About Chaturaji / 4p-Chaturanga

1. I do really like to play Chaturaji on Chess-dot-com, the name just means "4 Kings". I like this game better than the  4-Player Chess on that gigantic cross board.

2. This is not the original, truly ancient, Chaturaji. That used dice and had Elephants moving like Rooks (in place of Bishops) and Boats on the 4 corners moving like Shatranj Alfils.

Well, I have finally tried the ancient Chaturaji with oblong dice:

https://www.ajedrezeureka.com/chaturaji (this is 1v1 both owning 2 colours).

It's just a game for kids (or drunk adults) with no much skill involved, still funny to try by the way.

....

Another historic 4-player version - that uses the ancient movements of the pieces and was playable without dice - is the Acedrex de los quatros tiempos = '4-season Chess'. Each player owning: King, Rook, Horse, Elephant and 2 pairs of pawns, oriented on 2 different directions.

but.....but u r not Indian. How did u know it??

I read things related to traditional Chess-like games and Chess history. The long range diagonal move of the Elephant (nowadays called Bishop in English) is a clear mark of a modern variant. For 'modern' I mean around 1700-1800 AD, hard to tell exactly when the new movements have been adopted in every place of Earth.

Swapping the move of the Elephant with that of the Rook/Boat is probably something ancient (typical of India), but it is not entirely clear to me when and why that happened.

I'd like to talk more with Indians about that and know if Chaturaji is still played nowadays, and with which rules. This version of Chess-dot-com seems made-up to me, because I've never heard about these rules. Still great to play, but this is apart.

Another interesting version (Russian video):

Relevant discussion on the starting position:

https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/chaturaji-history-and-modernity 

Why is the Bishop worth 5 points? I cannot understand that. 3 points are enough, maybe give 5 to the King, so reducing the strategic suicides.

I will never play this type of chess again . It s not normal when sometimes you can't click on the field where beaten pieces are shown

Yes, unfortunately it happened to me too! It's because Chess.com variants are not supported on the phone app.

What you can do is to zoom-in greatly and you will be able to select the piece in the corner. Either that or you play it on a device with a larger screen.