Idea to replace the points system

The points system has caused much confusion.  We've seen multiple posts from people wondering why they didn't win when they were the last man standing, or complaining that they should have won.  And it's true: the points system is not the way you would intuitively expect a four-player game to work.

On the other hand, we do need some incentive for people to come out and fight instead of sitting back in a defensive position and waiting for everyone else to fight; otherwise you have a boring game where everyone just shuffles their pieces back and forth.  Despite its drawbacks, the points system provides that.

However, I have an idea that is easy to understand, easy to implement, would eliminate the points system and allow us to go back to last-man-standing, while still creating a significant incentive to come out and fight.  As an added benefit, I think it even disincentivises teaming (except for temporary cooperation as demanded by the position on the board).

1. No more points.  The winner is the last man standing.

2. No more check and checkmate.  You can move your king into check, or leave it in check; you would rarely do so deliberately, but it would be legal, and there would be rare situations where you might want to do so (I'll explain that below).

3. You are not eliminated until your king is captured.

4. And the key change: when you capture someone else's king, you take control of their remaining pieces.  If red captures blue's king, on red's next turn, they can move either a red piece or a blue piece, as they are now combined into a single army.  However, the pieces should retain their original colour to indicate which direction the pawns can move (but perhaps they should be given hats or something to indicate who now controls them).

This creates an incentive for aggressive play: if red loses half his army taking blue out and kills half of blue's army in the process, the combined army will still be very substantial.  Additionally, if you take out your neighbour, your strong control over one corner of the board will potentially make it easy for you to promote several pawns in quick succession.

This also disincentivises teaming (except on a temporary basis as demanded by the position on the board): if red helps green take blue down, he's just helped green get a powerful army that will soon be used against red.  Red might work with green to weaken blue if blue is too powerful, but will be careful about pushing it until blue is eliminated as he doesn't want to strengthen red.

A typical game will probably see one player eliminated relatively early, with the other three gradually wearing each other down until you get into a 3-man endgame, and whoever is better positioned in the endgame will win; however, 2- and 3-way draws will not be unheard of.  Having your neighbour eliminated will be good for you in the endgame if you have any pawns left on that side of the board, thus increasing the incentive to try to take out one of your neighbours early in the game.

Thoughts?

P.S. As for the situation where you might deliberately move into check, here are two possible scenarios:

1. Player 2 is in check from Player 3.  Player 1 can safely move into check from Player 2, as Player 2 must save his own king.

2. Player 1 deliberately moves into check from Player 3.  Player 2 does not want Player 3 to take over all of Player 1's pieces, so he must intervene.  The only way he can intervene is to put Player 3 in check, and the only way to put Player 3 in check is to sacrifice his queen for one of the pawns in front of Player 3's king.  Thus, Player 1 has put his king in danger to force Player 2 to give up his queen, while opening up Player 3's king in the process.  Of course, that could backfire if Player 2 thinks he can take on Player 3 even if he controls Player 1's pieces.

yeah

I have seen several times somebody is checkmated in the first 10 moves... somebody very weak (inattentive)... If other weak player mate him, then he will have twice as large horde as the others. I think, it is too much advantage, maybe pro players can not even catch him (maybe if they join together until they weaken him together).
In the same situation there is only 20 points advantage now, which can be caught by the others.

Anyhow, creativ and pleasant idea! Well done!

It looks like you have put a lot of thought into this. Unfortunately  attacking tends to not just be about checkmating an enemy king. Also the side that attacks someone the most and deals the most damage does not automatically get the checkmate. The king might run to the other side of the board and get checkmated by another player or another player might just get there in the final moment and get the checkmate. Also when it comes to trading pieces, it is already bad to trade with points, but it will be even worse without them.

This said I do not think it will encourage attacking much, but it will give a huge material swing to the player that gets the checkmate. The point system is really good and most experienced players seem to like it (including me). Changing something fundamentally like this would make this a completely different game.

yes I believe this could be a different variant of 4 player chess but I do not think it should replace it. I like the point system. It rewards hard work typically

Yeah, this would be a totally different game.  This is actually how I've played a three-player version OTB, and it works OK.

