How to Win Battleship Every Time

[@azrealducain3123]

2:00 I did this once for fun when playing against my grandpa. I put ALL of my ships touching together in a big square bunch. He was so confused that he had so many hits and still hadn't sunk anything yet. He got a bit mad and thought I was cheating until I showed him my board.

[@lonewaffle231]

Well in most rules you can't make them touch for this exact reason

[@scottdorsch5149]

Getting the other person to call you a cheater and ask to see your board is the ultimate Battleship victory

[@YesName_1]

I do that but smalled ship in the opposite corner. I love seeing them get mad

[@KeksimusMaximus]

In my entire life of playing Battleship with different people and even a couple of apps, there was ALWAYS an unspoken and always assumed rule that ships could not touch each other at all. Not even with their corners. There's always a single square "outline" for each ship. Ships touching is just bullshit, you can just smash several single square ships together and now they're one ship. I don't know, must be a country thing, different rules in different parts of the world.

[@divermike8943]

​@@KeksimusMaximus I never heard the rule that ships can't touch. I was a kid in the N. E. U.S.

[@kennyxkazuki713]

My favorite thing to do is to put every ship In one big blob, but put the pt boat out in the middle of nowhere

[@chrisreilly1290]

Thanks Satan lol

[@kennyxkazuki713]

@chrisreilly1290 older brothers create some devious things to troll their siblings

[@kavyamurthy2596]

I do the literal exact same thing

[@jacksonlee6760]

You've just unlocked a hidden memory of me trying to guess where a single pt boat is for a good 5 minutes.

[@BreadGood_21]

Me and a friend played battleship on excel in business class and I did the exact same thing 😂

[@rainalystre1877]

This is just reminding me when I made my opponent get increasingly furious. I had placed my 5, 4, and one of the 3’s in a line, all vertically. As they guessed horizontally, they were stunned as to why the three red horizontal dots cut off by white hadn’t been marked as sunk. I was struggling to hold in a laugh. Sure I sacrificed three ships for a gag, but it was made up for by amusement. That said- the ‘unsinkable ship’ play didn’t amount to the sheer frustration the opponent had trying to find my destroyer (2) and sub (other 3). I don’t remember if I won or lost, but I sure as heck had fun.

[@absolarix]

And thus is the goal of playing games. Having fun. Well played!

[@En1gmaEmperor]

I once had a funny moment where I put both 3 size ships in a line so they would think it was sunk already and guess elsewhere, it wasn't until they sunk the actual 4 size ship until they realized what I did.

[@toddkes5890]

@@En1gmaEmperor When I played I had to announce if a ship was sunk. So if someone had guessed 2 each of the size-3 ships, I would not announce that the ship was sunk until a third hit was scored. Now if the opponent thought that was my carrier (a size-5 ship) that is their assumption.

[@ninjaguyYT]

​@@absolarixugh, are you one of those people that doesn't respect meta and MMR?

[@leovillant768]

Lmao

[@somanken]

"heres how to beat my strategy of battleships" This is why psychological tips to beating board games don't actually hold, as soon as it becomes common knowledge everything just shifts again, the tips that work here are parity and avoiding contact, beyond that just try and be unpredictable, if you follow a set "routine" to beat a hidden information game you will notice yourself starting to lose more and more frequently.

[@dragon-id5uj]

Or to condense to a word: metagaming.

[@somanken]

@@dragon-id5uj literally yes.

[@R3_dacted0]

This is a reductive argument and doesn't really make a lot of sense. Yes, if a strategy becomes common, people will likely start to use it. But what is your definition of "common?" Do you think that every person to play Battleship has seen this video? Or has heard of the strategy? In a competitive setting, as with anything, yes you will have to adjust to more advanced strategies. But for the vast majority of casual play, basic psychological strategies _will_ work.

[@kylezdancewicz7346]

@@R3_dacted0this argument you made doesn’t make alot of sense. As more people play in a certain way the less viable it becomes because more people adjust their play for it. Like executing orders row by row is very common and there is a seeming horizontal bias when guessing which direction to move a hit so it’s best to place vertically. Eventually more and more people do this and more and more people adjust to playing column by comment and being vertically biased to counter Then the strategy becomes to place horizontally and so on.

