conquer_chess

Frequently Asked Questions

General

What is Conquer Chess?

Conquer Chess is a real-time strategy game that is a mix between chess and some classic real-time strategy games.

Why the name ‘Conquer Chess: Battle for Liberty’?

The name ‘Conquer Chess: Battle for Liberty’ is a mix of classic real-time strategy games:

• Command and Conquer
• Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis
• Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

Mix those names and you’ll get ‘Conquer Chess: Battle for Liberty’.

How did you get the idea for Conquer Chess?

As a Dutch Starcraft II fan, I regularily watch videos from Simon ‘Lowko’ Heijnen (e.g. at Lowko). He sometimes calls Starcraft II ‘high-speed chess’. Because I incompletely agree with him, I pondered on what high-speed chess would look like. Conquer Chess is the result of those thoughts.

Game rules

What are the rules of Conquer Chess compared to chess?

Conquer Chess follows the rules of chess in such a way that regular games can be played with it.

All pieces move and attack in the same way as regular chess and a regular game can

However, due to the real-time nature of Conquer Chess, these are the differences:

:construction: the exact rules are still under construction :construction:

• Goal is to mate the opponent’s king
• All pieces have health
• All pieces have an equal amount of health, except the king, which has infinite health
• All pieces move in the same directions as regular chess. For example, pawns move forward, bishops move diagonally and rooks move horizontally
• All pieces move equally fast per move. This means that a queen can move from d1 to d8 in the same time a knight moves from b1 to c3
• Pieces cannot move to occupied squares Squares occupied by the opponent’s pieces must be attacked first
• All pieces attack in the same directions and with the same distance as regular chess. For example, pawns attack to forward diagonally-adjacent squares and bishops attack diagonally for any amount of squares
• A piece is destroyed if its health reaches zero
• When a piece starts moving, it can be attacked at its departure square until it reaches halfway to the next square
• When a piece is moving and halfway to its target square, it can be attacked at its target square
• Multiple pieces can attack the same opponents piece
• When a piece is destroyed, the piece that killed it will instantaneous go to that square
• Castling can only be done when (1) the king has not moved, (2) the desired rook has not moved, (3) there are no pieces in the way. Castling cannnot take place through check and into check
• A pawn can attack by en-passant, for a limited amount of time

Where did you get you example games from?

From https://database.lichess.org/. There I took the earliest games played in january 2013 from (the now expired link) https://database.lichess.org/standard/lichess_db_standard_rated_2013-01.pgn.bz2.

Game settings

What is the game speed?

Under normal game speed, a piece moves one square (Euclidean distance) per second.

Controls

Each player can control the game with a keyboard or a mouse, with a maximum of 1 mouse user.

Keyboard controls

The keyboard has 4 action keys.

The first action key has a default action, which is the one expected. If there are multiple actions, using another action key triggers the other actions.

When	Action key 1	Action key 2	Action key 3	Action key 4
Nothing selected	.	.	.	.
Nothing selected, cursor at square with own piece	Select	.	.	.
Piece selected, cursor at the selected piece	Unselect	.	.	.
Piece selected, cursor at valid target square	Move	.	.	.
Piece selected, cursor at valid target opponent	Attack	.	.	.
King selected, cursor at valid castling square	Castle	.	.	.
Pawn in promotion selected	Promote to queen	Promote to rook	Promote to bishop	Promote to knight

Mouse controls

The mouse has a default action, triggered by the Left Mouse Button (‘LMB’). If there are multiple actions, clicking Right Mouse Button (‘RMB’) changes to another action.

When	LMB default	Other options, if any
Nothing selected	.	.
Nothing selected, cursor at square with own piece	Select	.
Piece selected, cursor at the selected piece	Unselect	.
Piece selected, cursor at valid target square	Move	.
Piece selected, cursor at valid target opponent	Attack	.
King selected, cursor at valid castling square	Castle	.
Pawn in promotion selected	Promote to queen	Promote to rook, promote to bishop, promote to knight

Technical

How is the user input handled?

See architecture

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