This is a page for the development of my ideas for a Hyper-large CV. It was inspired by the super-large CV designs of Joe Joyce.
The principal design aim behind the game is to push Chess as far towards the realms of Wargaming as possible while still remaining recognizably Chess. The initial designs envisaged the use of an hexagonal-celled board, but this has now been replaced by a board with square cells. In line with this the working title has also been changed from Hyborian Hyper HexaChess to Ancient Battles Chess.
The Board
This is constructed from 24 standard 8x8 boards layed out in a 6x4 grid to give a 48x32 playing area of 1536 squares.
The image below illustrates the start position for the basic game.
Sides
The Sides are Red and Gold.
Red uses Black (or Blue) pieces and Red pieces while Gold uses White pieces and gold (yellow) pieces.
Gold has the first turn.
Each side starts the game with 130 mobile Pieces (see Piece Density Function ) and 15 static pieces, made up of
| Name | LT Description | Extra | Number | Playing Piece |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pawn | Constant Wizard Rider | - | 32 | Black/White Pawn |
| Page | Wizard Rider | - | 24 | Red/Gold Pawn |
| Squire | Knight Rider | - | 16 | Black/White Knight |
| Knight | Barbarian Riding Knight Rider | - | 8 | Red/Gold Knight |
| Spear | Elephant Rider | range 8 | 16 | Black/White Bishop |
| Sling | Elephant | range 12 | 12 | Red/Gold Bishop |
| Bow | Alfil | range 16 | 8 | Black/White Rook |
| Catapult | Ferz | range 20 | 4 | Red/Gold Rook |
| Captain | Guard Rider | formation 6 | 4 | Black/White Queen |
| General | 3-step Guard Rider | formation 9 | 3 | Red/Gold Queen |
| Marshal | 4-step Guard Rider | formation 12 | 2 | Black/White King |
| King | Guard | formation 15 | 1 | Red/Gold King |
| Barricade | - | Static Impassable Terrain | 12 | 2x Black/White Draughtsman |
| Prince | - | Static Target or Objective | 3 | Red/Gold Draughtsman |
The Basic Game
Turns
A players turn consists of a number of movement phases, each of which may be followed by a melee phase.
The maximum number of movement phases is determined by reference to the number off Command points available at the start of turn. A player is allowed one movement phase for every 4 command points. At the start of the game a player has 20 command points ( 4 Captains worth 1 each, 3 Generals worth 2 each, 2 Marshals worth 3 each and the King worth 4) and thus has 5 possible movement phases. A player must use at least one movement phase per turn and no piece may be moved more than once per turn
A movement phase consists of either of the following:
- moving a single piece - the following image shows the movement applicable to each piece:
- moving a formation
A formation is a group of 2 or more pieces of the same type and each of which is orthogonally adjacent to at least one other and one of which is orthogonally adjacent to a Command piece. This Command piece will determine the maximum number of pieces in the formation. When moving a formation each piece making up the formation is moved individually, but after the first piece has moved, each subsequently moved piece must finish orthogonally adjacent to previously moved piece. The Command piece is not moved as part of the formation, but may be moved as part of a later movement phase.
| The two images on the right illustrate a formation move and the following melee. The first image shows a formation of 7 Gold Knights about to advance under the command of a Gold Marshal. As indicated by the black arrows, the rear 4 move their full 2-steps to make contact with the Red Pages, while the front 3 take a single step to provide suppport. The position after the movement phase is shown by the second image. After a movement phase a melee may be declared between any piece just moved and an enemy piece that is orthogonally adjacent, to it. A melee (or melees) may also be declared at the start of a player's turn (i.e. before any movement phases) between any of the player's pieces and an orthogonally adjacent enemy. Each such melee will reduce that turn's available movement phases by 1. |
 |
to be continued…
Optional rules
1. Initial set-up
At the start of play the board is empty and the game begins with a set-up phase of 4 rounds.
Round-1:
- Gold player places none, some, or all Barricade pieces anywhere in the gold half of the board.
- Red player places none, some, or all Barricade pieces anywhere in the red half of the board.
Round-2
- Gold player places the King and 3 Princes. The King may be placed anywhere in the gold half of the board. The Princes may be placed in sections …tbc
- Red player places the King and 3 Princes. The King may be placed anywhere in the red half of the board. The Princes may be placed in sections …tbc
Round-3
- Gold player places all Command and Missile pieces. Pieces may not be deployed beyond …tbc
- Red player places all Command and Missile pieces. Pieces may not be deployed beyond …tbc
Round-4
- Gold player places all remaining pieces. Pieces may not be deployed beyond …tbc
- Red player places all remaining pieces. Pieces may not be deployed beyond …tbc
Most if not all of these thoughts were sparked by the works of Joe Joyce
Chess elements to be kept
Non-chess elements to possibly include
Well I've set the number per side as 135 - but how to break that down?
