"Wargaming Chess" Topic

I give you a theoretical problem, but one which may make you re-examine the way you see games. However mostly it is just an intellectual exercise.

How would you turn Chess into a wargame?

I'm not looking for "Why bother- use this set of rules" or denigration of Chess. How would you turn chess into a wargame that is recognisably chess. Remember Queening, Castling, Pawn first move, en passant and move styles. How would these be adapted? Do you keep the grid, PBI style.

For your guidance Chess has an 'unofficial points' system, help players compare captures – Pawn=1, Knight=3 Bishop=3, Rook=5 Queen=9. You are not tied to that for any CV, it is a reminder of how Chess players see the pieces.

um, chess is already a wargame. About the only changes that can be made is to substitute different minis to represent the traditional pieces (e.g. Simpsons, Star Wars & Star Trek chess, etc.) However…

Long-range artillery seems to be lacking in chess. Nukes might be too powerful, as well as orbital strikes. And there is no provision for flanking movements from the edge of the board.
And the points values might turn off those players who don't like to use points to construct their armies. On the other hand, those players who would like to build a points-based army can't, because there is only one army list that both players must use.
Now Smess, that's a fun game… ;-)

Well, first of all, it's already been done. And I loved that game and have done it several times in tabletop version. I have also used the mechanism of a constricted board game like campaign with tactical battles to decide the encounters. That works well.

But I don't think that's what you're asking. So to do that, I would approach it pretty much like any other thing (story, idea, movie, historical battle, etc.) I wanted to turn into a wargame. The first thing is to identify what the important elements are and how they interact. Not the rules or mechanics … the important elements for the players.

For Chess, I think there are three: (1) you don't play chess, you play your opponent, (2) maneuver dominates actual combat interactions, (3) the options are simple to understand, but the state space they describe is intractable.

1) This is pretty much how I design all my games, so its not a big one for me. One of the main things that drives that is forcing the players into action. If the players are active, then the forces on the board will interact, and the strategies will come into conflict. For chess, the mutual "capture the king" objective is a pretty good driver, so I would keep that.

I may or may not limit the game to two sides, and I would probably put in multiple hidden victory conditions, to make it more like a wargame and less like a boardgame.

2) I've also done this before. I would be concerned about it because I have received some negative feedback on it. The review of Allenstein in the link focuses on the combat representation in the scenario, which wasn't the point. The point was situation and environment as drivers; both sides had the same types of combat units (the same stats). So I would be concerned that a wargamer might want combat to take a more prominent role.

Still, it's not hard to do. Each side with an equal number of the same types of units and a game mechanic that very heavily rewards first strike would do it. I wouldn't have "absolute capture" like in chess, but it should be the odd man out exception when the person making the move doesn't win the combat. Otherwise, it is something other than chess.

3) The standardized OOB and simple combat resolution above would work well to make options simple. As long as you have enough room on the board for three or four turns of maneuver to get into contact, the state space will take care of itself.

Other miscellaneous things … I'd probably do it on a hex grid – wargamey enough and chessy enough; I would likely rename the units – while bishops and queens are good for non-combat intrigue, with simple maneuver dominating the game, they are not good units; terrain. it's not a wargame without varied terrain.

So … how would I do it? Probably poorly. That doesn't sound like a game I would like to play, so I probably wouldn't design it well.

Oh, yeah, it's been done:

1866 War-chess: Or, The Game of Battle
Charles Richardson (of New York.)- 22 pages

link

If you want me to email you a pdf of the book, let me know.

Also check out Chinese Chess [Xiangqi] for artillery, terrain and such.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi

mad magazine modern chess
link

or you could add some house rules
YouTube link

How about looking at Avalon Hill's "Feudal":

link

You do not have to turn chess into a wargame – you'll have to reverse back to being a wargame ;-)

If you look at the evolution of chess over the centuries, the more wargamey aspects have been removed over time to result in a highly abstracted game we know today.

There are dozens of variants of chess that can make it more wargame-like. See link
For some history of chess, see link

Many years ago when I was a wee lad and before wargames I attained one of the "Expert" ranks, though I have forgotten most of theat. I remain a chess afficianado, but early on I got sidetracked into other forms of Chess (Shatranj, Wei-Chi, Shogi, Burmese Chess, tamerlaine's Chess, and its cousins, The Jungle Game, and Rithmomachina, blah blah blah… These fascinated me because of the different pieces.

Oh by the way, there is long range artillery in Wei-Chei, Chinese Chess, it's the canon and it has the move of the Rook, but it can only move and take by jumping over an intervening enemy or friendly piece on the same line.

Back then I was interested in the interchangeability of the game with wargames and I did a lot of work on it. Eventually abandoned it as not worth the candle. It ruined both games.

Anyway, lately I was working on bringing in some "Chess-like" features to the 18th century. By Chess-Like features I meant maneuvers on the table top which were unilateral as in chess. For example, if you had a unit faced front and flank there was no firing or melle, it simply had to move out of the situation etc. It provided some interesting intellectual ideas, but again, it started to change the game to a way that people didn't like.

The major question that always came to me, which I think you should answer is "Why?" Why do you want to do this. It's like making Chess and monopoly interchangeable. The product of the adulteration will not likely be pleasant.

And- yes-- you'd have to keep the grid.

As for the others --Castling, Pawn promotion, en passant, and so forth, these seem almost irreconcileable.

On the other hand, if you want to have some fun one element of chess you can incorporate with no problem whatsoever is the clock.

Pop a Chess clock onto the table and tell both sides they have one minute to make their moves and watch the fun begin.

If you don't mind some Situationists readings, there's also the "Le Jeu de la Guerre" by Guy Debord

r-s-g.org/kriegspiel/about.php
link
classwargames.net/?p=1636

Dear Phil

Thanks! I managed to choke them down.

Otto