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Guides & Tips » Chess Proverbs for Uniwar Players » Go to message

For purposes of terrain and unit match, I tend to think of speeder and marauder as most analogous to bishops- mid-value units with great mobility that is reduced by terrain other than plains. Thus on larger maps and in areas of maps that have clear channels for movement across plains, these units are of relatively higher value. On the opposing side, deploying infantry on mountains or plains to limit enemy "bishop" mobility helps reduce the relative value of enemy speeders and marauders. If enemy in chess had many bishops, we would naturally want to build up pawn structure to limit their mobility.

Flying units- swarmer, Garuda, to some extent heli (though this might be closer to queen in its cost/power), I think of as analogous to Knights- mobility not affected by terrain, so easier to deploy optimally on maps or areas of maps without many plains. As in chess, Knights are limited by pawn structure as well, but have more flexibility to reposition. Swarmer and eclipse also have some affinity to Knights in that they are less limited by enemy pawn structure because of their distance attack. Thus on maps with many swamps or water, flying units are obviously of higher value than speeder or marauder, and on maps with plains but adjacent forest and mountains to limit movement through plains channels, units with distance attack are of value to dismantle enemy pawn structure and allow you to put your own units on the optimal hexes and move your own "bishops" through.

The special abilities of ants to bury and mechas to teleport is particularly interesting in this regard. Whereas marines are excellent pawns, they do not have "special mobility" to leverage or bypass very closed structures. Ants can go under, ignoring closed map areas albeit slowly. And mechas can port to choice terrain (en made if needed) to rapidly transform pawn structure from open to closed and swing advantage from bishop to knight type units and tactics.

Above is only partly developed I realize- writing a bit quickly here and realize there is great expertise in chess and Uniwar on this forum.

Look forward to others thoughts, revisions, extensions of this line of thinking.

Guides & Tips » Chess Proverbs for Uniwar Players » Go to message

Really enjoyed this post, as well as English translations of related posts on runiwar.ru. One topic I haven't seen addressed as clearly in the chess-Uniwar analogy is the relationship of terrain to optimal unit choice and army composition and deployment.

In chess, all squares are equivalent- they do not modify mobility, attack, or defense. Similarly the board is of a fixed size, which affects the relative value of the units based on their mobility limitations (imagine a chess board 16x16 squares in size- the bishop's value would no longer be on par with the knight's given the much longer distances pieces need to travel to reach their optimal action points.

In chess, it is often pawn structure that determines (dynamically) the "terrain" of the board, and dictates the relative value of knight vs bishop (and black vs white bishop). More closed positions favor the knight. Locking enemy's pawns on black squares reduces value of enemy black bishop- especially if it is trapped behind the line of pawns. Etc.

Making the analogy to Uniwar, I would propose thinking of an analysis of board size and terrain as a critical factor in determining optimal composition of each army- factoring in the enemy's race and the likely offensive and defensive positions they will take.

Factors that lead to a more "closed" position include all terrain types other than plains. Forest and mountain-heavy maps (or sections of maps) are especially closed because infantry deployed there are more formidable and limit the movement of more expensive units.

More plains and larger maps are more open positions. How might this affect unit choice and army composition? More in next post.

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