Tamerlane II
This two-player Chess Variant is inspired by Timur's or Tamerlane's Chess. It is intended to replace and improve the earlier version of Tamerlane II, which competed in the Large Chess Variant Contest in 1999, with a modest result. Tamerlane II has been invented in 1978 by Jean-Louis Cazaux, as his first chess variant creation ever, already with Ships replacing Tamerlane's Giraffes, and 11 columns. It has known several major revisions until the last one in 2000, which has frozen the rules presented below.
The fact that strong pieces can only appear after promotion gives an original taste to this large Chess Variant. However, for those looking for strategies around "bloody" battles, it could be interesting to try a simple variant where Princes and Ship are replaced by Queens and Gryphons from the initial set-up: Wild Tamerlane Chess.
Setup
The board has 11x11 checkered squares, with light colored squares at each corner. The 11 files respect the original configuration of Tamerlane's chess with a central king. The 11 ranks give more space to the game allowing to arrange the piece before struggling. Moreover, they place Bishops and Camels on same colors allowing attack of opposite counterparts and mutual protection.
There are 28 pieces per side:
White: Elephant a1, k1; Camel c1, i1; Cannon e1, g1; Rook a2, k2; Knight b2, j2; Bishop c2, i2; Ship d2, h2; Prince e2, g2; King f2; Pawn a3 to k3.
Black: Elephant a11, k11; Camel c11, i11; Cannon e11, g11; Rook a10, k10; Knight b10, j10; Bishop c10, i10; Ship d10, h10; Prince e10, g10; King f10; Pawn a9 to k9.
Pieces
King, Bishop, Knight and Pawn are orthodox.
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Prince: moves one square in any direction, like a King.
Camel: jumps to the opposite case of a 2x4 rectangle. No matter
what intermediate cases contain. The Camel are taken from Tamerlane's Chess.
Elephant: moves 1 or 2 cases diagonally. It can jump over the
first case if it is occupied.
Cannon: moves like a Rook. Takes as in Xiang-Qi:
needs an intermediate piece between itself and its victim. The Cannon jumps
the intermediate and take the victim on its square. The intermediate is
left unaffected.
Ship: move one square diagonally and then, goes away of an indefinite
number of cases vertically, never horizontally. It can move one square diagonally
only. It can not jump and must begin its move with the diagonal step.
The Ship is more limited than the Gryphon from Grande Ajedrez which can move horizontally. Nevertheless its move power is comparable to the Rook and the Bishop. The Ship is inspired by the Giraffe from Tamerlane's chess and the Gryphon from "Grande Acedrex".
There is no Queen at the start of the game. This piece may appear later on by promotion.
King: moves 1 step in every (8) directions on a not attacked square. The King is in check if it is attacked by one or several enemy pieces. It is forbidden to play a move letting his King in check.
There is no castling in Wild Tamerlane. At his first move, the King may jump to a free square at two squares' distance. For instance, from f2, it can jump to d1, d2, d3, d4, e4, f4, g4, h4, h3, h2 or h1). It does not matter if the square jumped over is occupied or not; however, the jump is forbidden if that intermediate square is threatened by an enemy piece. When jumping like a Knight, at least one of the two intermediate squares must be free of threat (e.g., if jumping from f2 to h3, either g2 or g3 must not be under attack). The King's jump is not permitted if the King is in check. This rule replaces castling. Identical to Metamachy and several other large chess variants from Jean-Louis Cazaux.
Queen: slides to any square along the file, the rank or a diagonal on which it stands. Identical to standard chess.
Eagle: moves one square diagonally and then, slides away of an indefinite number of squares vertically or horizontally. It is authorized to go only one square diagonal. It can not jump and the unobstructed path must start with the diagonal movement. This piece is almost as powerful as the Queen and is inspired by the Giraffe from Tamerlane's Chess and the Aanca (a mythical giant bird preying elephants, mistaken for a gryphon) from Alfonso X's Grande Acedrex. Identical to Metamachy.
Rook: moves to any square along the file or the rank on which it stands. Identical to standard chess
Bishop: slides to any square along a diagonal on which it stands. Identical to standard chess
Knight: a (2,1) jumper, it jumps to the opposite square of a 2x3 rectangle. No matter what the intermediate square contains. Identical to standard chess
Camel: a (3,1) jumper, it jumps to the opposite square of a 2x4 rectangle, like an extended Knight. No matter what intermediate squares contain. Note that it always stays on the same color of square. A well known piece from medieval Muslim great Chess like Tamerlane's Chess. Identical to Metamachy
Cannon: exactly as in Xiangqi. The Cannon moves without taking like a Rook, but it takes by going in a straight horizontal and vertical line and jumping over exactly one piece. When a Cannon takes a piece, there must be exactly one piece between the original and final square of the Cannon's move - this piece may be of either color. This is identical to the move of the Cannon in Shako and Metamachy.
