17.8 King's chess

The game of King's Chess is a noble one. Invented approximately 1500 years ago
by a Caanae scholar named Aban Abi, it has become the favourite game of the
intelligenstia of Aetherius. It is a fairly simple game, and easy to learn,
but contains nearly infinite subtleties. It is a test of cunning, intelligence,
strategic sensibilities, and experience.

In order to play King's Chess, you must have a chess board, or be in an
establishment that has them available, such as the occasional tavern, or
library, or gaming parlour.

Since the rules of King's Chess are so well known, they will not be included
here, but in the scroll HELP CHESSRULES.

The commands that are involved with King's Chess are:

PLAY CHESS WITH <whomever>     : Starts a new game of chess, randomly choosing
                                 who will play the light pieces and who will
                                 play the dark pieces.


MOVE <position> to <position>  : Moves a chess piece. You may use either
                                 algebraic notation (a1, b3, etc) or
                                 descriptive notation (q3, kkt4, etc) to
                                 designate squares on the board. HELP
                                 CHESSRULES will tell you more about chess
                                 notation if you are unfamiliar with it.

(Castling is done with MOVE 0-0 for king-side and MOVE 0-0-0 for queen-side.

CHESSLIST                      : Lists your unfinished chess games. A * before
                                 a listing tells you that that is your current
                                 game. You may only make moves in your current
                                 game.

SWITCHCHESS <id number>        : Switches your current game to another of your
                                 unfinished games.

CONCEDE <id number>            : Concedes defeat in the specified game.

DISPLAY <id number>            : Displays the setup of the specified game. You
                                 may view other people's games provided you
                                 know the id number. If you omit the id number,
                                 it will automatically display your current
                                 game, if any.

TAKEBACK                       : With this command, you may reverse the last
                                 move of your opponent. This is to be used for
                                 the occasion when your opponent has entered
                                 an incorrect move and he or she wishes to
                                 reverse it, or when your opponent has done
                                 something spectacularly stupid, and you wish
                                 to allow him or her to rethink.


Imperian's chess game is a near-exact replica of the standard rules for chess.
Unfortunately though, it is missing a few bits of functionality. It cannot
tell if you are in checkmate, so it must be left up to the person being
checkmated to formally concede the game. Upon advancing a pawn to the last
rank, it will automatically be promoted to a Queen. Only in very very rare
circumstances would you want to promote it to anything other than a Queen (and
then, only ever a Knight, as you cannot have more than one King). The ability
to choose Queen or Knight will be added in at some point, and the ability to
detect checkmate may be added also. Further, both stalemate and draw by virtue
of repeating the same position 3 times are not detected.

Note that playing chess with ansi colour turned on is the preferred way to do
things for most people.

See also: HELP CHESSRULES