Kevin Pacey wrote on Mon, Sep 11, 2017 05:13 AM UTC:
Hi Carlos
One solution is:
1) You must try to get any of your kings that is in check out of check (as per FIDE rules).
2) If you cannot get all of your kings that are in check out of check, then you lose. Thus it's possible to simply check both kings at once, in a way that neither is checkmated, and still the game comes to an end if both kings cannot get out of check.
This solution (which I'd prefer, though perhaps it's not in the spirit of your variant) would have the advantage that it has been used in other games with more than one royal king per side. However, if as your preset states at the moment you must (literally) capture both kings to win, and you want to keep that condition, then I think you'd have to forget about the FIDE rule compelling a player to try to get any of his kings out of check, and allow a king to be (literally) captured sometimes (in a way your current castling rules do this, as castling through squares which would put a king in check is allowed). With that condition, I suppose it's possible for a player to 'checkmate' both of his opponent's kings, yet the following move being only able to literally capture one of them (e.g. if a single piece is participating in the checkmate of both kings, and/or one of the checkmated kings makes a run for it with a move that still leaves it in check, illegal if FIDE rules were still to be used regarding kings).
At the moment I cannot think of any other 'clean' solutions than these two, but maybe someone else can (or has), For what it's worth, in two player 4 army variants with more than one army per side, one of a player's army's kings can be 'checkmated', with the condition that it cannot be captured, but the rest of that army is immobilized unless the checkmate is relieved somehow; in such a case the immobilized army's pieces may or may not be allowed to be captured, or the mating player even takes control of that single army, too, from then on. I suppose in a 2 single armies variant with 2 kings per side, it could be stipulated that there's some sort of a penalty for having one of the kings checkmated (with the loss of a game for having both checkmated), but then there's still the awkward matter of what to do if both kings are merely in check, but both cannot get out of it at the same time.
Hi Carlos
One solution is:
1) You must try to get any of your kings that is in check out of check (as per FIDE rules).
2) If you cannot get all of your kings that are in check out of check, then you lose. Thus it's possible to simply check both kings at once, in a way that neither is checkmated, and still the game comes to an end if both kings cannot get out of check.
This solution (which I'd prefer, though perhaps it's not in the spirit of your variant) would have the advantage that it has been used in other games with more than one royal king per side. However, if as your preset states at the moment you must (literally) capture both kings to win, and you want to keep that condition, then I think you'd have to forget about the FIDE rule compelling a player to try to get any of his kings out of check, and allow a king to be (literally) captured sometimes (in a way your current castling rules do this, as castling through squares which would put a king in check is allowed). With that condition, I suppose it's possible for a player to 'checkmate' both of his opponent's kings, yet the following move being only able to literally capture one of them (e.g. if a single piece is participating in the checkmate of both kings, and/or one of the checkmated kings makes a run for it with a move that still leaves it in check, illegal if FIDE rules were still to be used regarding kings).
At the moment I cannot think of any other 'clean' solutions than these two, but maybe someone else can (or has), For what it's worth, in two player 4 army variants with more than one army per side, one of a player's army's kings can be 'checkmated', with the condition that it cannot be captured, but the rest of that army is immobilized unless the checkmate is relieved somehow; in such a case the immobilized army's pieces may or may not be allowed to be captured, or the mating player even takes control of that single army, too, from then on. I suppose in a 2 single armies variant with 2 kings per side, it could be stipulated that there's some sort of a penalty for having one of the kings checkmated (with the loss of a game for having both checkmated), but then there's still the awkward matter of what to do if both kings are merely in check, but both cannot get out of it at the same time.