Chinese Chess Soul 6.1.1

ScreenShot

Features

• Play against the computer or a friend.
• Huge Open Book including tens of thousands of GM's openings and lots of Chinese Chess Books Inside.
• Create your own opening book.
• Beatify UI, easy using, some shortcut keys and menus to help you find any functions you want;
• Demo function: computer plays with himself.
• A basic rule system can (optionally) keep plugins from perpetually checking and chasing.
• Watch two AI engines play against each other. You can set up an "Engine Battle" to watch them duke it out over multiple games, alternating colors each game, and saving all games to a file for later analysis.
• Get context-specific help on the program and on the basic rules of Chinese Chess from the extensive built-in help manual.
• Display the game's moves in WXF or ICCS notation. When the game is over, each move of the game can be reviewed. The games can be saved in WXF file format.

Gameplay and Strategy

• Chinese Chess is a fast game for several reasons. First, the barrier of pawns is reduced dramatically. Second, the cannons jump to capture, making them a long-range threat early in the game. In addition, since the general is confined to only moving within the palace, it can be checkmated more easily unless it is protected by other pieces.
• Because of the size of the board and the relative low number of long-range pieces, it may take time to move one's army of pieces from place to place on the board, and there is a tendency for the battle to focus on a particular area of the board. Common strategies used in Western chess such as forking with horse and pinning with chariot (sometimes the cannon and general can also pin) are also applicable in Chinese Chess.
• Usually, the soldiers do not support each other unless the player has no better move. This is because from the initial position, it takes a minimum of 5 moves of a soldier to allow twin soldiers to protect each other.
• Defensively, a common configuration is to leave the general at his or her starting position, deploy one advisor and one elephant on the two points directly in front of the general, and to leave the other advisor and the other elephant in their starting positions, to the side of the general. In this setup, the paired-up advisors and elephants support each other, and the general is immune from attacks by cannons. However, with the loss of a single advisor or elephant, the general becomes vulnerable to cannons, and this setup may need to be abandoned. The defender may move advisors or elephants away from the general, or even sacrifice them intentionally, to ward off attack by a cannon.
• The two chariots are not normally lined up together as they are the most powerful piece and in doing so, a player risks the chances of losing at least one chariot to an inferior piece of the enemy. Depending on the situation, it may be advantageous to position a chariot at one of the corners of the enemy's side of the board, where it is very difficult to dislodge, and threatens the enemy general.
• It is common to use the cannons independently to control particular ranks and files. Using a cannon to control the middle file is often considered vital strategy, because it helps to lock certain pieces such as the advisors and elephants in certain positions to prevent a check. The two files adjacent to the middle rank are also considered important and knights and chariots can be used to push for mate here. In addition, the cannons can also be used one in front of one another in the centre line, therefore checkmating the general/marshall in almost all scenarios, as the front cannon ensures that nothing can block, and the rear ensuring that if the front cannon is taken, the general/marshall is still check, and therefore resulting in checkmate. Unfortunately, there are ways to block this tactic, but there is less chance that the opponent can block this manoeuvre in time.