Regimental Chess Is Chess, But With Six Boards And 372 Pieces

[JonB]

Regimental Chess Is Chess, But With Six Boards And 372 Pieces


Moving many pieces at once is certainly one way of fudging with the chess formula.

Attempting to redesign chess is a fairly often. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960] But not often enough, I think. Apparently the people who made Regimental Chess agree with me, and have just put their video game component in beta for mac and PC. Regimental Chess has two primary conceits: If multiple pieces can move similarly, then those pieces can move simultaneously in formation; If you have more than one army, each army can move its pieces each turn. From there, the game blows up into an interplay of brutal and dynamic tactics.

The game, fascinatingly enough, forms a rock-paper-scissors style meta competition. Kings are best protected from fast formations of queens and bishops by knights, but knights are very vulnerable to formations of pawns. Those same pawns are quite vulnerable to the aforementioned queens and rooks.

It gets pretty crazy from there.

If you're interested in more information, or you'd like to try out their free beta, you can go to the Regimental Chess website. [http://www.regimentalchess.com/]

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[weirdee]

Chess: THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM

*cue choir and chanters*

the age old question is answered: can a chess playing computer shit their chassis?

 

[dyre]

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever. Good balance, with plenty of complexity while still maintaining a degree of elegance. This modification seems to lose the "elegance" part of the game...it looks like a mass of exchanges rather than a game of positioning. There also seems to be too much going on to think three of four moves ahead. That said, it seems fun enough for a rainy Saturday. A rainy Saturday in which I've lost access to all the other fun things I could do on the internet, anyway.

tl;dr: get your Total War out of my Chess!

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Wow. Good thing it's virtual. I'd hate to try and lay this with a real chess board Looks like fun though. I'm still a bit iffy on the rules of who can move, and when.

Oh also the first two links in the article don't seem to link anywhere.

 

[james.sponge]

This seems fun for a short period of time, why reinvent the wheel though? Chess is a perfect game.

 

[Veylon]

Looks interesting. Really captures the feel of the massive, ugly 18th century regimental battles from which it draws its name. All it needs is six players per side and it would be perfect!

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever.

No en passant for you, eh?

 

[dyre]

Looks interesting. Really captures the feel of the massive, ugly 18th century regimental battles from which it draws its name. All it needs is six players per side and it would be perfect!

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever.

No en passant for you, eh?

Fine, fine. Chess has been perfected in the last update back in the Middle Ages and needs no more further modifications (with the possible exception of reskins), happy?

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

I used to play chess as a kid. I was never good enough at it to think any more than one move ahead. This new version looks like it would be even harder to master, though I would love to watch someone play it.

 

[Euphbug]

Currently playing this with a friend. It is messy good fun moving large armies through a line of pawns and putting one of the kings in check. Best part, killing a king removes all the same color pieces, so it can get bloody really quickly.

 

[Veylon]

Looks interesting. Really captures the feel of the massive, ugly 18th century regimental battles from which it draws its name. All it needs is six players per side and it would be perfect!

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever.

No en passant for you, eh?

Fine, fine. Chess has been perfected in the last update back in the Middle Ages and needs no more further modifications (with the possible exception of reskins), happy?

Actually, checking out the Wiki entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess], En Passant - and the conditions of it's usage - weren't universally accepted until the late 1800's. If you had Lincoln and Garibaldi play a game, they'd have reason to dispute the rules.

The applications of the "Fifty Move" has been adjusted back and forth throughout the twentieth century and may not yet be settled.

 

[dyre]

Looks interesting. Really captures the feel of the massive, ugly 18th century regimental battles from which it draws its name. All it needs is six players per side and it would be perfect!

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever.

No en passant for you, eh?

Fine, fine. Chess has been perfected in the last update back in the Middle Ages and needs no more further modifications (with the possible exception of reskins), happy?

Actually, checking out the Wiki entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess], En Passant - and the conditions of it's usage - weren't universally accepted until the late 1800's. If you had Lincoln and Garibaldi play a game, they'd have reason to dispute the rules.

