How to play Amazons

Amazons is a territory game for two players. Each side has four amazons that move like chess queens, and after every move the amazon fires an arrow that permanently blocks a square. The board slowly fills with arrows, splitting into walled-off regions, and the player who runs out of moves first loses.

The game was invented by Walter Zamkauskas in Argentina in 1988. It has no luck and no hidden information, and it is famous for being simple to explain yet hard to master: every turn you are both moving and building walls, so you must think about space, not just pieces.

How to play on skill.games

• Start a game. The settings window opens first: choose a difficulty and a board size, then press PLAY.
• Make a move in three taps. Tap one of your amazons, and green dots show where it can go. Tap a destination and the amazon glides there at once; now the squares your arrow can reach light up and the board says SHOOT AN ARROW. Tap one of them to fire.
• Take it back. Before firing, you can tap the moved amazon again to return it to where it started and choose another move.
• Who moves first. Your amazons start at the bottom of the board, and you always make the first move.
• The score line at the top shows how many squares each side's amazons could move to right now.
• Pause. The menu button in the top-left corner pauses the game, with options to resume, start a new game or switch the sound off.
• Saving. Your game is saved after every move. If you leave mid-game, choose CONTINUE next time to pick up where you stopped.
• Results. The end screen shows who won and how many moves were played, plus your wins, losses, win rate and streaks for that board and difficulty.

Rules

Setup. Each player has four amazons. Yours stand near the bottom: two on the bottom row, and one on each side edge, a few rows up. The computer's four are placed the same way at the top, as a mirror image. Every other square starts empty.

A turn has two parts, and both are required.

1. Move an amazon. Choose one of your amazons and move it any number of squares in a straight line, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, exactly like a queen in chess. It may only pass over and land on empty squares: it cannot jump over amazons or arrows, and nothing is ever captured.
2. Shoot an arrow. From the square where it landed, the same amazon shoots an arrow. The arrow also travels like a queen, any distance in a straight line over empty squares, and lands on an empty square. The square the amazon just left counts as empty, so you may shoot straight back into it.

The arrow stays where it lands for the rest of the game. No amazon can move onto it or through it, and no arrow can fly over it.

Winning. If it is your turn and none of your amazons can move, you lose. Since every turn fills one more square, the board always runs out of room eventually, and Amazons never ends in a draw.

Strategy tips

• Think in territory. Late in the game the board breaks into separate rooms. What matters is how many squares each of your amazons can still use. The player with more room in their own areas will make the last move.
• Keep your amazons mobile. An amazon boxed in by arrows is nearly useless. Avoid edges and corners early, and get your amazons toward open space in the middle.
• Use your arrows as walls. The arrow is often the most important half of the move. Shoot it to cut an enemy amazon off from open space or to seal off a region for yourself.
• Trap, then ignore. If you can surround an enemy amazon with arrows so it has very few squares, you are effectively playing four against three.
• Do not share a room you cannot win. When one of your amazons and one of the computer's are in the same area, the fight for it can go either way. Before the board closes, make sure the regions you claim are ones only your amazons can reach.
• Save your quiet moves. Toward the end, fill your own small pockets last. Spend moves in shared areas first, while keeping private squares in reserve to outlast the opponent.
• Watch the score line. It shows instant mobility, not final territory, but a big drop in your number is a warning that your amazons are getting boxed in.

Difficulty levels

• Easy judges each move by itself, without considering your reply. About a third of its moves are random.
• Normal thinks the same way as Easy but makes far fewer random moves, so it claims space much more consistently.
• Hard also considers your reply to its most promising moves, and almost never plays a random move.
• Crazy looks just as far as Hard but checks more possibilities, and never plays a random move. Every level always plays a move that wins at once when it sees one.

Modes

Three board sizes are offered, all with four amazons per side:

• 6 × 6, Quick. Very little room, so the board closes after a handful of moves and every arrow counts. This is the default and a good place to learn.
• 8 × 8, Medium. The same four amazons with more space, giving more freedom to manoeuvre before the board divides into regions.
• 10 × 10, Classic. The original board and starting position. With 92 empty squares at the start, games are long and strategic, and the early fight for open space shapes everything that follows.

Statistics are kept separately for each board and difficulty.