What's Battleships?
The game Battleship (aka Battleships) is a guessing game played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pad and pencil game and predates World War I. It was invented by Clifford Von Wickler in the early 1900s, but he never patented the game thus in 1931 it was soon published by Milton Bradley Company (makers of 'scrabble', and now owned by boardgame giant Hasbro) as the pad-and-pencil game (popular like tic tac toe and hangman) before making it the boardgame in 1967.
Play NOW!
Here's the best free online game I could find:
How To Play
Setup:
The board game is played on four grids, two for each player. The grids are typically square (usually 10 × 10) with the individual squares in the grid identifiable by letter and number. On one grid the player arranges ships and records the shots by the opponent. On the other grid the player records his own shots.
Before play begins, each player arranges a number of ships secretly on the grid for that player. Each ship occupies a number of consecutive squares on the grid, arranged either horizontally or vertically. The number of squares for each ship is determined by the type of the ship. The ships cannot overlap thus at most one ship can occupy any given square in the grid. The types and numbers of ships allowed are the same for each player though rules may vary depending on the version.
The below chart shows the 5 different types of ships that are generally used:
|
Gameplay
After the ships have been positioned, each opponent takes it in turn to call a shot. There are a number of variations on how to play, but the most common gameplay is this:
A player's turn consists of announcing a target square in the opponents' grid which is to be shot at. If a ship occupies the square, then it takes a hit. The player's opponent announces whether or not the shot hit one of his or her ships and then takes a turn. When all of the squares of a ship have been hit, the ship is sunk. Once all of a player's ships have been sunk, the game ends and the other player wins.
For the 'Salvo' variation, each player may take as many shots in one turn as he has ships remaining in play. The starting player announces all five shots, then his opponent announces which are hits. Each player has as many shots as he or she has vessels afloat in each turn. Thus each time a player's ship is entirely destroyed, that player has one fewer shot on all subsequent turns.
House Rule
A rule not usually written down in the rules of any game of Battleship, but a rule that is sometimes played (much like the free parking bonus on monopoly) is to tell your opponent once they have sunk a complete ship. For example, if your opponent hits your boat on A1, then again on A2, if this was your patrol boat (2 squares) then you would say 'patrol boat destroyed' rather than letting the opponent work it out by continuing to A3.
Whether or not you choose to apply this rule changes tactics slightly, as by applying this rule you could place your boats closer together in the hope that after you revealed to your opponent that they had found one of your ships, they would 'bomb' a different area. The game attached in this post does NOT apply this rule, making it trickier when the computer strategically places boats together in the hope you have found for example, the submarine, when in fact it's the patrol boat and part of another ship placed at a right angle to a end of the submarine.
For the 'Salvo' variation, each player may take as many shots in one turn as he has ships remaining in play. The starting player announces all five shots, then his opponent announces which are hits. Each player has as many shots as he or she has vessels afloat in each turn. Thus each time a player's ship is entirely destroyed, that player has one fewer shot on all subsequent turns.
House Rule
A rule not usually written down in the rules of any game of Battleship, but a rule that is sometimes played (much like the free parking bonus on monopoly) is to tell your opponent once they have sunk a complete ship. For example, if your opponent hits your boat on A1, then again on A2, if this was your patrol boat (2 squares) then you would say 'patrol boat destroyed' rather than letting the opponent work it out by continuing to A3.
Whether or not you choose to apply this rule changes tactics slightly, as by applying this rule you could place your boats closer together in the hope that after you revealed to your opponent that they had found one of your ships, they would 'bomb' a different area. The game attached in this post does NOT apply this rule, making it trickier when the computer strategically places boats together in the hope you have found for example, the submarine, when in fact it's the patrol boat and part of another ship placed at a right angle to a end of the submarine.
Tactics!
Don't Live Life On The Edge
Placing your ships along an edge reduces the number of squares your opponent needs to visit in determining the orientation of your ship. For example; if your Aircraft Carrier is placed from A2 to A7, and your opponent scores a lucky hit with A5, then they only need to test three squares to check in which direction the craft is oriented - A6 (hit), B5 (miss) and A4 (hit).
Be British, Shake Hands...But Don't Go In For The Kiss
It's sometimes a good tactic to keep all your ships together, but never let them touch! Diagonally is fine, but touching horizontally or vertically will generally get in you trouble once one of the ships has been found, as accidentally all of them could be found. Even if you're using the house rule (see above) statistically touching will reduce not increase your chances.
Hop, Skip, Jump
Starting from an edge, fire shots in a diagonal line, skipping every 3 squares. When you get to the other edge of the board, do the same along one of the opposite diagonals. This will maximize the probability of detecting a ship in a relatively short space of time due to limiting the amount of 'hiding spots' the bigger ships can occupy. You must also maximize your chances by keeping track of the ships sunk. For example, if the 5-unit craft is still out there, then you can afford to skip every 4 cells, but if all you're looking for is the submarine, then reduce the skip count to 2.