Thinking in Wargaming terms I think the following is reasonable:
Now all I have to work out is which Piece or Pieces to use for each category.
To continue:
The previous list can be grouped into 4 troop types
and for each troop-type has its own distinct movement and promotion sequence
Terrain and Target pieces are static
As well as pushing chess towards the borders of wargaming, another design constraint is to have a physically playable game. To this end I intend to represent the piece-set using pieces from FIDE chess and checkers. By using 2 different colours on each side (Red/Black and Gold/White) I have a piece-set of fourteen types.
To met this constraint I have reduced my 4 troop-types to 3: Command, Missile and Melee (Infantry + Cavalry). Each type has 4 levels giving 12 mobile piece-types. Finally there are 2 static piece types for Terrain and Targets.
The game does seem to have progressed a good bit. Changing from hex to square for the basic movement pattern is pretty drastic. I'm curious as to why you made the change. Does it have to do with movement patterns, or something else? Joe
Yes, the hex-to-square decision didn't come easy - especially for a hexophile like myself.
It was done for 2 reasons
I think the square board is more conducive to chess-style pieces, and the hex board leans more toward wargame-style pieces, though it's hard to explain my reasons. I have them; the trick is to articulate them understandably.
Squares give 2 types of contiguous movement, orthogonal and diagonal, and these are visually obvious [over short distances, at least].
Hexes give 1 type of contiguous movement, but the distance traveled moving 1 hex is always equal, where with squares, it isn't.
Pieces whose mode of attack depends on their specific movement characteristics - like chess pieces, capturing by replacement [or some other geometry-based piece to piece specific board relationship] - have more modes of freedom or types of moves possible, on a square grid [with 8 directions and 2 different distances for a visually connected movement path] than on a hex, with 6 equi-distant neighbors.
I think the hex grid is better for pieces that attack in a way that does not depend only [if not primarily] on their exact geometric relationship with the defender, and also have specific maximum linear distance travelled limitations.
Mortars and other short to moderate range support pieces
Graeme:
Before you posted the setup image, I'd been playing with some pieces that I thought would make good support artillery-type pieces. Then David Paulowich posted some similar pieces in the Comments at CV. I think you'd find his Spotted Gryphon especially or the following modified FAD useful in a game featuring more modern military units. This FAD first moves as a ferz. Then it may stop, or continue its move by making either an alfil or dabbabah move, or both [in either order]. A quick diagram of its potential moves makes a nice artillery-fall pattern.
The square in the center with the large "X" is the position of the piece. The small "x"s represent where it can [either move or] support an attack or defense. Thiis piece is colorbound, so an additional rule might be used: A leader unit orthogonally adjacent to this piece may expend 2 orders [or 1 turn, if the piece can only give 1 order] to exchange places with the mortar unit. That would be both units' moves for the turn.
Joe
Hi Joe,
I must admit my thinking is currently firmly rooted in ancient wargaming (I never really got the hang of gunpowder, though I did briefly dabble with the ECW - at least they had pikes).
My current implementation of missile or ranged pieces is to have separate movement and range figures - with longer ranges bring balanced by shorter movement. Currently also the ranges represent just a count of the cells between missile piece and target, though I am toying with the idea of making the ranges subject to rules similar to the XiangQi cannon. That is the target must be reachable along an orthogonal line and there must be an intervening screen - I think it will need playtesting before I can decide.
Graeme.
Ummm… consider it a catapult? Actually, I was thinking that it's movement pattern made a nice open missile-fall pattern, and that you'd use the pattern for combat support, but move it a different way, maybe 2 squares in any direction.
I also speculated about combat with these sorts of pieces. It seems to me that you could try a direct attack by a piece of a certain value, supported by other pieces with their own support values, against a defender with its own value, and such support as it can draw upon. The winner of the combat would be the side with the most points. The loser would lose the piece involved in the direct attack only. If the values are a tie, it's a draw, and the attacking piece goes back to its start square, losing its move. You could also use artillery to suppress the opposing artillery. Direct bombardment of an enemy artillery unit would not necessarily destroy it, or even do anything at all to it, except prevent it from participating in an attack. Both players could keep adding support to a combat until they run out of pieces able to support that combat. Or until they run out of orders to give in the turn…
You might see the influence of a wargame or two in there. And while I enjoy games on the US Civil War [I collect Gettysburg games], I also enjoy games of WWII and beyond [I also collect "Battle of the Bulge" games]. It's from these recent period games I stole the idea of support fire. And as an aside, my father fought in one of those 2 battles, so now you have some idea of my age… roughly between 50 and 150.
Enjoy.