Exilian
Off-topic and Chatter: The Jolly Boar Inn => Tabletop Games - The Game Room => Historical Boardgames => Topic started by: Jubal on July 05, 2015, 06:45:08 PM
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Zatrikion
The Basics
Byzantine circular chess! Rules copied from http://thomasguild.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/byzantine-chess.html - a knowledge of chess basics is assumed.
Setup
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LN1eZGR5GOM/Umfb5L4fn0I/AAAAAAAADzQ/Xg0pBiSmcvY/s400/byzantine-chess.jpg)
Pieces & Rules
The game pieces have their specific moves, identical to medieval chess, but unlike the modern variant:
The King moves one square in any direction.
The Counsellor moves only one square diagonally.
The Elephant moves exactly 2 spaces diagonally. It can jump over other game pieces. This means it is not able to reach the inner ring; movement is restricted to only 8 places on the board.
The Knight moves like the modern chess knight: two spaces forward/backward or sideways plus one space at a right angle (an L-shape). The knight jumps over other pieces.
The Rook moves like the modern one: unlimited movement forward, backward or sideways until it has reached another piece. It cannot jump. In case of an empty circle, it is not allowed to travel a full circle, i.e. ending on its starting position.
The Pawn moves one square forward when not capturing. Capturing occurs one step diagonally. Unlike modern chess, the pawn does not have the two-square step as the initial move. Because of the circular nature of the board, the pawns cannot promote into another piece as there is no opposite side of the board. When two pawns of the same colour, but of opposite direction meet and block each other's progression, the player of the opposite colour can remove both pieces. This action does not count as a turn.
The central part of the board is not accessible: it is a "doughnut" rather than a filled-in circle. A player wins the game by mating the opponent, by stalemating the opponent, or by `bare king': by taking the last non-king piece of the opponent. However, in the last case, the opponent can make the game a draw by baring the other king too in its next move.