[@chillinchum]

​​​@@kylezdancewicz7346 Take 100 people. Then survey them to see how many have ever played battleship, how many have only played a few games, let's say under a dozen. Then how many have played more than a dozen. And then try and ask a question that signals how many understand and use such a strategy, without tipping off those who don't know. What do you think the stats will be? My bet is that if you then play against each of those 100 people, using these strats, you will win far more often than you lose. This is what is mean by beating the common player because the tactics we would use aren't common. As long as many of those players continue to not play often and not learn, there is little risk of the information of the tactics being known. Making an observation means absolutely nothing if you don't remember it, it must be recorded somehow, at the very least for others to read one day. Perhaps we could think of ways to discourage players from learning from their experiences if you want to dominate them while being lazy and not innovating new tactics.

[@odin3141]

You can think and plan your layout all day long, but it really comes down to who your opponent is and how they guess/place. I imagine the advice in this video is pretty okay against most people, especially casual battleship-ers, but certain strategies are going to be more or less effective against certain opponents. One time I was playing with a friend, she put all of her ships in the bottom left corner. Surprisingly I actually hit one early on and sunk it, then proceded to never come back to that corner with the sunk ship, and after a long game she eventually won. I was on a winning streak against her brother too, which made it sting that much more lol

[@Yonkage-ik5qb]

Very true. I've seen friends play, and the best strategy was more like playing Poker. You have to guess whether, this round, the other guy is going to place ships in a reasonable setup, or in a "joke" setup, like all on one side, all grouped in the middle, all on the edges like a picture frame, in the shape of a dick. If you can suss out that they've used an unusual strategy and what it might be, then figuring out where the rest of the ships are is easy. This sort of strategy works very well assuming the players don't know each other, can't see each other, never communicate other than calling spaces and reporting hit/miss/sunk, and can be assumed to be playing "seriously". But in any real game, it's more bluffing and psychological trickery than math.

[@manperson6234]

I remember winning 3 consecutive games with a friend by placing my ships in the same spot every time. Twas fun

[@justintroyka8855]

Yeah this occurred to me too. For instance, the guessing strategy from this video would work really badly against an opponent who used the placement strategy from this video.

[@fieryjalapenos4442]

No different than Risk. Played with a friend and a couple of his cousins and siblings. They never played it much so they weren’t familiar with the Australia Turtle strategy and I sat down there just building up and they were all slaughtering each other and paying me no mind until I finally took my chances and grabbed Asia in 1 turn. Since most of their big forces were in NA and SA, they didn’t offer much resistance to me taking Europe and Africa and by then it was too late. In subsequent games they all made damn sure I didn’t get Australia and if I did, they all stopped what they were doing and attacked me relentlessly.

[@susejtsirhc4202]

My mother once placed all her ships in the bottom corner when playing this game against my father. He had the worst game of battleship ever until he eventually found them.

[@pollyjackson-dzacchaeus1342]

A few great tips here 1. You have an aircraft carrier therefore you likely have aircraft USE THEM. 2. You have a Submarine DIVE IT. 3. As im guessing for some reason these ships are not built with any kind of detection at least try to see where the shells are coming from. 4. And finally some of these ships will be mostly disabled in one hit such as the carriers main weapon or if you hit near the rear any ships engine or near the middle the bridge.

[@hrayz]

5 don't forget that ships move over time. Update your pattern with movement.

[@km077]

6. Plow one of your ship through the enemy's board. Even if you don't manage to ram into one of their ships, you will know where to not look for them. This also adds redundancy- the enemy could even nuke your board, yet you will still be able to shoot from their board and they will be non the wiser having to shoot at their own board to rat you out.

[@leovillant768]

Wha

[@pollyjackson-dzacchaeus1342]

@@leovillant768 what would happen in an actual naval battle

[@CasualTS]

These are great tips 😂

[@alixx_legenddark_xx2819]

I love how he provides info like “place ur ships vertically” then says “first guess left and right” Edit: If I see one more intellectual explaining why…

[@qsquared8833]

I find it strange that most players play horizontally, I'm always trying to stop placing vertically and place some horizontally because I feel like vertical is more played. ....😊

[@hellpea]

lol he didn't say "first guess left and right"

[@bryanw4582]

He’s assuming your opponent is doing the most common layout. (‘meaning they didn’t watch this video - if they did, game theory takes over)

[@alixx_legenddark_xx2819]

@@hellpea he kinda did

[@alixx_legenddark_xx2819]

@@bryanw4582 ik, I’m just saying…

[@PawprintsMaker]

If two people were to use this strategy, "How to Win Battleship Every Time," who would win? Wouldn't one person be the loser, and not be able to win every time? Quite the enigma.

