A Game Courier Preset for Siege Chess

This preset enforces the rules and displays legal moves.

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Siege Chess

Rules enforced. Legal moves displayed.

Welcome to Game Courier, where you can play Siege Chess and many other Chess variants through online correspondence.

Pieces

Overview

White Pieces	Piece Graphic
	Name	ELEPHANT							BISHOP							CANNON							CARDINAL							CHANCELLOR							FERZ							KING							KNIGHT							PAWN							QUEEN							ROOK							WARMACHINE							WAZIR
Black Pieces	Piece Graphic
	Name	amazon													cardinalrider													chancellorrider													kingrook													pawn													rookdabbaba													rookelephantrider

For each piece, legal moves are represented in yellow, move-only moves in red, and capture-only moves in blue. s represent any black piece, s represent any white piece, and s represent any piece of either color.

White's Pieces

The Elephant

The Elephant jumps 2 spaces diagonally. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Bishop

The Bishop can move any number of spaces diagonally, but cannot jump. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Cannon

The Cannon moves like a Rook except for capturing, where it must jump over a piece and capture a piece beyond the jumped piece. Here is a diagram of its legal moves:

The Cardinal

The Cardinal has the combined moves of a Bishop and Knight. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Chancellor

The Chancellor has the combined moves of a Rook and Knight. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Ferz

The Ferz moves one space diagonally. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The King

The King is a royal piece, meaning that it must be protected at all costs. It can move 1 space in any direction. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Knight

The Knight jumps 2 spaces in any direction, followed by 1 space in another direction 90° away from the first. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Pawn

The Pawn can move (but not capture) 1 space orthogonally forward and capture 1 space diagonally forward. On its first move, it can move 2 spaces orthogonally forward (but still not capture). Additionally, a Pawn that reaches the back rank can promote to any other White piece except the King. If a pawn moves 2 spaces, it can be captured by an enemy pawn on the next turn only by moving to the space the pawn passed over. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Queen

The Queen has the combined moves of a Rook and Bishop. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Rook

The Rook can move any number of spaces orthogonally without jumping. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Warmachine

The Warmachine can jump 2 spaces orthogonally. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Wazir

The Wazir can move 1 space orthogonally. Here is a diagram of its moves:

Black's Pieces

The Amazon

The Amazon has the combined moves of a Queen and a Knight. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Cardinalrider

The Cardinalrider has the combined moves of a Bishop and a Nightrider, which makes repeated Knights' moves. The Nightrider must be able to land at an empty space at every Knights' move to its destination, except for the destination space when capturing. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Chancellorrider

The Chancellorrider has the combined moves of a Rook and a Nightrider. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Kingrook

The Kingrook has the combined moves of a King and a Rook. It is also Black's royal piece. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Pawn

Moves exactly like White's Pawns, but always gets its double-move on the 7ᵗʰ rank.

The Rookdabbaba

The Rookdabbaba moves like a Rook or a Warmachine. Here is a diagram of its moves:

The Rookelephantrider

The Rookelephantrider moves like a Rook or makes repeated Elephants' moves. Here is a diagram of its moves:

Rules

The rules are identical to that of normal chess except for the different pieces and starting position.

How to Move Pieces

Full Algebraic Notation

Algebraic notation identifies each space by a coordinate that begins with its file label and ends with its rank label. On the Chess board, files go up and down from one player to the other, and ranks go from left to right. In most games, files are represented by letters, and ranks are represented by numbers, but there is no fixed rule requiring this for all games, and some games, such as Shogi, reverse this convention. If you look at the diagram, you will usually see the file labels going from left to right and the file labels going up and down. And if you hover your mouse over a space, you will normally see the name of the coordinate appear in a tooltip.

It is not uncommon to see algebraic notation being used for Chess, but it is often in an abbreviated format that requires you to know both the rules of the game and the current position to know exactly which piece moves where. For example, the notation "Ne6" indicates that a Knight is moving to e6, but it doesn't indicate which Knight, and it doesn't specify where the Knight is coming from. To figure this out, you need to know how a Knight moves and which Knight on the board can make a legal move to e6.

Although rules may be programmed for individual games, Game Courier itself does not know the rules of any game, and it is unable to parse abbreviated algebraic notation. Therefore, it relies on full algebraic notation, which completely specifies the move without requiring any knowledge of the game's rules or the current position. The most usual type of full algebraic notation indicates the piece that is moving by its label, the space it is moving from, and the space it moving to. In Chess, a typical first move might be written as "P e2-e4". When you hover your mouse over a piece, you will normally see the piece label followed by the coordinate for the space, and when you hover it over an empty space, you will normally see the coordinate label. Including the piece label in your notation allows Game Courier to check that the piece you're moving is the right one, and it makes game notation easier to follow, but it is not mandatory.

You may promote a piece by including a promotion move after your regular move. A promotion move has a piece go directly to a coordinate. Here is an example: "p e7-e8; q-e8".

You may remove a piece from a space by adding an @ to the space or by omitting the destination coordinate. For example, both "@-e4" and "e4-" would remove the piece on "e4". This is useful for en passant when you are playing a game that does not handle this automatically. For example, "P d5-e6; e5-" removes the Pawn on e5 after a Pawn moves from d5 to e6.

You will not need to remove spaces for most games, but if you should need to, you can do this by omitting the first coordinate in a move. For example, "-e4" would remove e4 from the board. To add or return a space to the board, you may add an @ or any other piece to it.

Available Pieces

Pieces are represented by labels, usually using uppercase letters for White and lowercase letter for Black. When you enter a move or specify the starting position for a game, you should remember that piece labels are case-sensitive. Many piece sets are available for use with Game Courier, and this table shows you which pieces belong to the piece set you are currently using.

These pieces come from a set containing more pieces, but this preset has had the set of pieces reduced to those used in the game.

Credits

This preset uses the N-A settings file for Siege Chess, which was made by Dead Account .

Game Courier was created, programmed and written by Fergus Duniho.

Game Courier, Copyright © Fergus Duniho, 2001-2017