The applications of the "Fifty Move" has been adjusted back and forth throughout the twentieth century and may not yet be settled.

I'll be honest...I'm decent at Chess but I have no idea why En Passant exists and have never created a strategy around it. Useless update is useless!

From what I can tell the fifty move thing is really meant to keep people from wasting time. It's not meant to change how the game is played. The adjustments are probably to accommodate games that for legitimate reasons lasted over fifty moves.

 

[F-I-D-O]

Looks interesting. Really captures the feel of the massive, ugly 18th century regimental battles from which it draws its name. All it needs is six players per side and it would be perfect!

I've always felt that Chess is a "perfect" game, with no need for any modification whatsoever.

No en passant for you, eh?

Fine, fine. Chess has been perfected in the last update back in the Middle Ages and needs no more further modifications (with the possible exception of reskins), happy?

Actually, checking out the Wiki entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_chess], En Passant - and the conditions of it's usage - weren't universally accepted until the late 1800's. If you had Lincoln and Garibaldi play a game, they'd have reason to dispute the rules.

The applications of the "Fifty Move" has been adjusted back and forth throughout the twentieth century and may not yet be settled.

I'll be honest...I'm decent at Chess but I have no idea why En Passant exists and have never created a strategy around it. Useless update is useless!

En Passant is the way of accounting for the fact that pawns can now move 2 squares in the opening move. Early rules of chess had pawns only move 1 square, with the 2 square first move becoming a way to speed up the opening. Because of this, pawn-on-pawn captures could hypothetically be avoided by using the double move. En Passant takes this into account.
Example:
Old Rules:
White has its pawn at start (b2). Black has its pawn at c4.
White advances its pawn to b3. Black can capture.
If black does not, white can advance to c4. Black can no longer capture.
Modern rules:
White has its pawn at start (b2). Black has a pawn at c4.
White moves its pawn two squares forward for its first move (b4). Black can only capture through En Passant on this turn, as the old rules would have the white b pawn exposed for only this move.

In modern terms, the double pawn move is a quality of life change, and En Passant simply prevents exploits, rather than acts as a new tool.

Yay for chess history!

OT: Regimental chess looks interesting, but loses some of the simplicity chess has. That said, I could see games being a lot less predictable with 8 armies and various formations. Could be fun.

 

[dyre]

En Passant is the way of accounting for the fact that pawns can now move 2 squares in the opening move. Early rules of chess had pawns only move 1 square, with the 2 square first move becoming a way to speed up the opening. Because of this, pawn-on-pawn captures could hypothetically be avoided by using the double move. En Passant takes this into account.
Example:
Old Rules:
White has its pawn at start (b2). Black has its pawn at c4.
White advances its pawn to b3. Black can capture.
If black does not, white can advance to c4. Black can no longer capture.
Modern rules:
White has its pawn at start (b2). Black has a pawn at c4.
White moves its pawn two squares forward for its first move (b4). Black can only capture through En Passant on this turn, as the old rules would have the white b pawn exposed for only this move.

In modern terms, the double pawn move is a quality of life change, and En Passant simply prevents exploits, rather than acts as a new tool.

Yay for chess history!

OT: Regimental chess looks interesting, but loses some of the simplicity chess has. That said, I could see games being a lot less predictable with 8 armies and various formations. Could be fun.

Ah, I see...yay for chess history indeed!

Though, that explains why I was never able to put it to much effective use. I'm also a little surprised that they added the two square move for the pawn just to speed up the opening...I mean, yeah, sure it's primarily useful in the opening, but surely the ability to save a move when advancing pawns throughout early and mid-game has other repercussions.

 

[LittleMikey]

This reminds me of my old days in high school where I and all the other extremely cool kids would hang out in a classroom at lunch time and play chess. Because we had like 20 chess sets available we'd keep inventing new games, our favourite was a 2x2 board where each player controlled two kings, but we also had a four player free for all + shape game and if we could get enough people we played a 2x4 eight player game, basically the same as this video where all the players on one side worked together against the players on another side, although we alternated turns so it would be Black 1, White 1, Black 2, White 2, and so on. Our main problem was that we'd never finish a game in the given lunch time so we had to leave our set up games in the classroom and pray that it'd still be there the next day.