[@iDislikeEditThanksForTheLikes]

if both players played exactly the same, placed their ships in the exact same spots, and guessed perfectly and hit all ships without missing, the first player will always win. that is if they are taking turns. on the other hand, if both players shoot at the same time, then it will always be a draw.

[@PawprintsMaker]

@@iDislikeEditThanksForTheLikes True! I figured as much, but I just wanted to pull one of those "what if Pinocchio said he was about to lie" instances to be funny, haha!

[@octobsession3061]

​@@iDislikeEditThanksForTheLikesunless, they count a round is complete when both player has the same opportunity to attack. in that case it'd be a draw

[@dragon-id5uj]

​@@PawprintsMakerif Pinocchio says he's about to lie... Ohhhh hm. Schroedingers lie

[@dragon-id5uj]

Mayb Pinocchio nose would wait to check for future lie (lingering effect), and observer could tell whether the following statement prompted one or two schnozz promotions ​@@PawprintsMaker

[@PaHDoMNblu_4ell]

The real unbeatable strategy: don't put your last ship on board until the last turn, thus you physically can't loose (works better if you play version with 1x1 ships)

[@ololo518]

Cheating is almost always winning strategy, yes.

[@GrumpyIan]

​@@ololo518skill issue

[@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ]

@@ololo518 playing fair is a losers game - Sun Tzu, probably

[@Mystic-Midnight]

It's just the escape vessel to recover any flotsam sailors

[@ololo518]

@@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ never believe anything you read on the internet - Karl Marx

[@wherethetatosat]

"You done shanked my Jenga-ship!" "We're playing Connect Four."

[@nirvanachile24]

One tip you missed: When you do get a hit, your next guesses should still be on the checkerboard grid in the immediate vicinity of your hit. This will help you identify the orientation of the opponent ship before deviating from the grid pattern.

[@harodos3354]

It could be the two long ship, so unless you've already found it that doesn't work

[@asdfghyter]

yes, but the chance of that is low enough that it’ll probably still be profitable to guess on checkerboard pattern first. you’ll likely need to check those squares anyways sooner or later

[@Cloudman572]

I don't understand what you mean. Surely if you have the first hit then checkboard ie diagonal 2nd guess will always miss a single ship if it is horizonal or vertical. If you are refering to skip a space vert or horizonally as checkerboard then a miss does not tell you any vert or horizonal info.

[@coreywhitaker883]

Say you shoot A1. “Hit” Next turn shoot A3. “Hit” Now you know A2 will very likely hit if the ship is horizontal. Next turn A2 “hit” Since you didn’t sink anything A4 is highly likely to hit and sink a battleship or carrier. The only time this wouldn’t work is if they have a vertical ship on A1 A2 and A3 and in this case you’re sweeping up ships anyways. TL;dr shoot in a way that gives you better info unless you need to guess in order to win a ship sinking race.

[@nirvanachile24]

@@coreywhitaker883 Precisely

[@lajoyalobos2009]

You can also move you battleships around as long as they aren't sunk as ships are designed to move 😂

[@TJBanks-q5l]

Smart tactic!

[@alexanderglassgames4170]

I always knew I was playing battleships wrong but I couldn't put my finger on why 😂

[@KeksimusMaximus]

You can just call for reinforcements lmaoooo 😂 If your navy has a fleet carrier, it probably has a bunch of other ships as well, just call them hahaha 😂

[@BlazingSun72]

I've definitely won at least once by cramming all my ships into one corner

[@himedo1512]

Ive won more than one doing that. It's a big gamble though. My strategy evolved from it though, having the 4 big ships in a cluster, only 1 space apart. And the 2 ship some fuck off faraway place. It's a psychological trick. Once they realize they're all in mass, they'll keep searching nearby for the small ship for awhile before they realize it's not there.

[@Shizo-friend]

In Russia, set of ships is different for this game: 1 of 4 squares 2 of 3 squares 3 of 2 squares 4 of 1 squares Like... Why?

[@Lernos1]

More like, why isn't it the same in other countries? 1 square ships are great, they keep the tension and the stakes high.

