Bharata 600 BC

Each player rules one of the Mahajanapadas, the great kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent around 600 BC. You start with a capital city guarded by a fort, two armies, and markers on your player board that track your victory points and your stocks of iron, wood and food.

A turn starts with a resource card that gives every player some supplies. You can then sell goods for coins, sell trade goods if you hold a port, and buy army cards. After that you take two free actions, and can pay a coin for each extra one: march an army into a neighbouring region, take over a region, collect a region's resources, or attack a rival.

Battles use no dice. The attacker and the defender each secretly commit army cards from the army involved and reveal them together, and the defender adds the strength printed on the region. The higher total wins the region and whatever it holds. An army that loses all its cards is removed and comes back at its capital.

The first player to reach 20 victory points wins, or 25 in a two-player game. Points come from conquering regions and from completing victory-point goals. The Advanced version adds event cards that place floods, disease and riots on the map, hidden tokens to uncover and special ability cards, which makes games longer and less predictable.

The box is big: more than 550 components, including 64 wooden pieces hand-made by Channapatna craftspeople and coloured with natural dyes, a large illustrated map of ancient India, and separate components for the Basic and Advanced versions.

Bharata 600 BC is designed, published and manufactured in India, so there is no imported version to compare. The publisher sells it on its own site, goindiagames.com, at ₹4,390 (MRP ₹5,900); it was in stock on 5 Oct 2026, with delivery in 2 to 5 working days and returns accepted within 2 days of delivery. On Flipkart the seller is GoIndia Games itself (₹4,393, in stock), and it is also sold on Amazon.in. The price was much the same across stores.

There is one edition, the GoIndia Games box, which contains both the Basic and Advanced versions with their own components. It earns the made-in-india tag twice over: it was designed by an Indian publisher (GoIndia Games, Bengaluru), and the publisher states that all its products are 100% made in India, with original Channapatna wooden pieces. No expansions were found. GoIndia's second game, Nayakas, is a separate worker-placement game for 2 to 4 players set in medieval South India, listed at ₹3,952 (MRP ₹5,200) on the publisher's store. It is also sold on Amazon.in.