========= 1.0 Title ========= YAHOO! ____ / \__ __ ____ ____ ____ | ___| | | | __|/ ___\/ ___\ | | | |_| | |__( /___( /___ | |__|_ _ | __|\___ \\___ \ | | | | | |__ ___) )___) ) \____/_| |_|____|/____//____/ ================ 2.0 Introduction ================ I've only come across this game recently, but it's really captured my imagination. Mostly Yahoo's games are pretty bland, but this one is really inventive, with a heavy dose of Earthbound-style humour: Your units include castles that zoom around at high speed and angry bishops. The game's popularity speaks for itself: it's picked up a big fandom in a short period of time. Just do a quick search for "Chess" on Google, you'll find a number of sites with FAQs, walkthroughs, etc, as well as a whole load of bootleg knock-offs. (There's even some people who've put together rules for a board game version: talk about devotion!) A lot of the game seems to be based on the Alice in Wonderland mythos, so if you're a fan of the series it's well worth checking out: it does a really good job of fleshing out the Alice universe, and wisely doesn't include any major characters from the actual film. It is a pity that Yahoo haven't made any acknowledgement to Tim Burton for the use of his intellectual property; I certainly hope that he doesn't bring out the lawyers on this one. In any case, this is just more reason to experience as much of the game as you can in the short window that it's available! The style of Yahoo Chess is quite hard to describe. It's like an RTS, in that you're battling another player -- or the computer -- with a big army, but also similar to one of the Civ series in that you get as long as you like to decide what commands to give. It even has a couple of aspects of defend-the-castle style games, but -- in a clever parody of the staleness of that genre -- the 'castle' you're trying to defend is actually a king, can move under its own power and even attack -- and is defended by the aformentioned castles which are far faster than him! I guess if I had to classify it, though, I'd call Yahoo Chess a turn-based RTS (TBRTS). The game isn't without its flaws. It feels kind of unfinished: there's no way to pick which units to deploy or build new ones, and levelling up doesn't seem to actually have any effect (besides bragging rights!) There are a couple of pieces there are ridiculously overpowered, and Yahoo don't seem to have any plans to correct the balance. There is a kind of a quirky charm to the game as it is, though. If I had one gripe, it'd be that while the stylised graphics are really nice, the team could at least get the perspective right on them. It'd be really cool to have the option of surveying the battlefield in a first-person view, too, but I guess for an Internet Explorer game that's kind of optimistic. Because of these, the game does have a pretty steep learning curve. I've written this guide to try and help potential players over a couple of the more obvious pitfalls. ============= 3.0 Copyright ============= This guide to Yahoo Chess is created copyright chessfreak69@yahoo.co.uk. By reading this text you agree NOT to distribute it without my permission. ============ 4.0 Factions ============ Actually, there's not a lot of choice here. Unlike Starcraft where you can pick between Humans, Protoss and Zerg, here you just have to choose between White and Black -- another nice pun on the Lionhead game of the (almost!) same name. There's not even any difference between these two factions; maybe this is something that Yahoo are planning on adding in an expansion pack. ========== 5.0 Pieces ========== Like in TF2 or the (very old!) Atari game Archon, your army contains a variety of different units, all with unique strengths and weaknesses. Unlike TF2, you actually get to control all of them, rather than being forced into just one! This means that you get to experience a lot of the different styles of play that the game has to offer very quickly, but it does also mean that it's easy to be overwhelmed at first and forget what the unit you're controlling does. This section contains a handy reference guide to remind you what's what. 5.1 Pawn Horrible piece. The weakest unit in the game, and the hardest to use successfully. Pawns can only move forward, and they can only move a single square at a time (except on their first turn, where they can move a "whole" two -- which is still peanuts compared to, say, a castle.) So not only are they weak, they're also incredibly slow. Yahoo don't seem to have programmed in any ranged units, so you don't have to worry about them getting picked off before they reach combat, but it does mean that doing anything with a pawn takes something like five times as long as using another unit. The only advantage to pawns is that you get a lot of them -- eight, rather than the usual two -- so you do stand a chance of beating the enemy through sheer numbers -- but it would be far better to have eight actually good pieces than eight pawns. The other big disadvantage of pawns, of course, is that they can only move forwards. This means that if your enemy's smart, he can slip his units around them, leaving the pawns completely worthless (as opposed to just mostly worthless :P). Not only does this mean you can screw yourself over without realising, which is really bad design, it means that the first-turn turbo boost is actually a liability -- it gives you one less turn where you can do anything useful with that pawn. Because of this, if you are set on attacking with pawns, it's best to hold off on moving them at first until you know you need them, and keep them all on one row whenever possible so that the enemy can't slip past them so easily. But generally, their other disadvantages mean that pawns really aren't worth using in the first place. I rate pawns F-. 