[@Detective_Lynne]

Also, in Russia you're not allowed *by rules* to place ships with their squares touching another ships' squares vertically, horizontally _or diagonally_ so basically even if we ignore the existence of 5 square ship, 2:04 and 2:19 positions are straight up illegal

[@Infarlock]

I am not even from russia nor asia but this is literally how we played it here

[@themightypotato83]

This is also true in Argentina. We also can't place ships touching each other, no matter if it is vertically, horizontally or diagonally At least that's how I've always played it

[@WretchedParty76]

Not touching is just more logical, comrades

[@mal2ksc]

Pretty much everyone I've played against uses a diagonal or some sort of "knight's move" scanning pattern, and they change the orientation and/or starting point of their scanning pattern every time. Good luck coming up with placement rules against that! (Which is exactly why they do it.) I use a diagonal scan but with two empty diagonals between scans. About 1/3 of the time this means my scans would miss the smallest boat, but that often gets caught when hunting after a hit anyhow. By ignoring the small boat in my scans and relying on luck, I pull the distribution to one side. I have no chance of winning every game, but my chances of winning more than half my games are very good.

[@TheRealScooterGuy]

I also do the two empty rows between scan rows. Also, I know where the pattern is supposed to be, but try to make it look like I'm hitting random spots. I don't want to educate my opponent about these tactics. (Even when I hit an opponent's ship, I will not prosecute the kill, but continue scanning. The red peg will show me where to come back later.) One other strategy is to always mark the opponent's calls. This will show me, over the course of the game, if they are using a strategy. That information can be useful next time. (I remember these strategies like it was yesterday, but haven't played in at least 15 years. lol!)

[@Projolo]

That's how high skill players play

[@Awelbeckk]

4 empty squares between my two diags. I know sooner or later i will get the 5-ship. If i get other before, the better. Once 5 is gone, if 4 is still up, i do 3 spaces between diag, then 3, then 2. Always chasing the biggest, hoping getting the smallest.

[@kyleheins]

This confirms that my family plays right, but also better than suggested here. For example, we don't use ths "most common" concept, because we randomize our ship layouts too much. One trick my dad used was to land hits, but not bother to sink things until he found the rest of the ships.

[@robfarquharson]

If you sink the 2 square ship early in the game then it's good to change your net from checkerboard to diagonals with an extra space, so as to catch all ships of length 3 in a quicker way.

[@sdsmt99]

I start with a patten of 3, pretty high odds you catch the PT anyway. If not, oh well, you'll still have a greater than 50% success rate

[@mmkanashiro]

one thing that can help is scouting the area before finishing the ships, the 4 turns the opponent uses to destroy one ship that he found can be used to find more ships on his side, when he notices that you have info on all 5 ships while he only got 1 of yours and is trying to find a 2nd he will panic, he will see his fleet sink one by one while desperately guessing coordinates, even if he finds another one, he will waste even more time trying to find a 3rd

[@LexProntera]

Ha HAAAA 😃 Excellent! Gotta try that next time!

[@Donkringel]

Glad you mentioned this, I was going to post about it as well.

[@mmkanashiro]

@Donkringel the best part is that this dont really give you any real advantage, its about the mental battle against your friend on the other side

[@THAC0MANIC]

I remeber comming up with an idea like this like over 20 years a go with some cousins of mine, but then we started thinking a bit past this, if eveyone started to ignore the outer and inner edges to avoid being shot at, and placed there ships in the other 2 colloms, then idealy you should instead start blasting the inner 2 colloms and ignore the edges and the middle ... then the cycle repeats.

[@MrParapa]

Important tip: if you sink all 2sq ships, then go by the Next smallest in the pattern, so then go every 3rd sq instead of every 2nd, that way you spend less shots to hit something

[@therealbahamut]

Minor tip: when hunting for ships, never guess A1, A10, J1 or J10. Take the next adjacent squares instead, since the smallest ship is two squares long and cannot hide in that corner without being hit.

[@edhenderson1655]

