While the world of Sovereign Chess still pits the White kingdom against Black, now there are armies of ten other colors populating the board. A fundamental strategy of the game is to control these armies by landing on a square matching their color.
As long as a player occupies a square of color, that player may move the pieces of that color. If the player moves off of the color square, they relinquish control, and if their piece is captured by the opponent, that opponent immediately controls those same pieces. Thus, a "neutral" piece may change allegiances, or be rendered neutral, many times during a game.
Once Rule #11 is understood, anybody looking at a Sovereign Chess board should be able to immediately tell which pieces are being controlled by which player. Consider Figure 17 below:
Figure 17: Typical Sovereign Chess Board Position
The two kings represent the two players, White and Black. White has pawns on Navy and Pink, and are controlling those pieces. There is also a Pink pawn on Cyan, so White is also controlling the Cyan pieces.
Black has a pawn on Red, and a Red pawn on Green, so Black controls the Red and Green pieces. However, while a Black bishop is on a White square, Black does not control the White pieces, as White is sovereign over their army. [There are other advantages to Black occupying the White square, however, which will be explored in future rules.]
Figure 18 has a slightly more advanced game position:
Figure 18: White versus Green
In this position, the two kings are White and Green, which means that some time during the game, Black defected to Green. That player controls the Green pieces, as well as Red and Black, as there are Green pieces on the Red and Black squares. White has a pawn on Navy and a queen on Orange. Furthermore, there is an Orange bishop on Violet, a Violet queen on Pink, and a Pink queen on Yellow. Thus, White controls the Navy, Orange, Violet, Pink, and Yellow pieces.
Players often look at the White queen as vital here, as it establishes a chain of control for four other colors. If the Green player were able to capture the White queen on that square, Green would immediately control all of the pieces of those four colors.
Capturing is obviously vital in chess, but not all pieces can be captured. This is outlined in Rule #12...