Maharaja is a game of great atmosphere, and for about 3/4 of it, great execution. There are a few problems that need fixing, especially relating to invasions. To wit:

When a nation invades from one of the border territories (Afghanistan, China, and the like), they are forced (by the rules) to enter the game map from that territory. Often, there are only 1 or 2 places they can enter the map. So it's relatively easy to stack up some units in those territories and make the invaders attack at completely ruinous odds. So that has to be dealt with, usually by allowing the invaders one land move into another of the outside territories before entering the mapboard.

Also, the yellow player is seriously hurt in turns [(going from memory here)] 8 and 9. He has to remove 8 armies in each of the turns. This basically cripples him, and he only has one other lousy nation and then the Dutch much later in the game, who are also fairly lousy. It's impossible for yellow to score enough points with his 2 big early nations (The Mauryans and the Guptas) to stand a chance. Rick Heli's variation (www.spotlightongames.com) does compensate for this, but it introduces many more nations, a lot more complexity, and I’m guessing a ton more time. Far better is the rule (somewhere on the internet[, possibly on grognard]) that allows yellow to keep his nations on the board by forgoing them from his replacement pile at a cost of 2 to 1. This keeps yellow's major nation (the Guptas) in the game longer and gives him a chance (and something to do) for the rest of the game.

The last 1/4 of the game is not at all suited to solitaire play, because playing the various colonial nations is simply too hard to do by oneself. They are allowed to give "arms" (which act like leaders) to any nation they choose, and alliances can be forged rather freely. It gets very complicated and requires quite a lot of schizophrenia to play all sides by oneself. That being said, I've never enjoyed a solitaire game as much as I've enjoyed the first 10 or 12 turns of Maharaja. I really like the atmosphere, and the artwork is really good.

I’ve heard the 3 player game is far more balanced, but then one or two of the teams sometimes run into problems with 2 nations that are on the same team vying for the same area(s).

Incidentally, Rick Heli’s site also has a "pre-gunpowder" version of Maharaja that downplays the influence of the colonial nations and front-loads more turns of the pre-European nations. This has not been completely playtested from what the website shows, so I'm not sure how well it will work. [Also seems to lengthen the game unduly.]

I think with 4 this game could be a blast, provided the problem with Yellow's chances can be fixed. I found it far superior to Rus', which, besides Britannia, is the other "Britannia-style" game I own. My advice: find 3 others and play with some tweaked rules for yellow and you'll have nearly (stress nearly) as much fun as at a game of Britannia.

Rick Heli devised a Maharaja variant which deals with many of the game's It's available at: http://www.spotlightongames.com/variant/maharaja/