How to Change Your Board and Pieces

Nine piece sets

International draws each piece as a picture of what it is, so you can play without reading Chinese. Traditional and Simplified write the piece’s Chinese character, in the traditional or the simplified form. The next five are art sets in traditional styles: Lacquer, Wood, Book, Brush and Clerical. Animal Dobutsu, the last, swaps in cartoon animals. Every set works in xiangqi, jieqi and banqi, flat or in 3D.

Pieces can be flat or 3D

Flat pieces are the default: a disc with the piece drawn on it. In 3D each piece gets a rim, so it stands on the board like a wooden piece on a table. Once 3D is on, the Edge choice appears beside it. Standard is a shallow rim, and Thick makes it half again as deep while the piece keeps its size on the board.

The same look reaches the hidden-piece games. In jieqi the face-down pieces stand in 3D with the rest, and in banqi and Flip Jungle so does every tile.

The xiangqi board can be lined, or a square grid like chess

The lined board is the traditional one. Pieces sit on the points where the lines cross, the palaces have their diagonals, and the river runs across the middle. The square grid puts each piece inside a square, the way a chessboard does, with light and dark squares, the river as a blue band and each palace as a shaded block. The rules are the same on both.

If you come to xiangqi from chess, try the square grid first. The pieces sit in squares on a checkered board, so a move looks the way you already picture one, and the lined board is one setting away when you want it. Both boards work with flat and 3D pieces. Board color offers the same woods and paper on both, and the green Jungle color only on the square grid.

Pieces glide and turn over

When you step through a game in a review, a study or a replay, each move slides from its square to the next, so you can follow it without hunting for what changed. A hidden piece turns over when it is revealed, in banqi, jieqi and Flip Jungle. A 3D piece spins over on its edge like a real one. A flat piece narrows to a thin line and widens again showing its other face.

Press the forward arrow under each board to see it. The first move in the banqi game flips a tile where it lies. In jieqi a face-down piece moves and turns over as it lands. Both boards are shown in 3D whatever your own setting is.

Speed, under Pieces, sets how fast all of this runs: Fast, Normal or Slow. Off moves pieces straight to their squares and reveals a piece without the turn. If your device is set to reduce motion, Mistboard skips the motion too.

The river can name Chu and Han

Printed xiangqi boards often write four characters in the river: 楚河 (chǔ hé, "Chu river") on one side and 漢界 (hàn jiè, "Han border") on the other. They name the border between Chu and Han, the two states that fought for China after the Qin dynasty fell, from 206 to 202 BC. In 203 BC Xiang Yu of Chu and Liu Bang of Han agreed to split the country along the Hong Canal; the truce broke within months, Liu Bang won the next year, and he founded the Han dynasty. The river on the board stands for that line. River text has three choices. 楚河 漢界 draws the characters, one pair on each half of the river, each pair facing the player on its side. Off leaves the river blank. Mistboard writes the site name.

River text starts Off, or with 楚河 漢界 on for players who read Chinese. It is a lined-board setting, so the square grid leaves its river band blank.

Start markers show where the cannons and soldiers began

The small crosses on a printed xiangqi board are start marks: corner brackets on the points where each side’s two cannons and five soldiers begin, so the pieces can be set out without a diagram. Mistboard draws them too. At the start of a game the pieces cover them, so they show only once a cannon or soldier has moved. Start markers, on the Board page, turns them off.

Everything is in Settings

Signed out, open the gear in the top bar. Signed in, open your account menu. Board and Pieces are rows in that menu, and each opens its own page of choices. A change applies to the boards you play and review on.