Recently, Four-Player Chaturanga and its variants, especially ZM Machiavellian Quadchess, have become very popular at the Oak Park Chess Club. Wanting a little more variety, we spent some time experimenting with different pieces and abilities, and finally designed European Chess, a variant of ZM Quadchess in which every game is completely different, due to the fact that each player chooses one of 50+ different armies, each with a different starting position and a different special ability that can affect the course of the game. What you see here is the result of a year and a half of playtesting and fine-tuning, of inspiration and perspiration - European Chess, version 1.0.
Thanks to Ed Friedlander for this excellent Java applet. Note that the rules of the applet are based on an older version of European Chess, and so may be slightly different from what is recorded here. The nations in this applet consist of all of the nations in version 0.5.2, as well as many nations from design competitions.