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- Q: In Martian Chess, one is not allowed to undo an opponent’s move, but what if their move made a capture?
- Q: If a Creeper is moved from one player to another, does the receiving player get to “immediately re-draw” as it says on the card?
- Q: When you do a Field Promotion in Martian Chess, where does the new piece come from?
- Q: In Martian Chess, what happens if players keep moving a potential last piece back and forth over the border so that the end condition cannot be reached?
Q: In Martian Chess, one is not allowed to undo an opponent’s move, but what if their move made a capture?
…Moving their piece back to the same spot wouldn’t undo the capture, so is that allowed?
A: To review: the NO UNDOS rule states that one may not “reject” another player’s move. If one player moves a piece across the canal, the other can’t move it back to the same square it came from.
While the rule is called “no undos,” that’s just a shorthand title. It’s the move itself, not the capture, which you are not allowed to reject by sending the piece back to its immediately previous location.
Q: If a Creeper is moved from one player to another, does the receiving player get to “immediately re-draw” as it says on the card?
A: The “Immediately redraw” is only for if that person has DRAWN a Creeper (or was dealt one at the beginning of the game). The idea is that, if you’re drawing, you are drawing to get a non-Creeper. If you get a Creeper, you are required to play it immediately, and because that draw-play acquisition was involuntary, it doesn’t count as a play or a draw for you… so you get to try again for a NON-Creeper. If you’re just taking or receiving a Creeper that was already in play somewhere else, you’re not attempting to execute a draw, you just get the Creeper.
Another way to remember that this is how it works is to note that it says REdraw. If you didn’t get the Creeper by Drawing, then you can’t REdraw.
Q: When you do a Field Promotion in Martian Chess, where does the new piece come from?
A: For both types of promotion, the pip count of the new piece is the same as the pip count of the old pieces. Since scoring is by pip count, you can take the new piece from either player and give them the old pieces. Their score remains the same.
(Thanks to Jeff Wolfe for fielding this question a bunch of times, and writing it up for the FAQ.)
Q: In Martian Chess, what happens if players keep moving a potential last piece back and forth over the border so that the end condition cannot be reached?
A: Ending a Deadlock: During the final stages of the game, the action slows down and may become stagnated. If any player feels the game has reached a state of deadlock, during their turn they may “call the clock.” From that point on, if seven moves go by in which neither player captures a piece, the game ends and the final score is computed. If someone makes a capture, the counter is reset.
Resolving a Tie: If the final score is tied, and one Zone is empty, the player who ended the game is the winner. But if the game ends in a deadlock with a tie, the result is simply a tie. Play again!
This has been added to the rules in the stand-alone small box set, but previous iterations of the rules did not include this info.