 

[Kahani]

This seems fun for a short period of time, why reinvent the wheel though? Chess is a perfect game.

Why not? Just because a game is good doesn't mean no-one should ever bother making anything similar.

As for "perfect", that's just straight up bollocks. There's no such thing as a perfect game, and if there were a lengthy, two player only game with no possible surprises or variation certainly would not be it. Certainly the huge number of variations that already exist make it clear that an awful lot of people don't consider it in any way perfect. Even very common, simple changes such as speed/blitz chess are efforts to address the shortcomings the base game can have.

 

[Clovus]

This seems fun for a short period of time, why reinvent the wheel though? Chess is a perfect game.

Why not? Just because a game is good doesn't mean no-one should ever bother making anything similar.

Yeah, that was my thought too. This isn't a "better" version of chess. It might be an interesting or fun thing to play though. I don't know if everyone who makes a variant of chess is actually trying to make a "better" game.

As for "perfect", that's just straight up bollocks. There's no such thing as a perfect game, and if there were a lengthy, two player only game with no possible surprises or variation certainly would not be it. Certainly the huge number of variations that already exist make it clear that an awful lot of people don't consider it in any way perfect. Even very common, simple changes such as speed/blitz chess are efforts to address the shortcomings the base game can have.

Strangely, I sort of disagree here. I'm not sure what james.sponge intended, but I took it to mean that you cannot make a better version of chess. It's been perfected. It is not, however, the perfect game since it would be pretty difficult to determine something like that. Go is certainly better, no?

Either way, taking the ruleset of a well known game and making major alterations can be fun.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

This seems fun for a short period of time, why reinvent the wheel though? Chess is a perfect game.

Why not? Just because a game is good doesn't mean no-one should ever bother making anything similar.

As for "perfect", that's just straight up bollocks. There's no such thing as a perfect game, and if there were a lengthy, two player only game with no possible surprises or variation certainly would not be it. Certainly the huge number of variations that already exist make it clear that an awful lot of people don't consider it in any way perfect. Even very common, simple changes such as speed/blitz chess are efforts to address the shortcomings the base game can have.

Chess is mathematically perfect. It's purely a game of skill. Chance only factors in who plays which pieces. Stapling six boards together and throwing in more pieces doesn't seem like a terribly fetching variation.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Definitely confusing and headache inducing.

I wouldn't consider it a replacement for the real thing, buuuuuut I'm always open to try out variants of stuff that I love, Chess being no exception. I don't see anyone dramatically changing up the formula in a way that we have to make it the norm, but it's nice to have some diversity every once in a while.

 

[MrPhyntch]

This seems fun for a short period of time, why reinvent the wheel though? Chess is a perfect game.

Why not? Just because a game is good doesn't mean no-one should ever bother making anything similar.

As for "perfect", that's just straight up bollocks. There's no such thing as a perfect game, and if there were a lengthy, two player only game with no possible surprises or variation certainly would not be it. Certainly the huge number of variations that already exist make it clear that an awful lot of people don't consider it in any way perfect. Even very common, simple changes such as speed/blitz chess are efforts to address the shortcomings the base game can have.

Chess is mathematically perfect. It's purely a game of skill. Chance only factors in who plays which pieces. Stapling six boards together and throwing in more pieces doesn't seem like a terribly fetching variation.

And you think that's a good thing? Mathematical perfection means only one thing: computers will always be better than humans at it. As it stands, this "mathematically perfect" game is boring as hell, both to watch, and to play, unless you're REALLY into chess.

For those of us who prefer more fun things, yes, variations such as this are quite "fetching". Controlling an entire army of pieces in a single turn makes for a much more interesting time to me, and hell, I would've thought that people who like chess would have thought this at least interesting.

That being said, this still doesn't look as fun as Chess 2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsNvjGgjwhk].