Chess compared with its relatives

I've been getting into the other board games descended from the Indian game lately like Xiangqi (Chinese) Shogi (Japanese) and Makruk (Thai).  All three have their interesting aspects and differ significantly from Western chess.  One thing I have felt, partcularly with the Chinese and Japanese forms is that the pieces do not feel as co-ordinated as they do in western chess.  This is emphasised by the fact that the pawns capture forwards and therefore cannot defend eachother - so you don't get the sense that pawns are worth more than the sum of their parts like you do in western chess.  Makruk feels more like a complex endgame since its similar to chess but with underpowered pieces.

I was wondering if my feelings about these games are due to inexperience or if people who have more experience with more than one of these games feels similarly.

Pawns just serve a different function in these games. In Chess they are used to build a protective wall. In Xiangqi they are totally useless for that, and their function is to storm the enemy Palace, to trade away the Palace Guards and Elephants. Shogi is hard to compare, because of the drops. I guess the most important function of Pawns there is to occupy space in order to prevent the opponent from dropping material there. (And of course to drop and promote them behind enemy lines, to trade for stronger pieces.) Protective walls do not offer much protection in Shogi, as you just drop material behind them.

To judge how the Asian Pawn would function in a closed rank in absence of drops, one should look at Chu Shogi (the ancient Japanese 12x12 game). There one does use the Pawns in protective walls, but in combination with the lighter generals (like Copper) directly behind them, protecting 3 Pawns.

Interesting insights thanks!  Yeah I find especially in Xiangqi the army feels alot more vulnerable to early attacks in the starting position, it has alot more weaknesses that the standard chess army which really only has one (f2/f7) and none after castling.  You almost need to think about it like an open, tactical middlegame position from standard chess rather than the opening position.  Since in Shogi you have a full pawn wall, that as you say can be supported by the generals this aspect isn't as much of an issue, although the drops can completely undermine any defensive setup.  I think perhaps I'm not helped by the fact that in standard chess I like quiet positions and avoiding structural weaknesses, you can't really adopt this approach in Xiangqi it seems to me you more or less have to play dynamically.  For all of these reasons I find Makruk the most appealing although it seems kind of drawish.

I checked out chu shogi, looks incredible although I'm not sure I have time to learn it at the moment when I'm still trying to improve at chess, go, xiangqi and shogi all in my spare time lol.

Ilike Makruk, thai chess  is close to international chess,  the differences:   The start position  pawn one step more , no castle, Bishop move and eat  one square forward and diagonal to anyside,  the queen is no power only move  and eat diagonal to any side , the pawn  converts to queen in 6t line,  the rule to draw are more complex  add these: if you dont checkmat (the king alone no pawns) if you have two rook in  8 moves minus the pieces is draw, add other rules for other pieces. IS MORE POSITIONAL with a bit of tactics.

I quite like some of the foreign relatives. The Xiangqi canon is a great piece that opens up tactics and possibilities that couldn't exist in International Chess. They combine nicely with the horses where they can be a platform, or move to another angle for pincer attacks. That and the canon can turn a single shield piece into a liability. 

 From playing the other variants lately, I now wish that the Pawns in International Chess started in the forward rank like they do in the others. Everything seems faster than using the double-move.

Even I have started playing many variants of chess, shogi, makruk etc. on this website called pychess.org. It has some of the popular chess relatives along with their variants.

Yes, this is 6 yrs later.