My father, a former navy sailor, taught me the original game of Battleship played on paper that he learned in the US Navy in the 1950's. Same game, and mostly played the same way, but it was played on paper and was a true game of strategy. You fired your shots in salvos of 3 shots at once, just like a real battleship salvo, and the ships were different and marked on the paper with capital letters, 1 letter per square. You had 1 battleship (B B B B), 2 cruisers (C C C), 3 destroyers (D D), and 3 submarines (S). Like the real subs, your subs were hidden because they could not be located until they were hit, and a single hit sunk them. That could be really frustrating. I remember playing many games where all the bigger ships were sunk and you were firing random salvos everywhere looking for that last elusive sub, lol! Also, unlike the plastic game, ships could also be placed diagonally. When your ship was hit, all you could give was the number of hits or sinkings. No ship ID allowed. How you figured out what you hit was by numbering your shots and keeping a paper record of your shots that hit or sank something like " shot #7, 2 hits/1 sink" and using the notes as reference as the game developed. But did shot #7 wound 2 different ships, sink a larger wounded ship, or wound one and sink one? Again, by keeping a record of where you hit, or didn't hit, or sank something, you could eventually work out what you hit and where. You also quickly learned to group your shots in the same area because if you shot a pattern like A1, E5, and G9, and were only told "1 hit", you then had the problem of figuring out which shot hit something where. I used a close triangle pattern when firing searching shots, like "A1, A3, B2". You still might miss a sub sitting at A2, but if you got a "hit", but no "sink", you knew where to shoot in your follow-up shots. However, putting a sub right next to a larger ship could fool your enemy into thinking you sank a wounded ship when it was the sub that was sunk, leaving the unseen wounded ship still afloat. Like I said, a lot of strategy.

[@ryannixon4138]

Simple! Move your ships every time they hit your ship to a clear spot until there’s no room left. By then you’ve won.

[@boblangill6209]

@0:58 "Horizontal ships take up a lot more space" NO!! They take up 2, 3 or 4 squares regardless of their orientation. People may have a bias toward horizontal patterns, but the ships do NOT occupy more space because they are placed horizontally. Also, especially with different sized boards, some versions have players fire salvos (3 - 5 shots). In these variations, you can't be sure of which shot hit which ship.

[@R3_dacted0]

I don't think he meant that literally.

[@Daniel-ng8fi]

woa, that's a cool variation. How do you mark that?

[@bradenhagen7977]

He was saying I'm reference to horizontal space.

[@TheSiegeKnight]

can you share with us the resources you used to produce this video? Like a bibliography?

[@Daniel-ng8fi]

Looks like Canva or something

[@chriswalker810]

Here's a strategy that I use. Once I find a ship and its location. I don't sink them. I move onto other areas to deduce where other ships might be hiding. Once I found all the ships. I then focus on sinking them.

[@Cykadelia]

That's a really ineffective "strategy". If you don't sink the ships you discover then you'll have no idea which ships are which, a ship you discover could either be a 2x1 or a 4x1 and you'd have no idea because you didn't sink it. Knowing what ships to look for based on what ships you've already sunk is the bare minimum application of strategy in the game, something your "strategy" completely renders impossible to do for no conceivable benefit. Utterly bizarre.

[@jebsho]

I used to play like this until I figured out something. Most rulesets of the game require players to only reveal the type of ship that's hit once it gets sunk. If you sink the 2 long ship early, you can narrow the parity pattern of the entire board and make better guesses. Additionally, once you know the general placement of any ship, you can get a better idea to the locations of the other ships by playing off of your opponents psychology. But your strat is still very fun to play since it puts the opponent on edge

[@sakul_the_one4821]

1:00 I just realised, that I was always using a 90 degree cross, instead going by numbers, lol

[@BeaglzRok1]

Me putting Destroyer, Cruiser, and Carrier to completely fill column 3 to make them invisible according to this video.

[@thestudentofficial5483]

Love all these underrated videos

[@skotnica93]

I love how the derensive tips are opposite to the offensive ones, except for the every second field tip for scanning.

[@westonmarks925]

The irony of posting this video is now I know what my opponent knows, so I can play the game based on your instructions. For example, now I know to hit vertically instead of horizontally. In short, you’ve delivered this knowledge into enemy hands by posting it for your allies.

[@veroxid]

This is entirely based on the opponent. For instance when I used to play this with friends I would always scan diagonally as that is the best and fastest way to find the larger ships. Also "always making them vertical" will just give away how you play. Games like Battleship are just as much playing the opponent as much as playing the game.

[@AtacamaHumanoid]

Lol, I hadn't played this game since I was probably 10 years old and now, decades later, I found a place where I could play it online and won the first game I played. I think you have proven what you say is true.

