Beginner's Guide to Space Chess, Part 3

[nemorathwald]

Yesterday we covered pieces which can go to any space on a one-dimensional path until they meet an obstruction. That's why they're called line movers. If we really wanted to extrapolate Chess faithfully into 3D we would have the ability to cage the King and push him into a corner the way a Rook or Queen can do in chess. In 3D the King can dodge over or under their line of attack. Not so with plane movers, which would be able to go to any space in a 2D plane that they are standing on. But it's just too complex to figure out when such a piece is being obstructed to be any fun to actually play with plane movers, so I won't go into any more detail.

Part Three: Leapers-- More Than One Knight

	How does The Knight move in standard Chess? Go one square orthogonally away from the starting point, and one diagonally away-- it doesn't matter in what order-- and that is a square it can leap to regardless of obstruction. The same is true of a Knight in space chess. Just don't take a triagonal step.
	The Champion uses the other way that a Knight would be able to move, if we didn't know the distinction between diagonal and triagonal: one step orthogonally plus one triagonally.
	The Jester. Move one step diagonally and one triagonally to find a square that The Jester can leap to. It's the weakest of the leapers, only a half point stronger than a pawn.
We could discuss three different compounds of two of the above pieces-- but let's NOT GO THERE. It's kinky enough as it is. And don't even get me started on knight riders-- in 3D that would put me in a seizure. Skip directly to the Queen of Leapers.
	The General can move as any of the leapers, and Zillions rates it half a point stronger than a Queen. This is a slow but dominating and maneuverable juggernaut.

Which pieces should be chosen in a design of space chess? Perhaps for simplicity's sake it's the ones with the fewest rules about their description. The compound linemovers, (RookBishop, RookMage, and BishopMage) have two rules each. The three basic leapers, however, have two steps each in their description, which the player must hold in the mind. A compound leaper would have four rules to remember. The General and the Queen are simpler to remember than a compound, because of the lack of exceptions to their movement. With a General, just move away any two steps, not in a straight line, and that is a space it can leap to. (An interesting fact is that if you superimpose that box graphic up there of the General on the box graphic of the Queen from yesterday's article, they fill in the space completely without overlapping.)

The Mage which was discussed yesterday is a simple expression of a geometric primitive; but just as worthless as a pawn. This suggests to me that it could effectively take over the pawn's role as a zigzag-moving wall of picket defense. After all, since the Mage needs to use all three dimensions in every move, a board (or in this case, a matrix) that is narrow in even one dimension would restrict its range to that many spaces at most. That leads to the subject of tomorrow's installment.

Tomorrow: The Board or "Matrix"-- Shelves Are Obsolete

Comments

[drkelso.livejournal.com]

"Which pieces should be chosen in a design of space chess?"

It might make a more interesting and difficult game if the two players could choose from a subset of the available pieces. They would each have to have a certain number of each type of nearly equivalent pieces but not necessarily the same pieces as their opponent.