?) are the most unrealistic unit IMHO. For starters, historically the clergy in general have never been active fighters (correct me if I’m wrong).
Even, accepting that, their diagonal movement is simply bizarre – what is that supposed to imply? Also, they seem to be the only unit that is stuck on one type of terrain (either black or white) – at least I haven’t found a way of shifting from one type to the other – am I missing something?
Finally we get to the King and Queen. Now I’m fine with the idea of Royalty as the most important units but surely we’ve got their roles mixed up? So if you lose (or are about to lose) your King, the game’s over – that’s fine. But what powers does the king have in return? – nothing! They’re less powerful than the humble Pawns! It seems the only advantage they have is they have some sort of expanded ZOC when confronting the opponent’s King – seems a little weak to me though.
As for the Queen though – what happened there? Is this some sort of nodding acceptance to the modernist view of women in our society? If so, it’s way too far. The omnipotence of the Queen is a farce really – I’ve already modded my own rules to set the Queen to be equivilant to a Bishop – which seems more reasonable.
Of course, there’s plenty of units missing. What about tanks and aircraft? I know the game is supposed to be modelled on ancient warfare, so maybe that’s an unreasonable request – but surely we could have had Cannons or Swordsmen?
Gameplay
This is where I have some serious concerns.
The rules for resolving combat are just too simplistic! There’s just no accounting for attack/defence strengths – a pawn can automatically overcome the strongest opponent if it gets into the correct position to attack. I’m sure it would make for a better game if (for instance) when a pawn attacked a bishop it might only have a 1:3 chance of winning and perhaps having to retreat if it lost.
I also dislike that there’s no options for recreating lost units (with the exception of the Pawn upgrade option already mentioned). Surely there could be a way to create a new Knight (for instance) if you carelessly lose both of yours in a game. In real-life, populations tend to expand as time progresses – not contract like they do in Chess.
There are ultimately very limited choices in strategy – you can either be aggressive or defensive, but the game is seemingly confined to repeating the same tactics every game. I find that the opening moves seem to be very similar in every game I play now.
Features
Where’s the SAVE GAME option? I find I’m having to write down the position of every piece if I want to leave a game and come back to it later.
Where’s true multiplayer? Ok, so 1 to 1 playing is adequate, but what about if 3 or more want to play? Playing as teams just doesn’t have the same appeal really.
Where’s the customisation support? How do I create a new unit type?
Overall
Chess shows a lot of potential and compares favorably to similar games (such as checkers) – but clearly needs a lot more development before it gets any widespread usage. Personally, I’m hoping that Chess 2 comes out soon!
I’ve been playing Chess for the past few weeks, and although it’s a very enjoyable game, I feel I have to complain about many of its unrealistic aspects.
Board/Map
Obviously the game has to contain some compromises (presumably to avoid excessive turn-time) but limiting us to a fixed 8x8 layout is surely unreasonable. To accurately model real conflict, we need to be able to define large board sizes (not necessarily symetrical either). I’d love to play a game on a 50x20 board myself.
Unit Values
Overall I think these are reasonable, but some of the choices and their movements are a little suspect.
Pawns (or Infantry as I prefer to call them) are fairly good in that they generally only move straight ahead (although a sideways move would have helped me out of a few jams in a recent game!) – the bit that seems absurd though is that if they advance all the way to the board limit, they can be converted into any unit you choose. That seems a bit generous to me – perhaps they should only be able to upgrade to Knights at best? Its probably irrelevent because I can’t imagine anyone actually achieve this feat in a game without cheating!
Knights are one of my favorite units, and their ability to circumvent the ZOC (zone of control), that restricts all other pieces’ movements is superb. Their ‘jumping’ ability reflects well on their real-life counterparts. I would prefer though that their move range of 3 could be in any direction – not the 2+1 or 1+2 options that the game limits you to.
Rooks (strange name considering they look like Castles!) – I prefer to think of these as Siege Towers since Castles couldn’t have the freedom of movement in real-life. Their unlimited range seems somewhat unrealistic but ok.
Bishops (hmm surely an idea way out of ‘left-field’?) are the most unrealistic unit IMHO. For starters, historically the clergy in general have never been active fighters (correct me if I’m wrong).
Even, accepting that, their diagonal movement is simply bizarre – what is that supposed to imply? Also, they seem to be the only unit that is stuck on one type of terrain (either black or white) – at least I haven’t found a way of shifting from one type to the other – am I missing something?
Finally we get to the King and Queen. Now I’m fine with the idea of Royalty as the most important units but surely we’ve got their roles mixed up? So if you lose (or are about to lose) your King, the game’s over – that’s fine. But what powers does the king have in return? – nothing! They’re less powerful than the humble Pawns! It seems the only advantage they have is they have some sort of expanded ZOC when confronting the opponent’s King – seems a little weak to me though.
As for the Queen though – what happened there? Is this some sort of nodding acceptance to the modernist view of women in our society? If so, it’s way too far. The omnipotence of the Queen is a farce really – I’ve already modded my own rules to set the Queen to be equivilant to a Bishop – which seems more reasonable.
Of course, there’s plenty of units missing. What about tanks and aircraft? I know the game is supposed to be modelled on ancient warfare, so maybe that’s an unreasonable request – but surely we could have had Cannons or Swordsmen?
Gameplay
This is where I have some serious concerns.
The rules for resolving combat are just too simplistic! There’s just no accounting for attack/defence strengths – a pawn can automatically overcome the strongest opponent if it gets into the correct position to attack. I’m sure it would make for a better game if (for instance) when a pawn attacked a bishop it might only have a 1:3 chance of winning and perhaps having to retreat if it lost.
I also dislike that there’s no options for recreating lost units (with the exception of the Pawn upgrade option already mentioned). Surely there could be a way to create a new Knight (for instance) if you carelessly lose both of yours in a game. In real-life, populations tend to expand as time progresses – not contract like they do in Chess.
There are ultimately very limited choices in strategy – you can either be aggressive or defensive, but the game is seemingly confined to repeating the same tactics every game. I find that the opening moves seem to be very similar in every game I play now.
Features
Where’s the SAVE GAME option? I find I’m having to write down the position of every piece if I want to leave a game and come back to it later.
Where’s true multiplayer? Ok, so 1 to 1 playing is adequate, but what about if 3 or more want to play? Playing as teams just doesn’t have the same appeal really.
Where’s the customisation support? How do I create a new unit type?
Overall
Chess shows a lot of potential and compares favorably to similar games (such as checkers) – but clearly needs a lot more development before it gets any widespread usage. Personally, I’m hoping that Chess 2 comes out soon!