Some questions:
1. Can factories produce things that we never on the board to begin with, such as a second queen or a third factory?
2. What happens if a pawn is summoned on the 8th rank? Does it promote instantly? What happens if it promotes to a factory? Can that factory keep making 8th rank pawns and filling the opponents' back rank with queens?
3. How would play likely evolve given the continuous influx of material?
@pds314
(1) Factories in the variant I was suggesting can only produce pieces of your side that were previously taken. No pieces taken == factory can't produce anything. This makes it easier to play with an existing chess set and two pairs of dice (I happened to have a pair of white and black dice, so I literally use them as new pieces).
(2) The re-spawned piece needs to appear adjacent to a factory, so the scenario you are suggesting could only occur if the factory reaches the 7th or 8th rank. In the couple of test games I had with my son, the factory never got past the third rank, so this wasn't an issue. I suppose to prevent it from coming up you could restrict the factory so that it can only move in the first four ranks of your side.
(3) I have really tested this variant too much yet, but some observations from the testing I've done:
(a) Openings seems somewhat slower because the factory is a much less dynamic piece than a bishop. (It might make sense to replace knights with factories rather than bishops.)
(b) Castling is still allowed.
(c) There is more sacrificing of pieces in this variant because you know you can re-spawn them. This also means that it can be worth it to try to take out the opponents factories before going after the king.
@T-jankins9522
(1) If you don't move either factory, then each gain a point (up to 6). Treat the two factories as independent. This is actually one aspect where on a computer or with some kind of specialized chess clock, it might be easier/faster. This is because if you move some piece other than the factory, you still need to remember to adjust the dice of the factories.
(2) Can your factory go to zero points, like if I made a pawn with my only point?
No. To spawn a pawn you need a 2 on at least one of the two dice. After spawning, that die goes down by 1. Similarly, to spawn a queen the total of the two dice needs to be 11 so that after spawning, one has at least 11-9 =2. I know this is awkward but it allows everything to be managed by which faces of the two dice are currently up and so you don't have to worry that there is no face labeled 0.
Yes, if you move a factory that die goes back to one. Stacking tokens to do the counting up to six for a factory is a good idea. If you had a dual chess and checkers set, you could use checkers pieces for the factory. I also like the idea of being able to choose between knight or bishop on what to spawn for 3 points.
Yes, you could span at Factory B and this counts as using both factories.
The 0 token thing is good too.
If you use points from both factories, or points from one factory and spawn at other, then neither factory gets points.
If you spawn at the same factory you are using points from, the other factory still gets a point.
I was wondering today how one could model in chess that warring factions can create new equipment, so I came up with the following variant idea and was wondering if people could comment on it or had suggestions or knew of similar variants?
To play this variant each player gets two six-sided dice. All die start with the 1 face up. The idea is to replace the bishops with factories. This variant is played on a standard 8x8 board and all pieces except the two factories move as normal. Check and checkmate are as normal. Each die corresponds to a factory. A factory as a move can either move one square like a king and return its die to 1, or you can use the sum of the die for factories you have to add a taken piece back to the board. Pieces cost 1-pawn, 3 knight, 5 rook, 6 factory, 9 queen. You must place the returned piece on a square other than your own next to a factory (you can take an opponent's piece doing this). You then decrement the die you have by the amount of the piece you added back. If you don't use a factory in a turn then its die gets incremented by 1 up to a maximum of 6. That's all that's new about this variant. Any thoughts?