5.2 Bishop The first decently fast unit you'll get, bishops can go as far as they like when they move, but only diagonally. This doesn't seem like much of a drawback at first until you realise that this means they can only cover one colour of square -- white or black. If the enemy player's figured that out (and it's fairly well documented), he can easily avoid your bishops by keeping to the other-colour squares. So basically, bishops are only good at countering attacks from an enemy bishop of the same colour. They're still better than pawns though. D. 5.3 Knight Knights are difficult to use well. They move in a sort of L-shape: two squares in one direction then one square in another, or vice versa. But to make it more complicated, those squares have to be at right angles to each other. If you put the time and effort into mastering knight-jumping patterns then they can be quite powerful, but for the rest of us they're situationally useful at best. Their only advantage is that the complicated movement seems to mess with Yahoo's collision detection, so a lot of the time they can move even if it looks like another unit is blocking the way. D+ 5.4 Castle Now we're on to the actual good stuff. Castles are the fastest unit in the game bar the queen, but have a numerical advantage over her; you get two castles to every queen. Castles are especially useful early on when the board isn't so cluttered, because then they can cover a bigger distance without another piece blocking them. Castles are an excellent piece at attacking and defending; it's worth making sure that there's a castle at the centre of each of your main attacks. B 5.5 Queen It's kind of a cool inversion of the tropes of the genre that Yahoo have made the most powerful unit a chick, although the idea is kind of a rip-off of Sarah Kerrigan in Starcraft. The Queen (and that's all we know about her, we never even find out her name -- maybe this is a plot hook for a sequel?) is still pretty hot though. It's a pity that they didn't put as much effort into her mechanics as they did to her characterisation. I think the idea is supposed to be that she morphs between skirmishing (bishop) and battle (castle) forms; it's an inventive idea, but instead of making the player switch between them the game just does it automatically, meaning that there's no disadvantage to using whichever one suits you at any given time, and cutting out a lot of the skill involved in using the Queen well. Really, the Queen is kind of overpowered as a unit; she is a decent newbie unit, but I prefer not to use her myself and focus on a more nuanced, skilled game using castles. I rate her A if you actually want to use her, but if you prefer to keep her on the sidelines then only D. 5.6 King The King is a sort of 'commander' unit: like the base in defend-the-base games, if the enemy kills him than you automatically lose. This gives the game some nice tactical depth: you can mount as much attack as you like, but if you don't guard your own King unit carefully, it's easy to be defeated by a surprise attack. Unexpectedly, the King is actually a lot slower and weaker than other units, only able to move one square; although he's at least more manouevrable than a pawn, being able to move in any direction -- both sideways and diagonally. But since you don't have any choice about whether you use the King or not, he can't really be reasonably given a rating that makes any sort of sense. ==================== 6.0 Advanced tactics ==================== 6.1 Bishop-Pawn Combo As discussed in the Bishop strategy section, the main use of bishops is attacking enemy bishops. You can prevent your bishop from coming under attack by placing pawns in each of the squares diagonally ahead of it. Any enemy bishop trying to kill your bishop will have to waste a turn attacking one of the pawns first, at which point your bishop will easily kill him. 6.2 King Defence Since your king is a vulnerable unit, it's unwise to leave him defended by nothing more than pawns. That might do for a bishop, but not for royalty! Make sure that you keep a powerful piece, such as a queen, between him and any enemies who might attack him. 6.3 Pawn Juggernaut Try to get several of your pawns in one column. That way, enemies wanting to pass them will have to expend several turns killing them all, using the pawns' one strength (their numbers) against the enemy. 6.4 Pawn Rush Although pawns are individually weak, if you can get several of them on one enemy they can overwhelm them. A risky, but effective strategy is to send as many pawns as far across the board as you can on early turns, using their first-turn speed boost to help you. 6.5 King Solo Assault Since each side can only move one piece a turn, if you move your king and only your king each turn he will end up moving far faster than the enemy, who has to manage all sixteen of his pieces. Even his fastest piece, the castle, can only move eight squares each turn, giving you a speed advantage of 16 squares to his 8. ================================= 7.0 Cheats, Glitches, and secrets ================================= Obviously, it's kind of lame to use these in PvP, but if you want to practice the single-player game you can try these out. 7.1 Confirmed 7.1.1 Pawn Capture Glitch: If an enemy moves a pawn two squares past one of yours, you can still glitch the game into letting you capture it by moving your pawn diagonally into the square it passed through. 7.1.2 Knight movement glitch: As mentioned earlier, the knight's collision detection seems to bug out a lot. Often it's possible to move the knight even when another unit seems to be blocking it. 7.2 Unproven 7.2.1 Pawns Level Up!! RUMOUR: "If you bring a pawn to the far end of the board, you can transform it into any piece you like." STATUS: DUBIOUS. Although this sounds exciting, this does have all the hallmarks of a classic hoax. It requires a considerable feat of gaming to achieve, making it conveniently difficult to experience first-hand, it sounds too good to be true (Any piece? Can you imagine how easy it would be to win a game with a full ten castles on your team?) and makes no logical sense. We know for a fact that no other pieces level up like this, and besides, how could a pawn possibly become another piece without expending any resources to upgrade it? While I haven't managed to prove or disprove it yet, I'm confident that this one is just a myth. 7.3 Debunked 7.3.1 King-Into-Corner Glitch RUMOUR: "Once you've cleared a bishop and a knight out of the squares between the king and the castle, move the king two squares towards the castle. Amazingly, the King will be able to move there, and the castle will teleport past him." STATUS: DEBUNKED: I tried this in person, and Yahoo! Chess doesn't accept this move.