New suggestion

I would like to see a change that when a player is mated (particularly the first player), that the person who finalized the mate takes over those pieces that are left on the board.

I would like to see that made and option.

not overpowering you don't think??

seems unfair the other 2 left.

Not at all PepsiChallenge... a couple of computer apps that I player that is exactly what happened.

dude.. I feel having any more than 2 Queens is unfair.

I've played that way OTB in a three-handed version, although we played until the king was actually captured rather than to mate.  It worked pretty well.  Usually you don't capture someone's king until the endgame when material is low.

In a four-person game, if you eliminate someone early and take over their pieces, you would force the other two into a temporary truce; they would work together against you and cut you down to size before they started attacking each other.  But you would have a safe-ish corner to queen in, which would help you in the endgame.

It would mean part of the strategy would be deciding whether to let Player 1 eliminate Player 2 or if you want to interfere.

that sounds insAne

the situation....

Okay PepsiChallenge... on occasion some players might get more than two queens the way the game is structured now.  Also what guarantees that when you take over someone’s pieces that they’ll have a queen?

Usually, by the time you get to someone's king, you've destroyed their position.  Chances are good their queen got killed trying to save the king.  Chances aren't at all bad that your queen died too as part of the attack.

You're not going to combine two intact armies.  You're merging two armies that just had a battle to the death.  The combined army might well be weaker than either of the other two players.

Even if the combined army is stronger than the other two players put together, though (which would very rarely happen), they get two moves to your one.  All they need to do is create two different threats; you can only defend one of them.

I like this proposed rule, but I don't think it combines well with the points system.  If the points system goes away and is replaced with something else, then this might work.

I can think of 5 or 6 good reasons they could have 'Queens'. Like your first remark expresses a tad..

Yeah, but by the time you take out the king, those queens are likely to be dead.  You don't usually just wander over and kill someone's king without seriously damaging their army first.

It matters none... it would be rare to impossible to get 5 or 6 queens at your disposal at the same time.

Taking control of the pieces of a dead player means more points available for grabbing by your opponents still in the game. The 20 points advantage you got by killing the first player may evaporate soon. Especially if you use the scattered pieces of your new army in kamikaze missions, like blowing-up the defenses of the opponent who is nearest to them.

It also seems HIGHLY UNFAIR to the leftover opponents, especially if his pawns are rather close to promote.

Sounding like more resignations taking place.

Stop whining about it... you can still battle fairly well in those conditions.

yo, step back.

whining is one thing but bringing attention to realistic situations in this great game is what’s to BE discussed, yo.

I suspect if you play-tested it a few times, you'd find it actually worked ok.  Someone you just killed will have been too busy fighting for survival to get multiple pawns close to promotion, and if he already had pawns close to promotion, the other players will have been picking them off while he's trying to save his king.  By the time you finish him off, chances are good his surviving army consists of something like a knight, a rook, and two pawns.  And chances are good you lost a queen, bishop, rook, and three pawns in the attack.

It's quite likely the combined army will be much smaller than what you started with.

perhaps in 1400s and higher games but I’ve yet to reach that high.

The situations that you’re speaking about are realistic PepsiChallenge.