Chess is unrealistic

Exile_Ian

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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!
 
Yes, if they don't put out a patch for this game soon, I'm going to demand my money back. ;) I think the Bishop movement issue must be a bug, but hey, at least it's fully customizable. :p
 
Chess is very realistic: You must make do with what you have, because if you wait for reenforcements you may be dead by the time they arrive.
:king:
 
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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!)
They used to have huge shields, so that they can't Attack straight Ahead. They had to attack out to the front-left or front-right.
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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!
Whaddaya Mean? I've had 3 Queens on the board at one time! (how 'bout them apples?)
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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...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...

...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)...

...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
The variety of the types of movements were necesary, or Chess would be a Glorified version of Checkers.
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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'm gonna agree with you on that.
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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.
In a Japanese Version of Chess, you can train the figs you captured, and use them against your opponent.
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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.
Methinks you play on the computer too much...
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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.
I'm working on a three-player version, and there is a 4-player version out.
 
Originally posted by Exile_Ian
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.



Not true, a standard army dude would easily beat a preist or whatever in a fight.

Same with a siege tank, if it could get that close to a tank it could beat it. (Sabotage)

Same with the king and queen.

The knight is the only one that would present a challenge.
 
Actually, when you get right down to it, the game is actually indian. The bishops used to be war elephants, and the queen a military advisor.
 
This is very funny and good. :lol:

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?
In Chinese chess, rooks are chariots, bishops are elephants (but they cannot cross the 'river' to the enemy's side of the board), no queens but you have 2 shi, not sure what it means in English. But the shi and king (wang) cannot move out of the 'palace'. Oh, and you have 2 pao too - cannons, or maybe catapults. :)

So everyone, learn Chinese chess today! :)

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.
In school, we used to play double (or even triple chess). :) E.g. for double chess, we have 2 boards and 4 players. Each team of 2 players play 1 black, 1 white. Any captured pieces can be passed to your partner for 'dropping' onto his game.

Further rules, cannot 'drop' unit on last 2 rows of board; no waiting for 'reinforcements' fr your partner and so on. Very very fun. And a lot of argument.
 
In Chinese chess, rooks are chariots, bishops are elephants (but they cannot cross the 'river' to the enemy's side of the board), no queens but you have 2 shi, not sure what it means in English. But the shi and king (wang) cannot move out of the 'palace'. Oh, and you have 2 pao too - cannons, or maybe catapults.

So everyone, learn Chinese chess today!



quote:
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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.
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In school, we used to play double (or even triple chess). E.g. for double chess, we have 2 boards and 4 players. Each team of 2 players play 1 black, 1 white. Any captured pieces can be passed to your partner for 'dropping' onto his game.

Further rules, cannot 'drop' unit on last 2 rows of board; no waiting for 'reinforcements' fr your partner and so on. Very very fun. And a lot of argument.

Do_you_know_where_I_can_learn_this?__It_looks_interesting_to_me_:)____Such_as_a_webpage?_And_do_you_think_they_sell_this_version_at_normal_shops?
 
You can probably do a search on the web for it. ;) I'm sure there're some sites dedicated to it.

Well over here, it's very common. Logical sort of. Not sure bout in Western countries but you can probably find it in Chinatowns. The chess pieces are std size pieces with Chinese characters on top, so you'll have to learn each character to know which piece is for which. :)

Normal chess here is referred to as 'international chess' to prevent misunderstandings.
 
Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
In school, we used to play double (or even triple chess). :) E.g. for double chess, we have 2 boards and 4 players. Each team of 2 players play 1 black, 1 white. Any captured pieces can be passed to your partner for 'dropping' onto his game.

We played this at school as well but with no rules on where you could drop the pieces. Except that you couldn't put a piece on if you were in check or place a piece on the board to but the opposition into check directly...I seem to remember that triple chess didn't really work very well.

Double chess is great when one board will have over 70% of the pieces whilst the other board will only have a few pieces. This is whenyou have to hope that the best player in your team is playing with just a few pieces.

There are other games as well that we played. One interesting game involved the winner having to put the opposition's king into check three times. This leads to some serious suicidal tactics and very short games.
 
Originally posted by Dell19
We played this at school as well but with no rules on where you could drop the pieces. Except that you couldn't put a piece on if you were in check or place a piece on the board to but the opposition into check directly...I seem to remember that triple chess didn't really work very well.
Yeah but then this rule came bout cos ppl were putting pawns on the 7th row and then queening it the next turn. I remember there's also some rule bout timing of moves cos some ppl will drag their game to wait for their partner to net them reinforcements that they can use immediately on the board. :rolleyes:

Double chess is great when one board will have over 70% of the pieces whilst the other board will only have a few pieces. This is whenyou have to hope that the best player in your team is playing with just a few pieces.
A lot on luck as well. And timing.

There are other games as well that we played. One interesting game involved the winner having to put the opposition's king into check three times. This leads to some serious suicidal tactics and very short games.
You guys must be pretty bored. :lol:
 
Yep we were quite bored...Actually we did end up with quite a few rules. I think we ended up saying you could only place pieces in your half of the board...
 
Exile_Ian, the thing I am most disappointed with in Chess v1.06f is the fact that there is no way to change the setup of the board. Even in v1.17f all the black pieces start on one side and all the white pieces start on another and the makers of the game didn't give us a way to change it!

And don't get me started on the corruption! Woo! That is enough for a whole nother thread! :D

I also hate when you lose a piece....what are you going to do then? They don't sell a single pawn....no! they want you to buy the whole game over again....something about copyright protection....bullcrap if you ask me! :) I have heard of a crack that you can get for the game so you can continue playing even if you misplace a piece (also know as a CD by some people, CD = Chess Dohikey). It requires you to take a piece of paper and draw the likeness of the piece that is missing. It isn't as good as the original but it is still playable!

I have unistalled Chess from my table (I wipped all the pieces into the box, including mister paper pawn). I just can't justify using up all that hard able space when I don't get any fun from the game!
I think I am going back to play Checkers!

:lol: :D Good thread Ian.
 
Originally posted by GenghisK
Knight Dragon, I've always been looking for a mate for chinese chess. Wanna play? Then we play in chess forum i guess, without disturbing people playing european chess :)
Ahem, but how? Never played tournament Chinese chess before, so no idea how to notate.

Anyway, I am a really novice Chinese chess player. Hadn't touched it for ten yrs at least; only know how to move the pieces. :) I'm more fond of chess.

Will be glad to give it a go. Maybe we can make it an exhibition game. :cool:
 
I think that the castling para drop whereby the King and Rook can both paradrop wonderful. However there are clearly at lest three bugs in my version of chess. Firstly it only works on their first move; secondly they have to do it together and there are never more than two places they can para-drop too. Is there a patch online?
 
Originally posted by Globber
A hah... You should start playing chinese chess....cannons...General w/ guards....Chariots.... Horses......Elephants and our beloved infantry...

http://www.chessvariants.com/chinfaq.html
More strategic and more realistic...
You wanna play me? That could be great :)
 
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