The medieval immediate ancestor of chess is "Shatranj"
http://www.ku.edu/carrie/archives/mediev-l/melcher/2001/02/msg00065.html
In short: pawns move only one space
Queens move only one space, like kings.
Bishops move exactly two spaces, can move over other pieces.
Tends to be a bit of a meat grinder.
I presume that the earlier comment about the difficulty of cylindrical chess goes to any non-rectangular board, like the hundreds of circular chess variants.
There are also some four-handed variants on the square board ... would that be possible? |