[@SummerThyme-ye5rd]

I used to play a different version as a kid. There was one 4-square ship, two 3-square, three 2-square and four 1-square ships. The 4 and 3-square ships could be of any configuration as long as at least one side of a square touched a side of another square of the same ship. So the 4-square could be a 4-square square or L, or T, or Z-shaped. The 3-square ships could be straight or L-shaped. With this rule, 2-square ships could only be straight horizontal or vertical. The corners of one ship could not touch the corners of another ship. There was a cheat trick: you place your last 1-square ship on the sea as late as possible during the game. So we came up with the rule that the party with the last surviving 1-square ship is the looser even if the other party has lost all ships. Just to prevent cheating. Or we had someone independent check both seas for compliance. There was no rule how you number your squares other than in sequence: from left to right or vice versa, from top to bottom or vice versa, with numbers on top or on the side. You may say there's no L or T-shape ships in nature, I say it doesn't matter. There's no square seas either and warring parties don't care about taking turns 😁

[@OrangeSheepPlayz]

Tysm!!! :D Time to make my father proud!!!!

[@CBs_Bill_from_Montana]

I can’t believe how good this is. Thanks!

[@anthonywestbrook2155]

If your second shot misses, take the next shot at 90 degrees. Aiming at 180 degrees of your first shot only hits if your first shot was the end of the boat. But even if it was, it's just as likely to be in any of the remaining directions. But if you hit a middle spot, it can't be at 180 degrees from the miss -- that's just off to its other side.

[@Daniel-ng8fi]

This is good until you play the same person a bunch and they know what you do. Which then means you should switch your strategy, which is all well and good until you play them a bunch, which then means it's just a game theory problem, and the optimal solution is random, which turns it into what battleship always is, luck.

[@dx1450]

When you guess, go diagonally as pointed out in the video. No ship can hide if you guess every other square. That's much better than just shotgunning it and hoping you hit something.

[@Celebration-p3u]

And now, I will frustrate my sister 😂

[@inbako9855]

Same.

[@jag_rex2412]

😂 Me who Stacks the ships on top of each other so the other person sinks one of them, thus leaving them trying to guess where the rest of them are.

[@rjshadow4321]

when looking I go diagonal spots since smallest is two I can skip one when I get a hit I guise up till miss then down, left, right till a miss or sink.

[@boli2746]

I use the 'parity method' , but only for 'three wide' and in diagonals across the board. It allows for much faster scanning of the area and tbh i often hit the 2 wide in the sweeps. Very rarely the 2 wide is lost but not as often as you think.

[@TheRealScooterGuy]

One more defensive strategy to consider: Protect your ships from satellite view. (In other words, make sure that neither your opponent nor his/her "agents" can see your board.)

[@Fiddle_Styx]

Battleship has not been the capital ship since the Battle of Midway. To win at Battleship, you really only need to keep a few things in mind: 1) Aircraft have superior range to Naval Guns, have them constantly scouting to find the opposing carrier groups before they find you. 2) AS SOON AS THEY SPOT THE OPPOSING GROUP, LAUNCH ALL AIRCRAFT. I cannot stress this enough. This is not only the reason the Japanese lost the Battle of Midway, but possibly a major reason they lost WWII. 3) The above two points assumes satellites are out of commission and neither group has missile frigates. If either side has missiles, use those as they're faster than aircraft. 4) Position your cruisers and destroyers in such a way that you have overlaying fields of anti-aircraft fire with your aircraft carrier at the center of the group. If you keep these things in mind, you will always win at Battleship.

[@sevenhundredspiders8863]

Is there a way to prove that missing a ship by only one square is less likely than missing a ship by any other number of squares?

[@notagoat281]

A lot of this seems to be down to just what humans are wired to do, but what if we throw out those rules? If we somehow removed all human bias toward particular behaviors, what's the most optimal strategy then? On a related note, I wonder if the left-to-right guess tendency has anything to do with the fact that we read left-to-right. For example, some Asian texts are read vertically, right? Would someone used to that style of reading tend to guess vertically instead?

[@Dragowolf_Rising]

I always favoured vertical placement as a child and would often pair up ships that weren't the carrier by having them close. I also tried to avoid placing ships on the imaginary X going from corner to corner. I did often win.

[@joeyg-c1b]

I've learned this game way before this game came to tv made of plastic. There are major differences that blows this game out of the water as it is currently known. First, the ships when they get bigger in size have greater dimension in placement and becomes more of a strategic plan for war. Second, we drew the battle field out on paper which makes this way better then you think what's shown. Third, the names of the ships were different. Forth, the game could go on for a longer period of time, that means it kept you busy. Fifth, this game cost nothing!!! It relies on imagination.

