Ibn Khaldun famously observed that asabiya (social cohesion) explains the arc of history, and Peter Turchin has done a marvelous job of showing how modern statistical analysis supports this view. Peoples caught at the focal points of conflict develop strong social bonds that eventually propel them to dominance, but dominance and the associated lack of threats erodes cohesion, and over time these groups are replaced by new groups forged in the cauldron of conflict.
The game of chess does a great job of modeling conflict. No other game captures the way circumstance (the juxtaposition of pieces on the board) can create positions of great power and then wipe them away in the blink of an eye.
But while individual chess players learn over time from playing the game, improving as their strategies are tested under conflict, the rules of the game themselves do not take asabiya into account.
One small tweak that would take the game in the right direction would be to upgrade pieces based on the amount of pressure to which they are subject from other pieces on the board. In particular, I would suggest that any piece that could be taken by any one of more than three other opposing pieces on the following move be automatically upgraded one level in value.
So, for example, if white’s pawn could be captured on the next move by black’s bishop, rook, pawn, and queen, then white’s pawn could be replaced with a knight or bishop (the two pieces traditionally considered to be immediately higher in value relative to pawns). If the piece subject to attack from those four pieces is a bishop, then white could substitute a rook for the bishop, because the rook is the next level up in power relative to the bishop, and so on.
The idea behind this substitution rule would be to model the way subjecting a particular group to pressure and conflict–placing it at the center of battle–makes the group stronger. The rule might also help solve the problem of boredom in modern chess, by discouraging the buildup of pressure on particular pieces and encouraging capturing and sacrifices for positional advantage, a la the 19th century era of romantic chess.
There are admittedly some shortcoming to this rule as a step toward modeling asabiya. For one thing, the rule doesn’t really strengthen cohesion between the pieces, unless you think of more powerful pieces as being better able to coordinate with others because more powerful pieces have more freedom of movement under chess rules. The rule seems more to model increases in individual strength. But the rule does do a good job of modeling the power-increasing character of nexuses of conflict.
Perhaps a better rule from the standpoint of modeling asabiya would be to allow any piece subject to attacks from four or more adversaries to swap positions with any laterally or diagonally adjacent piece, as a reflection of the way people in proximity to each other work together to repel threats. But that is too complex to be a good rule for chess.