Four is the full table in a ludo game, and it is the version most people picture: four colours, four corners, one noisy centre. With four players the game is at its liveliest, but it also asks for a little organisation. Who sits where? Who goes first? How do you keep four people happy for an hour? Here is what I have learned from building a table for two to four.
How are the seats arranged?
The ludo rules treat every seat alike. Each player owns one corner and one colour of the ludo board. The track is shared, so the corners matter only as starting points. A player enters the track at their own entry square, thirteen squares after the previous colour. Because the entries are evenly spaced, no corner is closer to the action than another.
That is useful to know if someone says their colour is unlucky. It is not. The difference is only in whom you meet first.
Who goes first?
Turn order moves around the table in a fixed direction. The first player gets a slight head start, because they throw their first six sooner, but the effect is small compared with the luck of the die. A simple fix is to let the youngest or the last winner start.
Over several games, rotate the starting seat so that nobody always goes first or last.
What changes with four players?
More contact. Three rivals share the track, so a piece is more often within six squares of an enemy. A piece one to six squares ahead of an enemy is hit with chance one in six per throw, and with three enemies around, the risks add up.
Longer waits. You throw once for every three throws of the others, so patience matters.
More alliances. Temporary deals, spoken or not, make the game richer. Players tend to gang up on the leader.
A longer game. Expect thirty to sixty minutes.
How do you keep everyone engaged?
The main danger is waiting. When it is not your turn, you have nothing to do. Some ways to help:
1. Ask spectators and waiting players to call out threats.
2. Keep the pace brisk. The thirty-second clock caps the delay.
3. Make jokes. A game of Ludo is as much talk as dice.
4. Let eliminated or finished players stay involved, perhaps as referees.
What do you do about the leader?
In a four-player game, the player who gets a piece home first is often not the winner. The others will chase them, and a few captures can reverse the order. If you are the leader, spread your pieces; if you are behind, use the safe squares to wait for a chance.
What about the finish?
The first to bring all four pieces home wins, and the others keep playing for second and third. In a four-player game this can drag. Agree in advance whether you will play for all places or stop when the winner is known.
Where can four people play?
A table for four is easy to set up at playboardit.com, a free site I build. It is a multiplayer ludo online game for two to four players, with the rules applied by the table, and four friends in different places can all play ludo with friends over a call. Nobody needs to download anything.
A seating tip for video calls
Put the four players side by side on the call screen in the same order as the colours on the board. It sounds trivial, but it helps people tell whose piece is whose without looking away from faces.
The wider lesson
Four-player Ludo is a small lesson in group dynamics: alliances form, fortunes change and a friendly game stays friendly if the group agrees on its manners.
Ahmed Moaz builds Boardit, a free browser game site.