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- =========
- 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.
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