[@FUGP72]

I try to speed it up (while also taking a bigger risk of losing) by playing in a 3/1 chess knight pattern. This guarantees finding all but the PT boat faster than just going every other space. And hopefully, I will stumble on the PT boat this way before getting all the other ships. And of course, if I get lucky and sink the PT and both of the 3 space ships first, I can then up that to a 4/1 knight like pattern. Of course, I'm screwed if I am left with the PT last. I basically have to start all over again, and will almost definitely to lose to anyone playing any sort of strategy in guessing. But I've found that this is pretty rare. So the time/guess savings of skipping 2 spaces will help me win more games than doing just a checkerboard pattern.

[@mynameisisak]

Ludwig is taking notes

[@soup8315]

My father taught me to do the checkerboard thing at a young age. He was a smart guy.

[@1WillyK]

I used to win tons of games by searching in a zig zag pattern. For example my first call would be A1, then B2, C3 and D4. Next would come E3, F2 and G1. Once I completed that pattern at J4 I would move over and start at A4 and repeat the zig zag. It worked amazing well with only the small PT boat being difficult to find if I didn't hit it using the pattern.

[@UncleSeraph]

Or you could use the madman’s strategy of putting all your ships very close together. Sure they might sink a 3-piece ship, but they might think they sunk a 4-piece Confuse them

[@christianmacintyre5453]

My one time use always win strategy was to place all your ships on the outline. Watch your opponent go mad as it takes them 80% of the game to figure it out. Too late!

[@chrispond1321]

Ive used the idea of having my ships touch in strategic ways as to make my opponent think they hit a completely different ship, and because of that they move on to hit a bunch of empty space looking for other ships

[@GadreelAdvocat]

I've designed a boardgame that has a hit grid loosely like battleship. It's a Stormtrooper battle training game. Has some droids and three different forms of gameplay.

[@ZacLowing]

Within a month of getting the game for Christmas no one I knew wanted to play me. I just did an X on the board, almost never had to finish it.

[@Quantum-yz9fc]

So a couple things: In the checkerboard, skip over tiles at first, so instead of a1, a3, a5, a7, a9, try a1, a5, a9 or a3, a7. Larger ships will still be caught by the more spread out fire, and you can go back later and fill in the gaps if you are missing one of the smaller ships. If you hit and then miss a horizontally adjacent shot, try a vertically adjacent shot before the other side horizontally. It's more likely you hit a vertical ship than you happened to hit the last tile of a horizontal ship.

[@prophetofthesingularity]

Here is a better way to win every time. When they pick a square that one of your ships is on say miss and move it to squares that they have not called. My friend was standing behind me when I was playing against my sister, and he called me a cheater. It is not cheating I told him; they are battleships not statues. They can move around on the water and have radar so when they detect a missile, they fire chaff and speed away.

[@mariomario761]

Me: *Hasn't played Battleship in 15 years* Also me: *Watches how to optimally win in Battleship every time*

[@Yurt_enthusiast7]

I probably wouldn't want to hang out with someone who's so competitive that they've strategized Battleship😂

[@alex_zetsu]

See this is why I like games that involve dice rolling because some chance is less boring.

[@joe-skeen]

I always would guess every third square, not every other. I know that it's more likely you will miss the Destroyer, but in my experience I find it most of the time anyway.

[@rgbx6923]

I like to put the a 3 lenght and the 2 lenght ships in an L form , so that the long leg is 4 long. If I'm lucky, the enemy hits all 4 of the long leg before sinking the 3 lenght ship. That way the 2 has been hit but didn't sink and the enemy did't notice, so it can slip into the parity pattern.

[@DoneDragon1]

Me clustering all my ships in a corner: 👀

[@maverick9708]

We reinvented the meta for battleship, can't wait for the new patch💀

[@Wing_Suit_Cat]

Put your ships in the rims of the board and attack the enemy in a “x” pattern when attacking and narrow it down in between the “x”

[@The_savvy_Lynx]

In fact if you hit a ship, you should NOT check both to the left AND right first, but pick one of them and if you miss check either up or down afterwards. Because it is more likely that you hit the ship in the middle and then either left or right would have given you a hit - but only if it is oriented this way. It's simple bayesian probability theory.

