I’ve purchased (for cheap, using a gift certificate 
) this game “Chaturanga”.
The rules can be found here under “Variant with Dice.”
Anyone played this? I’ve played three test games with myself as all four players, and I am afraid the dice make the game too wild. By this I mean, luck becomes too important due to the fact that the dice can lead to players lucking into radically, game-breakingly powerful moves. (Like moving the “elephant” (i.e. rook) twice in one turn.)
Has this been others’ experience, though?
I’m considering varying the rules. Of course, one way to go is just to play diceless. In fact, I ought to try this out several times just to see whether the game is, in fact, strategically interesting. (If its not interesting diceless, I doubt its interesting with dice. Maybe more “exciting” but not more interesting.)
But barring the diceless variant, I wonder what the best dicey variant would be.
One die instead of two dice rolled per turn? Gets rid of wild swings in board position due to luck, but also gets rid of a certain amount of flexibility–lots of practically forced moves, in other words.
I’m toying with constructing special “charge” moves when the same piece is rolled twice on a single turn. For example, the when you roll the Knight twice, he can move two times in the same direction, and may not capture on the first of these two moves. (By “same direction” I mean the long side of the rectangles constituting the two moves goes the same direction. So like, if the first move puts the Knight two ranks further forward, then the second move must put the Knight two more ranks further forward. If two ranks to the right after the first move, then next move goes two more ranks to the right. And so on.)
Pawn “charge” would be similar–moves two forward instead of one, and can capture on the second move though not the first.
Elephant “charge” would be like a trample move–it can move any number of spaces left, right, forward, or backward, and may capture a single piece anywhere during that move. So it can capture a piece, and then keep on moving in the same direction any number of spaces so long as it doesn’t capture another piece.
Not sure what I want to do with the King and the Ship. I’m thinking about adding some oomph to the ship by making its “charge” move more of a “bombardment” ability. This would mean that when both dice come up “ship,” you can use your ship to “capture” any piece adjacent to the ship. Probably, I would make this instead of moving, rather than in addition to moving.
The King’s “charge?” Maybe just two moves in a row, with only one capture allowed? Maybe the second move has to be in the same direction as the first?
Well anyway, has anyone played this game, and thought about the question of whether it is well designed?
-FrL-