"Road of Kings" chess game in Conan. How to?

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Does anyone knows how to play or do have rules to play the chess game “road of kings” in Conan?

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If you’re talking about the chess pieces in the game, they are normal chess pieces and board, with normal chess rules. If you are talking about the Road of Kings book, I never read it. Please explain more because I am curious now. :man_shrugging:

No, they are not. In the description they say about a dice roll and stuff like that

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Well, I read the info on a couple pieces and you’re right, the rules appear to vary a bit from standard Chess. It does however say that the dice are used “In a variation of the game that has become popular…” which implies the game has multiple variations. It might be a bit like asking how to play ‘cards’ without knowing which variation, the rules can’t be known. Anyway, I’m glad I read the flavor text on those, thank you! :+1:

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let’s bring some rules to that game! It has potencial!

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Or is it just referring to one of the hundreds of versions of chess which existed in antiquity? The modern game of chess has a very rich and varied history.

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Well, the rules of Chess haven’t changed in roughly 500 years and the only changes (that I’m aware of) for roughly 1000 years prior to that were minor differences in the movements of a couple pieces. Dice have never been used in Chess for any reason, but certainly not to determine which pieces can be moved (as the flavor text states). So I am quite confident that someone assumed creative license in the Conan universe (whether by Funcom or an author of source material) and tweaked the rules to include dice. It would still be interesting to get a copy of the rules though, even if just to slake my intrigue of the dice usage. :grin:

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Chess has a long and storied history. The game has changed quite a bit from its earliest forms in India. The modern iteration we enjoy today wasn’t known until the 16th century. There were no clocks, and the pieces were not standardized until the 19th century.

The official world championship title came into existence by the late 19th century, shortly after the first big tournaments were held and multiple styles of play had begun to fully develop. Although the first book on openings was published as early as 1843, theory as we know it didn’t truly evolve until the early/mid 20th century. Computer engines and databases didn’t come into play until the very late 20th century.

Take a look at a brief history of chess:

Some quite strange and wonderful!

Dice are used in several variants of chess… here’s a few explained on Wikipedia which lists the rules for those versions:

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That is very interesting. This is precisely what I meant though that someone has taken creative license to change the game. Once the board, the rules and even the name of the game have been changed, one can argue that it is no longer that game. The Wiki you are citing states that a game known as ‘dice chess’ existed and specifically says it has no references. It was certainly inspired by the game of chess and is perhaps the inspiration for our Conan version as well. Thanks for sharing that with me. :+1:

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Thank you! that is absolutely awesome!

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Mmmm… I think one needs to consider the purpose of Chess. It began as an early version of a military planning board. A way to simulate and game logistics and tactics. Some early instances were even set to more accurately represent the landscapes involved and played between the kings and heads of “state” instead of or in substitution for actually going to war with each other. When you consider this as “chess” then a board constructed for three armies for example makes more sense. Or a conflict where the weather, terrain, troop discipline or even allegiances, are uncertain, it might make sense to use dice… etc.

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