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The Sultan and his Harem vs. The Crusader's Army

I'm proposing a new chess variant. (Maybe it's been tried before, somewhere, sometime, but maybe not.)

On the white side we have the normal setup.

On the black side we have the king and 5 QUEENS! We can put the king in his usual spot, three queens on his usual queen's side, and two queens on the other side.

Using the usual evaluations of the pieces, the white army totals 39, including their queen.

The Sultan and his harem will total 45. That seems like a big advantage, but I think that the Sultan is at a disadvantage, because almost all trades will benefit white. If it turns out that the Sultan usually wins, then we can give him only 4 queens.

If anyone tries this, let us know what happens!

I'm willing to play, but I don't know how to set up a custom Lichess board.

That is a serious problem! ? Wait - Black is supposed to have the 5 queens! If white has the first move, can he prevent that forced mate? If not, then we should use only 4 queens. (or can 4 also do a quick mate against white?)
The game is non-trivial if the Crusaders move first, as they are supposed to. The Crusader army is supposed to be white. As I originally described the game, the Sultan and his 5 queens are black.

I determined this by using the editor and Stockfish. If the Sultan side moves first, they win quickly, as iBishop has told us. But if the crusaders move first, they bring a knight out, foiling the quick mate.

I let Stockfish move the pieces, and the game was not determined by 30 moves.
I'm glad I have piqued your interest!

By "black" do you mean the Sultan & queens?

I just tried the spacebarring; it got past 50 moves with no conclusion yet. My Stockfish is taking several seconds to think, and going to a considerable depth.
With 4 queens only, white (the pieces side) is winning by force.
the forced mate thing is a problem but you're onto something.

if you want to experiment with the board and maybe incorporate some of the feedback check do the following:

go to the top left of the screen
PLAY
LEARN
WATCH
COMMUNITY
TOOLS

select tools --> Board Editor

have fun

you can create a study from the board editor page and invite people to the study or you can play from the position and do whatever you want. very cool.
Thanks, Glicko. I have been doing that. I have found that the game does not have a trivial solution, as long as the Crusader side is white, and has the first move. The five queens must be black, so that they don't move first.

It's likely that one side has an advantage, but I don't think that it's easily determined, and would depend on the skill level of the two human player.

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