Community variant

Reformed Courier

Reformed Courier-Spiel is a revised form of the Medieval Chess game Courier-Spiel. This version is a modern adaption by Clement Begnis which itself adapts H. G. Albers modernized rules from 1821. Detailed rules can be found on https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/reformedcourier-spiel and Begnis's http://clement.begnis.free.fr website. Note that the King castles to the C and K files and that three new pieces are added: Archer, Champion, and Paladin. The historical Courier moves as a modern Bishop, and to stay true to the original spirit of the game, it is shown by a wedge-shaped piece and not as the modern Bishop.

This is a user-catalogued casual variant. Technical details such as board size, FEN, pieces, and hand rules are defined in the Fairy-Stockfish variants.ini block below.

Uploaded by: gbtami
Visibility: public
Status: active

Generated rule overview

This variant is defined directly from a Fairy-Stockfish rule block. The text below is generated from the available configuration and may omit details that are only implicit in piece movement notation.

Board and setup

Default starting position

Pieces and movement

The piece set used on the board is: king (k), queen (q), rook (r), bishop (b), knight (n), pawn (p), archer (a), champion (m) and paladin (d).
archer (a) is a custom piece with Betza movement `AF`.
champion (m) is a custom piece with Betza movement `DK`.

Move rules

Castling is allowed.

Promotion

Promotions are available in the configured promotion zones. The the promotion region for White is all squares on rank 8 and the promotion region for Black is all squares on rank 1.
The pieces that can promote are: pawn (p).
Promotion choices are both sides: rook (r), knight (n), bishop (b), queen (q), paladin (d), archer (a) and champion (m).

Winning and losing

An extinction rule is active: reaching 1 remaining any piece causes a loss for the side to move. The ending is claimable.
Stalemate is scored as a loss for the side to move.

Piece movement

These diagrams show custom pieces and known Fairy-Stockfish built-in fairy pieces from White's perspective on a compact preview board. Some special moves, especially hoppers and game-state-dependent moves, can still depend on blockers or game state.

archer (A) movement

AF

champion (M) movement

DK

move capture move or capture initial only hopper target

Fairy-Stockfish rules

[reformedcourier]
maxRank = 8
maxFile = 12
king = k
pawn = p
rook = r
knight = n
bishop = b
queen = q
centaur = d
customPiece1 = a:AF
customPiece2 = m:DK
startFen = rnabmqkdbanr/pppppppppppp/12/12/12/12/PPPPPPPPPPPP/RNABMQKDBANR w KQkq - 0 1
doubleStepRegionWhite = *2
doubleStepRegionBlack = *7
promotionPawnTypes = p
promotionRegionWhite = *8
promotionRegionBlack = *1
promotionPieceTypes = rnbqdam
castling = true
castlingKingsideFile = k
castlingQueensideFile = c
extinctionValue = loss
extinctionClaim = true
extinctionPieceTypes = *
extinctionPieceCount = 1
extinctionOpponentPieceCount = 2
stalemateValue = loss