[@Illiteratechimp]

I always put the PT boat end to end with the aircraft carrier, sometimes your oppenent will hit the aircraft carrier, then shoot the PT boat and sink it. They will assume what they just sunk is a 3, 4 or 5 length piece. Ive been accused of cheating because my aircraft carrier must be not on the board, then I reveal at the end of the game that they had actually hit my aircraft carrier once or twice

[@DarquosLeblack]

Interesting, I've always been told that placing your ships directly next to each other was an illegal move

[@Wikarian99PL]

because it is illegal

[@Nate_935_]

Lame

[@twostep1953]

I guess diagonally, from A1 to J10 and J1 to A10. Then I (3:17) zig-zag for columns 1 and 2, 3 and 4, etc.; hitting only the 'black' squares (starting with C1). Next time, I would work the vertical columns from right to left; never do the same thing twice.

[@thorbjrnhellehaven5766]

I generally target every 4th diagonal, Depending on luck hitting 2s early on, I may change tactics, to every 3rd column, if all 2's are gone.

[@firetiger4175]

you can improve the parity strategy by first gessing every 4th field and only if you still missed ships go for the intermediate fields. I'm playing like this for ever.

[@KG-xt4oq]

My favorite strategy is when my opponent finds my ships and starts sinking them, I throw the game down and smash it to bits...

[@elemasterplayz5512]

Plot twist ur opponent watched this video

[@polishscribe674]

2:01 from what I know the rules forbid ships from touching each other.

[@Firebird77clone]

Place two ships in line with a single space between. It is likely that when they sink the first ship, they will move on.

[@trenthawkins]

2:13 while I don't disagree with your premise of avoiding having them touch, with this specific example if they randomly guessed B8, and then tested vertically and continued down, you can occasionally confuse your opponent into thinking they sunk your 4-peg. Of course - it won't last, and they already have a fairly good idea where your ships are -vs- resuming random/pattern fire. Though I do think the 2-peg should definitely never be touching, as it is the most difficult to find without checker-boarding the entire area.

[@redcroft308]

I like how his instinct was to make the first layout a swastika.

[@TwiGuy4]

one time i set up all my ships in one spot and my dad guessed them all in the least possible amount. it was a perfect game

[@TiliaCordata]

You play Battleship according to completely different rules than I was taught. We always have one 4-square ship, two 3-square ships, three 2-square ships and four 1-square ships. Ships may not touch orthogonally nor diagonally, so this placement advice doesn't apply.

[@robertbalazslorincz8218]

Actually, there is a parallel here: IRL a ship that was charging straight on was harder to hit than one firing broadside

[@crazy_adventures6326]

Better idea, keep your fleet at dry dock.

[@TommonSensePro]

0:35 I come back here after watching and my 8 year old nephew beat me because he placed 4 of his 5 ships on the side, and I placed all of mine vertically, and did most of these tips. I guess I can't win every time...

[@evannpalma2404]

He learned that you always placed them vertically

[@PS-hv7on]

My method of winning is to either pile all of my ships on top of each other or deploy them on the top grid instead of the bottom. Works every time....

[@daemon.mythos]

I would use the white markers to mark where they had fired on my board, and move the ships if they might have "Hit" my ship so they didn't get it.

[@treetheoak8313]

Just keep it up and you'll crack this algorithm!

[@WayTooSimpleOfficial]

Hope so :)

[@bandit5272]

Can you talk about strategies to make friends who will play battleship with me

[@guycore5478]

Now it's way too simple for me to win Battleship against Way Too Simple.

[@havik82]

I do the center, four corners, then the center of the edges, the center of the four squares made.

[@georgieippolito9924]

Go diagonally, skip a row and move to the next line. Do your moves randomly within the diagonal grid. The smallest boat is 2 pieces so you're gonna hit 1 spot while cutting the map in half

[@viciousKev]

My offensive strategy, call every other space unless i hit the destroyer then every 3rd. This makes diagonal strafes

[@NoriMori1992]

1:42 …That's not F6 I6, that's F6 F7.

[@JR_App13gat3]

You wanna know something crazy...in battleship rules...it doesn't say that you can't shoot more then once per turn...🤯 It's not against the rules...😏😎 It doesn't say anything about it at all.. "Be a Tesseract in the 3rd dimension" -Jesse Raines

[@nilus2k]

The funny thing is if you are playing someone who also saw this video. Most of the advice for beating them will be wrong

[@eyefreely9682]

I remember a couple of ships would fit, with some convincing, Diagonally!

[@pandabear4565]

I always put all my ships together in the corner, except for the pt boat. Which i put in another corner, but not directly on the corner. I generally win. Cause even if they do hit them. They usually dont think all my ships are together.

[@roflrolf1782]

THE SHIPS MUST NOT TOUCH!