Economy Chess is available again!!

Hey everyone! In 2012 I had a crazy idea: what if not just material and position is important in chess, but also the number of squares you own? I loved the idea so much that I hired a programmer and made a game out of it: Economy Chess

There was a small community on chess.com playing it and it could be downloaded in the now long gone chess.com/download section. And I had it on my laptop. But it died and I forgot about it. However, I wanted to play it again and a former admin of the group still had the game! 

So its possible to play again! You can download it here Economy Chess Download (windows)
I understand that people don't like to just open a .exe that some random dude posts on a public forum. Unfortunately I cannot do anything else than to promise you that it's not a virus, it's just the game. 

How to play Economy Chess?
See all the rules here in a 4 minute video

These are videos of example games: Boletus_CZ vs DeKaleaas and another game 

These are the basics: conquering a square on the board

Getting income from the board: #squares - #of pieces = income
So the more squares you conquer, the more income you get
And: the more pieces you have, the fewer income you recieve

Purchasing pieces with your money: only on squares you own and only on the original spots
This means a piece had to be placed on it's original spot
But if you don't own the square, you can't build on it

You can buy as many pieces as you can afford, but it costs you a turn.

When you start the software, after the loading screen you'll see the options menu. These settings are the default settings for Economy Chess.

WoW!!!

Thanks

In my opinion the fun aspect of it is that board control becomes part of the game. Not just controlling the center. It can actually be valuable to capture some off center squares that probably won't be occupied anytime soon. 

Also sometimes it might be tempting to make a lesser move if that gives you an economical advantage.

Very interesting! Does this mean hypermodern setups are obsolete in this variant?

I really like this. I am commenting so I can follow this and come back to it. I will try it out and tell you what I think!

Not sure what you precisely mean by hypermodern setups. With this variant things start out like normal chess, but around turn 7/8 a player has gathered enough money to buy a pawn. From there on it's different. Will you buy extra material or will you save for later?

When you play the game you'll notice that the economy (= getting income + producing pieces) will be of influence on the choice of your moves. It's tentative to keep conquering new squares to generate more income, but obviously the moves that gain you a square are not always the best moves. Also it can be strategic to conquer a certain production square of your opponent so he cannot produce a certain piece. E.g. if you take the original square of the Queen, then the opponent cannot produce a queen.
Lastly buying pieces costs a turn. So you really have to time your purchase right.

So yeah, I would say this game brings a whole new dynamic to the original game. Yet it's still classical chess. But board domination becomes part of the equation.

Please do! Do check out the default settings. The other ones greatly alter the game and sometimes are even nonsensical. I wanted to challenge you to play a correspondence game, but I see you are way WAY WAAAAY better than me. Still, shall we play one?

I don't play correspondance, but thank you for the offer.

Thanks! The software is a little clunky and the board can't turn, so black plays upside down 🙈 I never did any software projects, in hindsight I would've asked for less features, actually. But it's good enough to get a taste of the variant.

Anyone who wants to play a correspondence game, let me know! I'm up for it.

Here's a hippo. 

In a classical game, the hippo player who knows his / her stuff is not badly matched, but in this variant, black is way behind in capturing squares. 

Ive entered the moves into the game, and indeed, I would say that this is not the best opening for black. It's not lost at all, but it is advised to take some kind of action to prevent a too large economical difference. I have continued the game in an even more economical aggressive way for white. By now both can buy a pawn, but white has a more savings and gets more income per turn.

So I have continued the game a bit further, to a point where its time for white to buy some pieces!

And this is where white decides to buy some stuff! Bishop on c1 and pawn on h2!

This is the current position:

And from here on I leave it to your imagination on how to defend as black. Admittingly... black is going to have a really tough time. White has been capturing squares almost every turn and almost has double the income and now has a serious material advantage. Black has to come up with moves that a) win squares and b) save black from being mated.

Thanks for that analysis!