Elephant: it moves one or two squares diagonally. When an Elephant moves two squares, no matter what intermediate squares contain. Note that it always stays on the same color of square. The Elephant moves as the combined Alfil and Ferz from Shatranj, two pieces which were also present in mediaeval Chess and have disappeared with the birth of modern moves for the Bishop and the Queen. Exactly as in Shako and Metamachy.
Pawn: it can move straight forward one, or two square from its starting position on the board, without capturing. It captures one square diagonally forward. Identical to standard chess.
Rules
- King's Succession: a King in checkmate is lost but this does not constitute the end of the game if its player still has one Prince and that this man is not itself in check. In such a case, King and Prince exchange their positions. This counts as one turn. The checking player is free to take or not the new Prince. This process can be repeated as long as the above conditions are fulfilled. They are a second and a third chance as in Tamerlane's chess.
- Prise en passant: follows the orthodox rules.
- Castling: there is no castling at Tamerlane 2000.
- Pawn's Promotion: the Pawn is promoted to a Queen when reaching the last row.
- Prince's Promotion: a Prince reaching the first opposite row (the 9th rank for White) can be promoted to a Queen.
- Ship's Promotion: a Ship reaching one of both opposite corners (a11 or k11 for White) can be promoted to a Gryphon.
- The Queen is the orthodox one (Rook + Bishop)
- Gryphon : is move one square diagonally and then, goes away of an indefinite number of cases vertically or horizontally. It can move one square diagonally only. It can not jump and must begin its move with the diagonal step. This piece is almost as powerful than the Queen.
End Of Game
Victory is obtained when the opposite King is checkmated with no possibility to be replaced.
All other types of endgame (pat, perpetual check,...) are classic.
Notes
Differences between Tamerlane 2000 and Tamerlane IIHere is the list of the changes made in this attempt to improve the game:
- Pawn can promote to Queen on last row. This gives more power to the Pawn. The rule of promoting to any captured piece is unfair since it is a penalty for the strong player who still has many pieces on the board. Promotion to Queen only is an appreciated simplification in this game where there are a lot of different piece types.
- Princes replace Fers and Wazir. It is a good simplification with1 piece instead of 2 different. Also, the Prince is much more interesting than the Fers and the Wazir which are very limited and weak pieces.
- Princes promote to Queen on 1st opposite rank. The reason is to make this more likely to happen: the Prince is starting one rank behind the Pawn and can not benefit from a double step. Then, going to the last row would have been a too long trip.
- Ships can promote to Gryphon on opposite board corners. This gives an interesting possibility with these pieces which are very powerful longitudinally but are rather slow to move laterally. Once promoted, the Gryphon is a dreadful piece which can terminate the game very quickly.
- Castling is suppressed. It was very rare anyway since there are 4 pieces to remove between the King and the Rook.
- Non-capturing shift of Bishop, Camel and Elephant is suppressed. It was an unnecessary complication which made the game very unusual and difficult to master. Now, the player has just to remember that dark squares are controlled by the Bishops and light squares by the Camels and the Elephants.
Deep thanks to H.G. Muller for making the Interactive Diagram below
Photo made by Jean-Luc Muraro of an homemade board and set of Tamerlane II, designed and made by the author.
Remarks
You can play either Tamerlane 2000 or Wild Tamerlane with the following zrf file designed by Jean-Louis Cazaux. (providing you own Zillions-of-games software.). However, the Prince crowning is not implemented for programming reasons.
WWW page created June 05, 2000. Modified on March 18, 2001, thanks to Ivan A Derzanski for corrections. Edited on December 31, 2023. In memoriam of my best friend Jean-Luc Muraro (1967-2020) gone too soon.
This 'user submitted' page is a collaboration between the posting user and the Chess Variant Pages. Registered contributors to the Chess Variant Pages have the ability to post their own works, subject to review and editing by the Chess Variant Pages Editorial Staff.
By Jean-Louis Cazaux.
Last revised by Jean-Louis Cazaux.
Web page created: 2000-06-05. Web page last updated: 2022-12-27