Chess · with tricks up your sleeve
Real chess, plus three secret stratagems each — Hannibal's Alps crossing, the Trojan Horse, Scipio's counter-intelligence. Every card is a real trick from military history. Know all twelve; never know which three your enemy holds.
Know the whole pool — that is the game
Both players pick three in secret. Everyone knows all twelve cards, so any piece left standing where it can be taken might be a trap, and any long march might be walking into an ambush. The fear does the work even when the card was never picked.
Movement reference — worked out live
Pick a piece, then tap any square to stand it there. Every amber dot is worked out by the same rules the real board uses, so what you see here is exactly what the game will let you do. Add blockers to see what gets in the way.
Before the battle
Rome's discipline
You command
Hands
Expansions — any combination works; all off = pure chess
Draft — in secret
🛡
No peeking at the other hand.
Material even
Tap a bogged-down piece, a fog tile, a wall or a ford to hear what it is.
After the battle — the reveal
Checkmate!
Both hands, and every trap — sprung or still waiting. Rome learned from Cannae between battles. So do we.
Make sure only White is looking at the screen.
An armed trap asks you before it springs — you decide. Played cards are public.
Pick one of YOUR fallen men to ask back, and one of THEIRS to let go. Each one goes home to an empty starting square. Just asking costs your move — even if they say no.
You ask back
You release
Accepting returns both pieces to empty home squares. Refusing spends the offer anyway — their turn is lost either way.
Choose what it becomes.