Checkfire Match

One board, full armies, and a result in ten to twenty-five minutes.

Setup #

• Control: You vs AI, AI vs AI, or Local 2P (hot-seat on one machine).
• Ruleset: Core Rules (movement, melee, fire only), Special Abilities (each class gets its single-use skill; the AI uses them too), or Classic Chess (see Classic Chess).
• Difficulty: set per side when the AI plays that side. Recruit, Soldier, Veteran, Commander; Grand Marshal for Classic Chess only.
• Board rotation, faction colours, hit-effect style and the other cosmetics are free and remembered.

Winning #

Checkmate; eliminating every enemy escort, which captures the commander; or the opponent running out of legal orders. Threefold repetition and a 100-ply quiet limit draw the match. The result banner offers a rematch or the menu.

Castling and promotion #

Both wings castle under the usual chess conditions: neither piece has moved, the squares between are empty, and the commander does not pass through or land on a threatened square. Threat here includes fire. A pawn reaching the far rank promotes to a queen, rook, bishop or knight.

Online match #

One player creates a room and reads out six letters; the other types them in. The host plays Light and chooses the ruleset. The match starts the moment the second seat is taken.

No accounts, no lobbies, no matchmaking, no profiles, and nothing about a match is stored anywhere: the room is a relay that forgets you the moment you leave. Both boards are built from the same seed, every move carries a checksum of the board it was played from, and if the boards ever disagree the game says so and offers a resync or a rematch. Opponents see each other's callsign. Rematches happen in the same room with the same seats.

Difficulty tiers #

The tactical AI is a bounded expectiminimax with separate decision and combat randomness. It plays fire, reload, melee, skills and supplies, recognises commander capture and checkmate, and shows its search depth in the HUD.