Single Comment

i have noticed, if you click on 'Recognized Chess Variants' on this page,
it takes you to a page where all the variants have a picture, and are
described etc etc.
now, with the game 'chaturanga for 4 players' there is this comment.

'Two player variants would be, in this theory, formed by unifying two
armies, replacing the second king by a different piece.'

i don't know who wrote this, but i don't think they have ever played the
game. First of all, this completely destroys the 'doublemate' game. It is
perfectly playable with 1 player taking 2 sides, and the other player
taking 2 sides, with all kings in the game. 
It would stop the fun of having one army mated, and that
player fighting to release from mate with their other army.
Secondly, how are you going to make it balanced, where are you going to
put exactly, the kings, you will have a 'king army' attacking a
'non-king' army and 'non-king' army attacking 'king-army' for one
player, (or whatever) while the 2nd player won't have the same.
it is a natural way of the game, that 'red' and 'yellow' are against
'black' and 'green', with red in bottom left hand corner, and red
moving first, game going clockwise. red naturally attacks black, (of
course can attack green, but the way the pieces are set, it is easier and
natural to attack black, mainly because of the pawns) black natural
attacks yellow, yellow attacks green and green attacks red, so this makes
the problem of just making 2 kings.
i think it must be total speculation, to say remove a king per side and
add another piece, i have played the game, with one vs one, each taking 2
sides, it plays perfectly. I have never seen anywhere written this idea.
it comes from a conditioned mind that chess is 1 vs 1, 1 king per side.
oh and btw, red should be lower left corner, yellow is top right.