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Steven Streetman wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2010 06:43 PM UTC:
This is the second of four parts on Spartan Chess:
   1. Spartan Chess – The Dream
   2. What makes Spartan Chess Different? 
      - Waiting for the other Shoe to Drop
   3. Spartan Chess – The Process
   4. Spartan Chess - The Business

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WHAT MAKES SPARTAN CHESS DIFFERENT?
    - Waiting for the other Shoe to Drop

There are several unusual features of Spartan Chess and a couple that are (maybe) unique.

1. Unusual – Different Armies
Spartan chess pits two completely different chess armies against each other. With the exception of their Kings, every Spartan piece differently than that of the Persians (FIDA). While this is by no means unique, only a percentage point or two of chess variants vary the chess pieces between sides.

2. Unusual – Historical Rationale
There is a historical rationale for the opposing sides; Spartans vs. Persians. While the origin of Chess is debated (did it originate in India or Persia?) I naturally accepted the FIDA army as the Persians. While designing the Spartans I tried to capture the flavor of a more slowly moving, solid, mainly foot-soldier army. Of the chess variants with different armies only a fraction of those try to represent historical armies. A historical rationale is an unusual feature, not a unique one.

3. Unique – Spartan Hoplites or Spartan pawns
Spartan Chess features pawns on the two sides with different capabilities. The Persian uses traditional pawns of course. The Spartan uses hoplites in place of pawns and move differently than pawns. The use of different types of pawns on opposing sides is, it seems, unique.

4. Unique – Two Kings
In Spartan Chess the Spartans field a chess army with two Kings. This is a part of the historical rationale owing to the fact that the Spartans did, in fact, have two Kings. Placing two fully royal Kings on one side along with rules to make that work, including situational check immunity and duple-check, is a unique feature of Spartan Chess.

Waiting for the other Shoe to Drop
Everything around chess has already been done before, hasn’t it? Over the years, as I thought about chess pieces and game variants, I would come up with an idea. I would then visit the various wikis and the CV website and find that it had already been done (*sigh*). Not so with different pawns on different sides. “Why?” I thought, “Was it just too hard?” I stuck with this idea until I came up with the additional idea of the Spartan army and two Kings and then developed this chess variant. There is still, a part of me that is waiting for someone to step forward and say something like “Well, this has all been done before. See my web link to Mr. T. H. Chesserman’s game Lacemedonian (i.e. Spartan) Chess invented in 1884”. So I sit, “Waiting for the other shoe to drop”.

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