The yellow spots left, show how you can cover the board to find the Aircraft Carrier (5) and Battleship (4) in the least possible moves, whilst the red spots illustrate how to find (if you hadn't already) the Submarine (3) and Destroyer (3). Hopefully by this point, you've already found the Patrol Boat (2), if not...good luck! Note this is my method, but if you find you can make a better pattern in less dots (38) please get in touch!
Some people implementing this method skip every other cell to make sure they don't miss the sneaky patrol boat or every 4 squares to find the large aircraft carrier first, then tune it down to every 3 squares and so on. However I've found using the 3 skip rule is a good middle ground for finding the two large ships quickly, whilst not ruling out your chances of finding the three smaller crafts.
Spot the dots
Seems obvious but you must try to spot where you could bomb to work out where ships are lurking, in the least number of cells possible. See below:
In this example all of the ships have been found except one of the '3 pointers' such as the submarine. In the first, yellow, example the player focuses on one area, marked in black and uses up 7 turns to find there is nothing hiding there. The second, green example however shows that with a bit more careful planning you could use just 5 turns to find this out. Every turn counts so don't 'blow' it (ha-ha!).
Never Eat Shredded Wheat
So you've scored your first hit on your opponents ship. You must then probe by fire to the North, East, South, West to work out where the ship is, though not necessary in that order. In fact it would be wise to change your order (try 'not safe, epileptic whales') so your human opponent does not work out a pattern against you - yes people, like me, would notice this if you were to play again! Diagonals are not worth probing, because ships can only be placed horizontally and vertically. This may all seem obvious, but it is surprising how often players neglect the simpler strategies and waste turns. Be wary, once you have happily assumed you've found a whole ship, check the ends are not part of another ship touching, of course, if the player is following my rules, they wouldn't do this!
Sources
www.retrothing.com/2007/04/an_armada_of_ba.html
www.toplessrobot.com/2009/08/8_classic_board_games_that_destroy_friendships.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game)
www.squidoo.com/battleships
Placing your ships along an edge reduces the number of squares your opponent needs to visit in determining the orientation of your ship. For example; if your Aircraft Carrier is placed from A2 to A7, and your opponent scores a lucky hit with A5, then they only need to test three squares to check in which direction the craft is oriented - A6 (hit), B5 (miss) and A4 (hit).
Be British, Shake Hands...But Don't Go In For The Kiss
It's sometimes a good tactic to keep all your ships together, but never let them touch! Diagonally is fine, but touching horizontally or vertically will generally get in you trouble once one of the ships has been found, as accidentally all of them could be found. Even if you're using the house rule (see above) statistically touching will reduce not increase your chances.
Hop, Skip, Jump
Starting from an edge, fire shots in a diagonal line, skipping every 3 squares. When you get to the other edge of the board, do the same along one of the opposite diagonals. This will maximize the probability of detecting a ship in a relatively short space of time due to limiting the amount of 'hiding spots' the bigger ships can occupy. You must also maximize your chances by keeping track of the ships sunk. For example, if the 5-unit craft is still out there, then you can afford to skip every 4 cells, but if all you're looking for is the submarine, then reduce the skip count to 2.
Some people implementing this method skip every other cell to make sure they don't miss the sneaky patrol boat or every 4 squares to find the large aircraft carrier first, then tune it down to every 3 squares and so on. However I've found using the 3 skip rule is a good middle ground for finding the two large ships quickly, whilst not ruling out your chances of finding the three smaller crafts.
Spot the dots
Seems obvious but you must try to spot where you could bomb to work out where ships are lurking, in the least number of cells possible. See below:
Never Eat Shredded Wheat
So you've scored your first hit on your opponents ship. You must then probe by fire to the North, East, South, West to work out where the ship is, though not necessary in that order. In fact it would be wise to change your order (try 'not safe, epileptic whales') so your human opponent does not work out a pattern against you - yes people, like me, would notice this if you were to play again! Diagonals are not worth probing, because ships can only be placed horizontally and vertically. This may all seem obvious, but it is surprising how often players neglect the simpler strategies and waste turns. Be wary, once you have happily assumed you've found a whole ship, check the ends are not part of another ship touching, of course, if the player is following my rules, they wouldn't do this!
Sources
www.retrothing.com/2007/04/an_armada_of_ba.html
www.toplessrobot.com/2009/08/8_classic_board_games_that_destroy_friendships.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game)
www.squidoo.com/battleships
No comments:
Post a Comment