Whether it would be a better game than the points version I'm not sure.  It would be more intuitive for new players.

You do have interesting ideas and I suggest you to post them to chessvariants.com website to copyright them

But you suggest to destroy the current game and replace it with a completely different one. And the reason is: "we do need some incentive for people to come out and fight instead of sitting back in a defensive position and waiting for everyone else to fight." Well, I played dozens of games, but only a couple of them looked like you describe. In all other games the players were active. So, this is not a big problem. And we can increase the activity by making small changes of the point system, not a revolutionary change of the whole game.

I agree with BabYagun. Everyone has their own style and play as they wish; I change strategy from game to game without worrying too much about losing. I have seen many high-rated players bide their time and fight only when they are ready; others prefer to come out all guns blazing.  That's okay by me.  This is a fun game that need not be taken too seriously - but it will be interesting to see some top GMs play it on YouTube!

If you haven't already figured it out yet, I love 3 player chess!

@Martin0 just a note. You talked about checkmate, while the suggestion is to discard the concept of checkmate completely.

@venbagoly two players controlling 10 pieces each, are much stronger together than a single player controlling 20 pieces. They make two moves in every round, while he is moving only once!

Previously I was under the impression that for the primary attacker it's easier to secure a king-capture than a checkmate. I am not so sure any more. It all depends on the player that is about to lose his king. In his last move he may get the chance to offer his king to whoever player he likes most (or dislikes less). He is not obliged to let his king captured by the primary attacker. He could move his king on a square that is controlled by another player. It may not be the ethical thing to do, but at that moment he will probably be sufficiently unhappy and displeased with his situation, and it will be hard to blame him for his reaction. :-)

Another issue with @MGleason's idea is the case of a player's disconnection, timeout, or premature resignation. What should happen in this case? Are his pieces grayed out for the rest of the game, or will they latter become part of the army of whoever player manages to capture the dead king first?

On a personal note, I don't like the idea of controlling another player's army. I will have to deal with the opening and development choices of another player, and my extended army may look ugly in my eyes!

By the way, another option is: If you checkmate some player then (instead of controlling both the armies) you have a choice of the army. You can either stay controlling your army or "freeze" (make gray) your army and control that checkmated player's army instead. You make the choice at the very next move after the checkmate, the choice if final and can not be reverted. This is good when you sacrifice some pieces to break the king's castle and the checkmated player has more pieces than left in your own army. Or he just has better position, pawns near the 8th rank etc.

But, as I said before, it is a completely different game.

Another game changer: Every time you checkmate an opponent, you get an one-time option to swap armies with any other player still in the game. Ha ha!

LOL, that would be wild.  You would always want to have the second strongest army!

i do love the fact that points deciding the winner. that make the game more complicated. please dont change it.

That's what I was going to say.

What is this, Mario Party 3?!!!

The ACTUAL way to remove points is to make it 2v2 by default. Pawn promotion, already, is more than incentive enough to expand & attack. The issue in 4-player is that it's too unsafe!

Just make it 2v2. Each opposing player would be tasked to prevent audacious pawn pushes. Interceptions and teamwork.. basically a typical SC2 arcade Tug-O-War game. Maybe we'll even get regular patches from danny. #BUFFTHEKNIGHTS

@BRODOUCHE your drastic way to remove points, by discarding the free-for-all version and leaving only the team version available, is as effective as the ancient method of curing headaches. By chopping heads. The team version is deterministic. It may be a forced win for the team starting first, or a forced draw. It will have opening theory and such. It has a different classification as a game. By discarding the free-for-all version you will deprive many players from the version they like to play most.

battleMind24 1 min ago
«The team option will be back as soon as we can get other important stuff (such as bugs, better performance) out of the way.»

@BRODOUCHE you don't need to quote the last comment, when you are answering to the last comment. :-)