Limiting the queen in team mode

Before judging how bad this idea sounds, hear me out. In team mode there are a lot of aggressive strategies and many games end very early. It is also really hard to punish a team that just develops their queens early and tries to checkmate with their queens. While some of the short games have been enjoyable, I have found games where the queens are traded off early to be much more interesting when there is more potential to actually play a decent middlegame (and sometimes endgames) and not just having games decided in the opening. This said I think the variant might be more fun if we limit the power of the queen. I propose that the queen should only be able to move 1 square in each direction (like the king) which will make it a much more defensive piece that can help protect the king, but not very useful in aggressive strategies. I think this would make the variant more enjoyable.

I understand that changing the movement of pieces have a big downside of not being the same as classical chess that we all know anymore. I am also sure that people will get better at dealing with aggressive strategies in teams as time goes on. Still I think this change might be a good idea. A new player constantly being checkmated in the first 5 moves might not be the best first impression of the team mode variant.

As a side note, I believe a queen moving this way is the same as a guard which @vickalan has written some stuff about here. Replacing the queen with a guard would do the same thing as limiting the movement of the queen.

Thoughts on this idea? I think it could be worth considering, I see both benefits and downsides with it.

I think that's a little too limited. Maybe if queens couldn't move more than 8 spaces: the normal amount in 2 player chess.

I think it's a dumb idea. We've only started paying team chess. There's going to be new opening theory with time so eventually we will stop seeing these 3-6 move victories and more solid approaches with middle/late games (but still with a Hella lot tactics). Right now is like when we first started playing 4 player chess ffa. The opening then was a race to see who could get a queen but now there are more solid ideas. I agree though games without queens are more fun.

Rather than changing how pieces move, maybe just strengthen the king.  Eliminate check/checkmate, but instead of capturing king, other pieces can only punch the king.  Each king has a life-meter and can take, say, 3 punches... so if team Blue & Green use strategy of "attack red at all costs", they may be able to get one or two solid punches in, but yellow and red may now have a chance to rebuff (or capture) the attackers before the kill.  

Might be a interesting variant in FFA as well...

Here is a Wikipedia article about this piece, Guard (also called Mann, Commoner, Prince, or Spy).

Well that certainly frames Martin's idea in a more positive light: a simple option to use Guards in place of Queens in 4PC team-mode.

how about after 2 punches you can checkmate the king

pretty bad idea, just learn to calculate the tactics better and git gud mate

 I think the game can evolve healthy with the current ruleset. People will learn to adapt and we will get longer games. My suggestion to change/replace the queen to make the variant less tactical/aggressive is a matter of taste of mine and something I think I would enjoy more. This is something I am very unsure about since the variant is new and my opinion on this can change over time. I have not managed to convince myself yet if my suggestion is good or bad either.

I think people will learn to cope with queens. Especially because both teams have queens and can offset each other. I understand the ideas that you want, but the more you play 4-player-chess, the more the opportunities for long, slow games will happen. This game is not new, but it is just now being studied at length. I personally even owned a board before chess.com releases their own version. I think chess.com has done a good job creating the rules. The rules for regular are new and have never been done before, but they work great. Kudos to you for your ideas and chess.com for making a great game.

Martin, I really agree with how do we want the 4-player first impression and not create a negative spin and that the quick wins could be a downer for new players. 

THAT SAID (*here is the but)

let me try it this way.. If I told you that you could play regular chess and we need to re change the pieces etc. because the new players coming in keep getting 4 move checkmated and its discouraging them.

Point is yes there are a ton more variation's but its new once people know what those moves are (like 4 move) they counter and then the real games start. So are we fixing a current problem for the wrong reason? *just asking 

@Martin0, it sounds like you were thinking of me when you thought this up, since I am always losing my queens and have to play without them anyway. But I think we should probably take into consideration the reason why queens exist: Speed. Queens were introduced because Chess was laborious to play. 4 player chess without queens would not be a 20 minute game. I can see the time there easily doubling. There is a huge difference in commitment between a 20 min game and a 40 min game. Even a 20 min commitment can sometimes be hard to bend your life around. Especially if you can't get up to answer the door when the pizza delivery guy is knocking (I lost that way last week. I thought would be quick, but he needed me to sign the receipt.) 

ok, I think I will agree this was not a good idea.

@ignoble, do you know how long most team games usually last? In my experience they are much shorter than free for all and to me it sounds like it is the free for all times you are referring to. If a free for all usually takes about 10-40 minutes, then team mode might be 3-12 minutes. A mode that ends when 1 player is eliminated instead of 3 and have a lot more aggression than free for all is bound to have shorter games. I believe you are right though that games would take a much longer time without queens. I would also be a bit curious to hear how long ffa and team games last if you are storing any data on that, my estimate is probably a bit off.

@Renegade_Yoda, this is more related to me thinking the mode is overly aggressive than the new player experience. I tend to like longer games. 2 queens working together early is something you do not see in classical chess.

One possible solution to all the super aggressive tactics is just change when the game ends.

Right now, if the player's king, on their turn, cannot make any valid moves, the game ends. This rewards hyperagrressive plays. If one guy gets checked, their teammate cannot do anything to defend them before the checkmate is calculated.

However, if the game ends when the king is actually "captured", this buys 1/2 move more of time for the teammate to react. I'm not sure if it will work out or not, but worth considering.

@originalsoni   Nope,  in team play the game ends on the player's turn,  the partner can intervene.

What's wrong with super agressive play?   it's awesome.   besides,  I've had some team games who went on to a king and pawn endgame.  People just dont play properly so they get punished.    4 player chess will have to evolve,  just like chess which was super agressive in the 18th century.   Now people complain that Carlsen is boring to watch,  and they have a point.  Let 4 chess be super agressive! that  is what makes it fun!

There's nothing wrong with super aggressive play. Just different rulesets appeal to different players. Just like a statement of mine that Seirawan chess is too tactical for me and has too many powerful pieces is a matter of taste. There is nothing wrong with that and in fact it is what some people find the most appealing.

I have also had some games go to pawn endings. Never just pawn endgames, but with knights as well and when I was the first player to promote we won the game. It was a fun game.

One interesting thing I noted about the endgame is that it is good to have about equally many pieces between you and your partner. We traded a bishop for a knight in that ending to get rid of my partners third last piece, while eliminating an opponents last piece. Normally a bad trade, but the distribution of pieces between players made it a good one since an opponent only had king left after that (and some pawns that could not move far). It was also a matter of simplification since we were winning.

 playing at 1600+ games, most of it went to the endgame because players were strong enough to defend against the tactics early in the game, so the game is fairly deep and strategic if you just learn to survive the early flurries instead of asking for the game to be made easier so you don't have to learn.

That does sound very promising