The pieces are placed on the board as illustrated (note that "S" is used for Knight).
Note that the Knight (S) and Bishop are transposed in relation to Standard (FITE) Chess. This is necessary because of the inherent matrix of hexagons. Additionally, because a single Bishop covers only one third of a hexagon board, a third Bishop (known as the Sovereign Bishop) is placed on the color hexagon of each Home Territory. In this illustration both Sovereign Bishops are colored white, but on a normal board, each Sovereign Bishop would be the of the Home Territory.
This game may be played wherein pawns must always move toward the opponent territory, or wherein pawns, after crossing the Sovereignty Line, and before crossing the opponent's Sovereignty Line, may move and capture in all directions. Players must agree to one method of play before the game begins.
For the particular rules regarding movement of pieces and general issues, consult the ImmortalStarMaster Rules page.
Note that a piece does not technically "jump" another piece to capture it, as in checkers, but the captured piece is removed from the board when captured, and the capturing piece "lands" where the captured piece was located before it was captured.
If you would prefer, start the game using this formation:
Dimes (or any small coin) may be used as pieces--heads for one player and tails for the other.
For those of particularly courageous mind, the following boards may also
be used to play ANDROMI:
Two players:
Two to six players:
Other Concepts of Value:
ImmortalStarMasters 3D
ImmortalStarMasters Orion 3D
Logis 3D
The Problem of a Three Dimensional Chess Game is that a simple increase in the number of spaces on the combined boards excessively changes a basic element (the ratio of the number of pieces to the available spaces) of the game of Chess.
To solve this problem, the auxillary boards must be properly sized, and pieces must be added. The center of the board must be accentuated, and the only possible pieces to add (while keeping power ratios reasonable) are pawns. Yet, adding the pawns before the beginning of play violates the concept that pawns cannot protect pawns at the beginning of the game (before either player has even made a single move). Ergo, the solution may be to add pawns during play.
If a player has one pawn in the Central Area of the Central Board, that player may place one pawn on their first rank of either the top or bottom auxilliary board. If a player has two pawns in the Central Area, that player may then place a second pawn on an auxilliary board. A player may place a total of four pawns on the auxilliary boards, noting that at the moment of placement of a pawn on an auxilliary board, the appropriate number of pawns must be in the Central Area of the Central Board.
A pawn is placed on an auxilliary board as the sole move of a single turn (placing a pawn upon an auxilliary board is different in concept from moving a pawn to the auxilliary board, yet constitutes a turn similar to the movement of any piece upon any board). A player may place only a total of four pawns on the auxilliary boards during a game.
Note: another possible solution is to attach two squares at both outer ranks of both auxilliary boards. Two like pawns (White on the White side, Black on the Black side) are placed on each attached area of each auxilliary board before the game begins. In my opinion (calculated, of course) this adds four spaces too many to the board. Also, two spaces could be added to only the top auxilliary board and pawns could be placed on those spaces. Again, in my opinion (less calculated, of course), only time will prove the better solution of the three possible, and it is worth considering that the least number of new rules should prevail in a proper three-dimensional construct based on any two-dimensional game.
