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:

the exact rules are still under construction

• All pieces have an equal amount 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 in 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 rules are the same to regular chess.
• 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 chess turn 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 game shows what each key does in a certain context.

Are 4 action keys enough?

Almost always yes.

A keyboard player cannot promote to a knight if a piece is selected.

It is possible to have 5 possible actions, for example, when the cursor is on a selected pawn that is ready to promote. The actions will be:

• Unselect
• Promote to queen
• Promote to rook
• Promote to bishop
• Promote to rook

The fifth action, hence, cannot be chosen.

Mouse controls

The mouse has 2 action buttons.

The game shows what each button does in a certain context.

Are 2 action keys enough?

Almost always yes.

A mouse player cannot castle queenside if a piece is selected.

It is possible to have 3 possible actions, for example, when the cursor is on a selected king that can castle both king- and queenside. The actions will be:

• Unselect
• Castle kingside
• Castle queenside

The third action, hence, cannot be chosen. This can be solved by moving the cursor to an empty square.

Additionally, it is possible to have 5 possible actions, for example, when the cursor is on a selected pawn that is ready to promote. The actions will be:

• Unselect
• Promote to queen
• Promote to rook
• Promote to bishop
• Promote to rook

The fifth action, hence, cannot be chosen.

Technical

How did you generate the FEN strings

I often used https://www.365chess.com/analysis_board.php.

How is the user input handled?

See architecture