18 Queens is Possible

20 knights, 62 moves

20 queens, 64 moves, no check

AND u have to get them back to the starting squares and the 2nd rank where the original pawns were

Just like MY 2 examples, one being 109 moves, another being 91 moves

This beats 91 but probably not optimal. Any advance on 79?

 There's a twenty knight position here: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/fun-with-chess/can-you-have-six-knights-in-legal-game

But probably smarter than people who spend countless hours reading and posting in topics in which they have no interest.

Knights would certainly not be shorter if you want them back on their initial squares because the bulk of the moves is the pawns getting to their promotion squares and back again. This is at least 6 moves per pawn if it's queens but 8 moves per pawn if it's knights. Having tried both I can't say I noticed much difference in difficulty.

But be careful not to get mixed up and was the queen.

Yeah, but the queens are impossible to manuevre around with all the pins and checks going on. Knights aren't long range, so they are basically free to move whenever they want

wow, I just found this thread. It's amazing what you're doing. It's like the beautiful Queens are dancing happily and no fight is happening. How peaceful and magnificent it is.

Notice that swieser produces both 20 knights and 18 queens very efficiently with a difference of only two moves, but from his final positions it would take a lot more moves to get the knights back to their starting squares than the queens. He was also playing the queens with the handicap of avoiding check.

I understood what you meant by getting the knights back to starting position, but I'll accept your argument if you can post a game that does that in less than the 79 moves in my queens example (which does the rooks as well as the queens).. 

GG nice